Movement Conservatives for a Permanent Democratic Majority
Posted on November 17th, 2008
by Daniel Koffler |
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Via Conor Friedersdorf, the latest field demonstration that fools and their money are soon parted a stirring call to arms from Michael Reagan that will no doubt rally the hosts of righteousness against the Marxist Mohammedan menace of Obamataucracy.
Okay, TAC readers, help me out if you would. Obviously the Fairness Doctrine is a horrible idea and we should be glad to be rid of it. It’s certainly possible that I missed something, but I did at least put in a fair number of hours trying to pay reasonably close attention to the 2008 election, and did so going all the way back to the last cycle. I don’t recall ever hearing a serious Democratic contender for president advocating the Fairness Doctrine. A quick look through the affairs of the President-elect and his transition team doesn’t turn up any trace of a hint of a soupcon of evidence that President Obama is going to burn through political capital that could be spent on (presumably) a guaranteed-to-fail-spectacularly bailout of whichever industry goes belly up next.
True, members of the Congressional party occasionally make noises about it, but the last time anybody tried to move legislation on the issue was Rep. Louise Slaughter’s 2005 bill that died quietly in committee. The Democrats have already controlled Congress for two years. If they were really the wild-eyed Bolshevik fanatics the Human Events crowd seems genuinely to believe they are, somebody in the Democratic caucus would have made some sort of move to bring back the Fairness Doctrine in the 110th Congress. It didn’t happen. And being a consumer of a fair amount of left-wing as well as right-wing media, I promise that the best thing to do in case you become convinced that there is a major grassroots push on the left to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine, is seek out a well-recommended therapist.
So as far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of suggestions that a restoration of the Fairness Doctrine is in the offing come from right wing bloggers and talkers and writers who write as poorly as radio talkers talk.
Which raises the question, just what the hell is going on?
Has some significant proportion of the conservative vanguard suffered a mass nervous breakdown? Is the whole hysterical farce a deliberate swindle aimed at redistributing the wealth of unfortunate gullible people? Some third option? Or some middle ground between the two? (And while we’re laying everything on the table, can we have a little heart-to-heart about the Fairness Doctrine? Unconstitutional, silly, and counterproductive for any worthwhile liberal or conservative goals as it obviously is, we’re not talking about some sort of Enabling Act. Rush Limbaugh would get hurt because Rush Limbaugh broadcasts on ABC. But — let’s be real — anybody who voluntarily spends a lot of his or her time watching network television and listening to network radio has much more significant problems than having to suffer through some liberal do-gooder delivering a primetime PSA. There are abundant and vastly better ways to waste one’s life watching TV, if one so chooses.)
Conor says that conservatives’ activist resources could be put to better uses than fighting against a bill that won’t be proposed and would be a guaranteed loser if it were proposed if for no other reason than the number of Democratic legislators in the pockets of media distributors. He’s right of course, and I assume the way forward is clear:
Conservatives, what you must now devote all your energy to — as if your life depended on it, because in a way, it really does — is mobilization on behalf of the greatest American in history — nay, the eternal Platonic form of the Great American — Senator Joe “Mumbly Scold” Lieberman, who currently faces perhaps the most devastating trauma ever endured by man, namely losing gavelling privileges in a Senate committee he cares about so much he used those privileges to hold fewer than one hearing into Bush administration corruption over a two year span that didn’t exactly want for evidence of executive branch malfeasance. If Lieberman suffers a minor demotion in a political party he feels is populated by Communists, defeatists, traitors, and assorted other internal enemies, it would be like 9/11 all over again; and if the Liebercaust is coupled with a re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine — why then, my friends, it would be exactly like we were living in Stalinist Russia. That is, if Stalin had tried to install Sharia law.
These are of course not just idle or academic musings. Inauguration Day is still more than two months away and there are already clear signs that there will be plenty to dislike about the agenda of the incoming administration. Somebody is going to have to be the opposition. Meanwhile, the opposition has taken to occupying its time chasing down imaginary Kenyan birth certificates, riffling through the Faculty directories at Chicago, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard looking for menacingly middle-Eastern names to drag through the mud for no reason at all, and, as above, at least somewhat willfully hallucinating a Democratic policy agenda for fun, profit, and avoidance of the responsibility to dwell in reality and attend to boringly existent problems. And that’s just a survey of some of the more respectable quarters of the world of pro-GOP opinion.
