the "Fairness Doctrine".

[Joe67]

This link will tell you everything you need to know.

Please don't go any futher down into the thread until you saw the link.

Simply put, the "Fairness Doctrine" would smash down First Amendment rights in the U.S.A. After all the U.S is the only place that I can vent my anger, and I don't want that to change.

The Fairness Doctrine is a scam to me.

what do you think?

[onefingersalute1]

it seem to me that all they are saying is that you would have to look at both sides. wich peopleshould do

[JerkClock]

I don't like biased tilts in the news and such, but I'll be damned if I don't stick up for their right to be biased. The fairness doctorine probably won't make it, but it's still a scary idea.

[I-Hate-Spam777]

At 8/10/07 12:28 AM, onefingersalute1 wrote: it seem to me that all they are saying is that you would have to look at both sides. wich peopleshould do

Not one, not two, but three errors in that post. this is your fixed post down there.

it seems to me that all they are saying is that you would have to look at both sides. which people should do.

[SicklesIsInsane]

The way the video puts it, it sounds like something you would see in a dictatorship. Whether or not it is as serious as the video makes it seem, I am against the government censoring things on the radio and television.

[Sajberhippien]

At 8/10/07 12:19 AM, Joe67 wrote: This link will tell you everything you need to know.

Please don't go any futher down into the thread until you saw the link.

Simply put, the "Fairness Doctrine" would smash down First Amendment rights in the U.S.A. After all the U.S is the only place that I can vent my anger, and I don't want that to change.

The Fairness Doctrine is a scam to me.

what do you think?

First off, why does everybody think freedom of speech is unique to the US? Nearly all western countries and more than half of all countries has freedom of speech.

But yeah, it's a bad idea. What I find funny though is that they say that conservatist ideas would be suppressed; partly because of the idea of the law is to get less ideas suppressed (right now, all media is controlled by very, very, rich men, which means nearly all media has a right-wing news reporting), and partly because the very same tactic has been used by conservatives to try to equalize intelligent design and evolutionism in school.

Also, that movie was EXTREMELY biased and had several argumentational errors.

But a few things were

[Joe67]

If anyone cares here's the memo about the Fairness Doctrine, by the ACLJ or something...

I should have put that in the first post...

[Joe67]

At 8/10/07 12:41 AM, Sajberhippien wrote: But a few things were

Uh were's the rest of the post. it stoped right at were.

lol I got a sever error.

[EndGameOmega]

At 8/10/07 12:19 AM, Joe67 wrote: This link will tell you everything you need to know.

Please don't go any futher down into the thread until you saw the link.

Simply put, the "Fairness Doctrine" would smash down First Amendment rights in the U.S.A. After all the U.S is the only place that I can vent my anger, and I don't want that to change.

The Fairness Doctrine is a scam to me.

what do you think?

After researching H.R. 2905, I've come to the conclusion that it's more or less a good thing. I have some misgivings but this comes from how is supporting it, and has nothing to do with the legislation it self. Overall I suppose it's a good thing. H.R. 2905 would prevent congress from "repromulgating", or in English "reenacting", the statutes of the "Fairness Doctrine".

H.R. 2905

[SolInvictus]

At 8/10/07 12:19 AM, Joe67 wrote: After all the U.S is the only place that I can vent my anger, and I don't want that to change.

actually you can vent your anger freely in just about any first world country.

[Sajberhippien]

At 8/10/07 12:19 AM, Joe67 wrote: This link will tell you everything you need to know.

Oh, and by the way, saying that an extremely biased link tells "everything you need to know" is nearly equal to lying.

Here is another source, which also is biased but from the other viewpoint:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212 -03.htm

And here is one that tries to be as neutral as possible, with hundreds of people with different opinions working on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_do ctrine

[Sajberhippien]

At 8/10/07 01:04 AM, Joe67 wrote:

At 8/10/07 12:41 AM, Sajberhippien wrote: But a few things were

Uh were's the rest of the post. it stoped right at were.

Sorry, it was the beginning of a sentence that should have been deleted. Ignore that sentence; What's before is the entire post.

[IllustriousPotentate]

If the Fairness Doctrine were to be put into place, it should be put only on government-funded stations.
Privately-owned stations, which have expenses, shareholders, etc. should be allowed to put on whatever programming it desires to draw listeners, and thus advertisers, to pay the bills, as long as the programming is legal (i.e. no slander, no inciting riots, etc.).

People have the ability to rebut statements made on radio without having the fairness doctrine. Not only are there other outlets, there's nothing prohibiting someone from creating a profitable, marketable show that has a different view to the issues.

