11-24-2008, 12:09 AM
Stizzealth wrote:
Furthermore, Ted seems determined to deconstruct an argument that I never made. He says that my statement that the argument of allowing the government to regulate anything means that the government can regulate anything, as is argued by Chuckie Schumer, oversimplifies the issue. I don't doubt that there is more than one fallacious argument in the push for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but the aforementioned argument is the one Chuck Schumer used.
Schumer did not say this, you did, "It boils down to the idea that if the government can regulate anything, it can regulate everything. Just because we let the government inspect meat in supermarkets doesn't mean that we let government inspect the meat after it enters our kitchen." That is a straw dog of his argument. Given the context it is clear he was referring to what the FCC can and can't do. You can be sure that if it were common for people to take his statement in the most utterly literal and most ungenerous way that there'd be a lot more for a lot of people to be much more worked up about than merely what would happen to conservative talk radio. But reasonable people understand well that in the context he was referring only to government controlled airways and not to every little nook that the government gets into. It is plainly evident that the issue he was talking about is when government can legitimately regulate speech when it comes to publicly owned radio frequencies (which are publicly owned contrary to what Swampy seems to think), not meat inspection or "everything". I don't agree with him about this issue because even if there was at some point a legitimate scarcity issue with respect to radio stations (which was the basis of the Supreme Court decision) that issue no longer applies.
Stizzealth wrote:
As for one of the other statements in your diatribe, I would argue that the Fairness Doctrine is politically motivated.
I have no idea what statement you are referring to. When did I say it wasn't politically motivated? Perhaps you are referring to my comment, "This stuff about the Fairness Doctrine is just a way conservative talk show hosts have of keeping their audiences riled up." There are all kinds of calls for action put forth congresscritters to do things that are politically motivated. Why the focus on this one? Look at the first statement of the parent post, "Chuck Schumer makes it abundantly clear in an interview with Fox News that the incoming Democratic Congress intends to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine..." This is a meme conservative talk radio is pushing even though they know, as you know, that there is no realistic move afoot to try to reinstate it. Hence, they are doing it to get their audiences riled up.