Look, I live in England now; does everybody have a Plan B in case America just stays broken?
After all, there has got to be a backup plan, hasn’t there? That is, something besides hosting colloquia on cruise ships to discuss how unfairly Sarah Palin was treated. And pace everybody at National Review with no immediate plans to flee for higher ground, advocating the same terrible policies with the same voter-repellent rhetoric by means of the same self-degrading tactics as before, only doing so faster, more loudly, with less regard for facts, and in general doubling and then redoubling efforts to be as thoroughly off-putting and loathsome as humanly possible to anyone not already dwelling under the shrinking tent, is not an option — except in the sense that it is what the conservative movement will opt for.
Filed under: Conservatism, Uncategorized
The only time I ever hear about the Fairness Doctrine is when a righty is saying the left is all full of love for it. I don’t know much about it but why is it a bad thing? Why is the ‘fair and balanced’ crowd so against it?
My sense is that some non-trivial proportion of conservative fears about the Fairness Doctrine have to do with personal vendettas — Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and a handful of other people who don’t realize the cruelest thing you could do to them is read back their transcripts deadpan, really do have a lot at stake personally.
It’s an open and shut issue to me on libertarian grounds, both as a first-order matter of freedom of speech, and as a second-order matter of the undesirability of the government deciding what constitutes political balance.
But it’s all so shockingly irrelevant, given that there are 500 cable and satellite channels, there’s satellite radio now, and there’s the internet. Why not pass a major tax increase on leaded gasoline and asbestos lined floor tiling — both of which, incidentally, are less harmful to mental and physical health than extended exposure to Sean Hannity’s various programs?
The left will find a way to confront talk radio, through the fairness doctrine or through some other avenue. It will happen whether conservatives want to admit it or not. Why sit back and let another attack on the First Amendment go unchallenged?
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
Post-MSNBC becoming the cheerleading squad for Obama and co., what little support the Fairness Doctrine had on the liberal-left has washed up.
The only person I’ve seen advocate for it in the last couple of years is Paul Gottfried.
Let me play the Devil’s Advocate:
If I were a playmaker for a political party in power who had a plan to muzzle my opposition, I wouldn’t talk about it in advance, and I certainly wouldn’t use the same name that my party used for similar shenanigans in the past. I’d wait until the post-inauguration honeymoon was in full swing and then bury it deep in a bill with a benign-sounding name.After it passed, I’d implement it selectively at first, starting with unpopular, controversial opponents. After that succeeded, I’d ratchet up enforcement until I had something in place that had a chilling effect on media dissent across the board.
…but that’s just me.
I’m sure that the people who are ruthless enough to rise to the top of a major political party and bring it back to power wouldn’t have the disposition or the skill to come up with anything so sinister as what I just outlined with 5 minutes of imagination.
I don’t understand the issue… it’s consumer driven, if people didn’t want Rush Limbaugh they wouldn’t listen: add revenue would go down, ratings would go down, and Rush Limbaugh would either be dropped by his carriers or canceled all together. But, it seems as if people want Rush and they want Howard Stern and all these other people that I have no interest in listening to. Isn’t that what a free market is all about? I don’t know — come live in Northampton MA, plenty of liberal radio here! Isn’t everyone listening to podcasts these days anyway? Plenty of diverse stuff there. As someone who votes democratic, usually, but is getting increasingly annoyed with the party, if they chose to pursue such pointless — no shameful — legislation, they deserve to lose big time next election cycle.
‘leaded gasoline and asbestos lined floor tiling — both of which, incidentally, are less harmful to mental and physical health than extended exposure to Sean Hannity’s various programs?’
You clearly don’t have to try to talk people out of the bullshit Hannity infects them with.
‘Why sit back and let another attack on the First Amendment go unchallenged?’
How is it a first amendment violation to have someone on the same station as Hannity correcting his lies? Do we have a right to lie and not get called on it?
