Equality through excessive force… That’s the Democrat way, isn’t it? If they don’t think things are as fair and equal as they want them to be, they will impose their way through force?

It has been a trend with the liberal Democrats for many years, but it’s never been as apparent as it is now with their sudden decision to revisit the  fairness doctrine. The libs out there have decided that they don’t believe in the free market and that the only way to ensure that things are fair and equal is for the government to step in and regulate it.

Mpinkeyes covered this topic from the free speech angle on Wake Up America and did a good job of it, so I’ll instead take the angle of the attack on the free market, which is equally as concerning.

The free market economy works on the basis of supply and demand unregulated by the government. In essence, that means that economy is run by the people and the government is there to help if things get derailed somehow. However, the government is (and has been) involved in heavy regulation in recent years, and its getting worse. Most of this regulation has been an attempt by the government to force fairness and equality as they saw fit – even if it was very contrary to economic well being. Being in the military, I saw this sort of thing every day, and every time I had to deal with it I shook my head. How many times did we have to buy parts or supplies from a woman or minority owned business even though they charged ten times more than every other supplier out there? How many times did I see work taken from our Seabees and given to outside construction contractors even though they charged exorbitant prices? The amout of money that is wasted due to mandates requiring us to give a certain percentage of our business to minority or woman-owned businesses to ensure that everybody felt they were treated fairly was massive.

But I’m getting off topic here. Getting back to the fairness doctrine and its assault on the free market economy. The democrats feel that the broadcasters out there are involved in some sort of evil plot to control the airwaves and inundate people with conservative talk radio. They don’t seem to think that the broadcasters are market driven, so in turn they feel that it should be their job to ensure fairness and equality on the airwaves. This makes about as much sense as… Well… I don’t know. It really makes no sense.

Free speech issues aside, an article on CQPolitics.com made the free market issue perfectly clear:

“Unless broadcasters take steps to voluntarily balance their programming, they can expect a return of fairness rules if Democrats keep control of Congress and win the White House next year.”

I can’t help but to take that as a threat on the part of the left and CQPolitics. I mean, think about what is being said here. Broadcasters are being threatened that if they don’t do what the democrats want them to do, they run the risk of being forced to do it if the dems win the White House. This sort of statement would make sense if it were coming from Venezuela or Cuba, but it sounds like sheer lunacy coming from our Nation.

Yet there it is. Broadcast what we tell you or else…

Of course, conspiracies aside, there’s the really big problem of the free market here, which is what the dems are either ignoring or not understanding. What they are blowing off here is that broadcasters are in the business of making money. They don’t flood the airwaves with conservative talk radio because they’re conservatives involved in some sort of evil plot. They broadcast conservative talk radio because people listen to it. See, that’s how the market works.  If a radio show has a large base of listeners, then that attracts advertisers. Advertisers pay broadcasters to advertise during the shows. Broadcasters make money and continue to do what it takes to make more money. If a show doesn’t attract listeners or money, the broadcasters won’t air them. It’s not a matter of fairness or equality. It’s a matter of simple free market economics. That’s why Air America and other liberal talk shows fail. They don’t attract listeners and don’t attract advertisers, which means broadcasters don’t make money and the shows don’t stay on the air.

Is that so hard to understand? I mean, apparently it is or else we wouldn’t be having this asinine conversation. But maybe that’s the proof in the pudding that the desire of the democrats is one of power and control and it’s done under the guise of fairness and equality.

Telling broadcasters that they have to put themselves in a position where they will lose money in order to institute “balance” on the airwaves is insane. What’s next? Mandating that advertisers spend an equal amount of money on liberal talk shows as they do on conservative talk shows? Mandating that people spend just as much time listening  to liberal talk shows as they do to conservative talk shows? Taking shows with dissenting opinions off the airwaves completely – to be replaced by shows with government approved content

Taking the free market out of the economy is a horrible idea, and the only justification that I can think of as to how this can happen is due to the democrat’s desire to impose control over the people of this country. If the democrat’s goal is to align our country with Cuba and Venezuela then they’re doing an outstanding job of it.