Fairness Doctrine: Leftist Attack on Free Speech

This blog has previously established that most leftists do not really believe in free speech, except for themselves (the advocacy of "free speech" for leftists being an attempt to use the "issue" of "free speech" to advance leftist power rather than a matter of true principle). A case in point is the "Fairness Dcotrine", and the present attempt by the left to suppress conservative talk radio. As I have previously noted, present day leftists are the worst hypocrites to have ever walked the Earth. A further case in point was the Obama campaign's attempt to suppress opposition to Obama on TV and radio stations with letters threatening their license.


Am I not the same? Do I not oppose the Fairness Doctrine, and attempts to impose the leftist idea of "fairness" on conserative talk radio, because conservative talk radio supports my conservative point of view?


Nope. Unlike most leftists, and admittedly some (not so many, or so blatantly) on the right, I am not (subject always to human fallibility) a hypocrite. As I have mentioned previously, my college philosophy term paper was an approving look at John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", the basic thesis of which is that all of humanity, except one, is not more justified in silencing the contrary views of that one, than that one is in silencing the views of all of the rest of humanity.


Want more? I mentioned in the previous entry that I had a letter opposing the Fairness Doctrine printed in the leftist (even then) Denver Post circa 1970. That was well before conservative talk radio. The Fairness Doctrine was then in effect, and radio was a wasteland of uninteresting pablum--to the extent it was not made up of music. In short, I was against the Fairness Doctrine when there was no ideological reason to be against it, as the evidence (even then) seemed to be that all media was trending leftist.


Now it is true that my 1970 letter, when I was stationed in the U.S. Army at Ft. Carson (right outside of Colorado Springs), was prompted by FCC action in revoking the license of one of those fringe radio preachers for violation of the "Fairness Doctrine". However, if you think that radio preacher was advancing the conservative cause (whether leftists would call him "right wing" or not), you are deluded. I said in my letter, in fact, that I would not defend the ranting of the preacher in question. As an aganostic, that kind of stuff never was my cup of tea, and this guy really was on the outer fringes of even the evangelical movement. But I said then, when it did not directly advance my ideological interest (other than my interest in free speech), and I say now: the Fairness Doctrine was, and is, incompatible with the principle of free speech. Using the idea of the "government airways" as an excuse to suppress free speech is a device of tyrants, and the present attempt of leftists to re-introduce the concept exposes them for the dictatorial suppressors of free speech that they are, and want to be (on a greater scale). This kind of leftist is interested in power (the Marxist idea that "the end justifies the means"), and has no real belief in the principle of free speech, except when it can be used to advance leftist power.


The test of principle is when you stand by the principle even when it does not obviously advance your interests. President Bush has failed this test in his abandonment of free market principles The new minted Communists on Wall Street have similarly failed totally in a transparent effort to get government to save their own skins. I generally (subject, again, to human fallibility) do not fail this test, and my goal in this blog is to stand for principle and not for the convenient partisan argument of the moment.


Now it is true that I do not know who I could be partisan for right now. I no longer consider myself a Republican. I consider myself a conservative, but that is an overall, short-hand description of an intellectual point of view rather than a matter of partisan politics.


In short, I oppose leftists because of what they believe, generally, and not because they are leftists. I do not support politicians, such as President Bush and John McCain, because they say they are "conservative", when they do not believe in nearly the same principles as I do (I did vote for Bush twice, but I gregret the second vote--stiff though John Kerry was--and have pretty much given up on the idea of voting for the "lesser evil" which I always knew President Bush represented).


For those leftists out there who regularly abandon principle in favor of power, on things like free speech: Does it bother you to be such a hypocrite? So intellectually dishonest? I see no indication it bothers most of you.