I thought it was hysterical listening to Palin complain that her first amendment rights were being violoated by the press because they wouldn’t let her get away with unfounded criticisms. Now I know where she gets the idea from.
It’s these types of ridiculous notions that eminate from right wing radio unchallenged that are ruining this country.
How is it a first amendment violation to have someone on the same station as Hannity correcting his lies?
Because it would consist of the government telling people what they must say.
Because the airtime to do so, and the salary of the people needed to make it happen come out of someone’s pocket, in this case the radio station/television production company. If that response is a money loser (as the market seems to indicate) why on earth would a broadcaster put up with it. Better to just shut them all down, which is exactly the result the Libs want.
Because it’s none of their Gosh Darn business.
Now that Rosie’s back on the air, Sean Hannity is no longer the stupidest man in broadcasting, but it’s a mighty close thing.
“Now that Rosie’s back on the air, Sean Hannity is no longer the stupidest man in broadcasting, but it’s a mighty close thing.”
I think the thing is — people want Sean Hannity. They want to believe him. They like him. If you had some kind of “official” program to counter his lies, people would believe him anyway and just think that it’s the “liberal media” lying to them instead. The same as people that dig what Noam Chomsky has to say are going to believe him no matter what, and buy his books, and his movies or whatever he does, and no matter how much you tell them that he’s a washed up academic with nothing to say, they’re still going to believe him.
I’m glad to say, I have no idea who Sean Hannity is. Am I lucky or just isolated?
I’m glad to say, I have no idea who Sean Hannity is. Am I lucky or just isolated?
- Dr. Wu
Are you with me Doctor Wu?
Are you crazy, are you high
Or just an ordinary guy?
- Sean Hannity, plagiarizing Steely Dan
Only a few years ago the NRA was pushing for the “Fairness Doctrine”, hoping to use it to get their point of view disseminated. How times change.
I guess I sort of know who Sean Hannity is… anyone that listens to Sean Hannity is most likely not going to vote for a Democrat anyway. Democrats should only be so happy because enough Sean Hannity’s and Rush Limbaughs will probably only serve to turn people towards Democrats. I don’t think Hannity is for people “on the fence.” Similarly, a(n occasionally) left-leaning person like me recoils and shifts further to the right every time that I hear Noam Chomsky talk.
‘How is it a first amendment violation to have someone on the same station as Hannity correcting his lies?
Because it would consist of the government telling people what they must say.’
No it wouldn’t. No one would tell Hannity to say something other than what he’s saying. They would put someone else on to counter his ‘ideas’. You don’t have to listen to it. I don’t even listen to Hannity now.
‘Because the airtime to do so, and the salary of the people needed to make it happen come out of someone’s pocket, in this case the radio station/television production company. ‘
But if it generated ratings then they would have the money to pay for it. And they would get the ratings because there are tons of people who’d like to listen to talk radio but can’t because it’s nothing but right wing garbage all day.
‘If that response is a money loser (as the market seems to indicate) why on earth would a broadcaster put up with it.’
If you think most talk radio is right wing because it’s what the people want you have a big bag of naivete strapped to your back. Over 2000 radio stations broadcasting talk radio all owend by the same four companies.
‘Better to just shut them all down, which is exactly the result the Libs want.’
Libs don’t think as a group, the right does and natural assumes everyone else does but it’s not true. I know of no libs who think Rush or Hannity needs to be shut up or taken off the air. And if there is one then there is one. ONE. Its not a group concept. The right wants censorship the left wants equal access.
‘Because it’s none of their Gosh Darn business.’
Whose business? My country is being destroyed by this shit. I don’t have a right to ask that the rest of the information also be made available for people who listen to the radio all day? You think it’s just some odd coincidence that people who work in jobs that allow them access to a radio during the day predominantly vote republican? You thik they are ignoring what Rush says and are instead voting based on their vast knowledge of the writings of Plato Smith Locke and Kant (not a law firm)?
My country is dying because assholes on the radio are trying to convincing a majority that half the people here hate their country if they don’t believe in an economic system where we don’t tax the rich and instead live off their largesse. Crumbs from the tablecloth.