More importantly, you always have the ability to vote with your dollars. If you disagree with something on the radio, write the station and sponsors, and tell your friends to do the same. If enough people agree with you, you can get the show off the air.

[Sajberhippien]

At 8/10/07 05:19 AM, IllustriousPotentate wrote: If the Fairness Doctrine were to be put into place, it should be put only on government-funded stations.
Privately-owned stations, which have expenses, shareholders, etc. should be allowed to put on whatever programming it desires to draw listeners, and thus advertisers, to pay the bills, as long as the programming is legal (i.e. no slander, no inciting riots, etc.).

People have the ability to rebut statements made on radio without having the fairness doctrine. Not only are there other outlets, there's nothing prohibiting someone from creating a profitable, marketable show that has a different view to the issues.

The thing is that there is only a limited number of frequenzies (spelling?), thus the number of shows are limited. That is the reason to this law. Look at the sources I posted to to get a more balanced view.

More importantly, you always have the ability to vote with your dollars. If you disagree with something on the radio, write the station and sponsors, and tell your friends to do the same. If enough people agree with you, you can get the show off the air.

First off: All bow and praise the MIGHTY CAPITALISM! Of course the rich should have more power than the poor; They are what makes a country work and are of course worth more than lesser human beings.

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/10/07 05:26 AM, Sajberhippien wrote: The thing is that there is only a limited number of frequenzies (spelling?), thus the number of shows are limited. That is the reason to this law. Look at the sources I posted to to get a more balanced view.

Radio isn't the only outlet for information anymore. There's TV, newspapers, and most importantly, the internet--a far more effective outlet than radio could ever hope to be. This isn't the 1940's anymore, where there's just a couple of radio stations and a newspaper.

First off: All bow and praise the MIGHTY CAPITALISM! Of course the rich should have more power than the poor; They are what makes a country work and are of course worth more than lesser human beings.

Great way to avoid addressing the point.

Radio stations cannot be in business if no one listens to them. A recent example: Don Imus. No Fairness Doctrine was needed to get him off the air. People protested, people called the stations, people boycotted sponsors. He got pulled.

Here's a simpler Fairness Doctrine, that needs no legislation, no regulation, no nothing. If you don't like what you hear, turn it off. Losing listeners is much more of an effect than giving 3 hours at 1 am for people to come on and disagree. Turn it off. There is no reason why you need to invoke the federal government to control what you can and cannot hear.

[Slizor]

I love how mistrust of the Government is something that is mainstream, but mistrust of corporations and the private, unelected individuals that run the corporations is not. Look at the first poster - he thinks that the government requiring broadcasters to offer "balanced" views on controversial subjects would take away his freedom of speech.......maybe I missed something, but did he say he was a broadcaster?

As for the "voting with your dollars" argument, or the plurality argument (where there are many broadcasters and you can simply turn one you don't like off) there is a lack of understanding that media consumption is a dynamic process that shapes people's views. People don't suddenly, at the age of 40 after having spent their life studying politics, philosophy and history, turn on the news and then make an independant decision if the station they are watching is agreeable to them. Most people are brought up with certain news stations and have their views shaped by that making the continued watching of a station more agreeable.

[SmilezRoyale]

At 8/10/07 12:28 AM, onefingersalute1 wrote: it seem to me that all they are saying is that you would have to look at both sides. wich peopleshould do

Either they're going to tell news stations by force that they have to balance out they're coverage, or they're going to add they're own which would of course come out of tax money.

Either way it's money down the drain, left wing talk shows won't be popular on right wing channels.

Also, i thought liberals HATED when the government 'forced they're opinion down they're throats' an opinion for balance is still an opinon.

I also thought liberals hated it when the government forced it's citizens to perform righteous actions because it interfeared with they're individual rights.

[Elfer]

That link was pretty biased and exaggerated.

That said, the fairness doctrine is a stupid idea, because there's a lot of loopholes in it. Not to mention the damage it would do the smaller, independent broadcasters.

[SmilezRoyale]

I already knew what the fairness doctrine was before i saw the link.

[SadisticMonkey]

At 8/10/07 12:28 AM, onefingersalute1 wrote: it seem to me that all they are saying is that you would have to look at both sides. wich peopleshould do

It seems to me that religious nuts don't like having their beliefs criticized, and have resorted to government legislation to get it stopped.

[Ravariel]

I love how it calls the doctrine a tool of the leftists to remove any religious speech and populate the airwaves with a liberal agenda.

I mean, isn't the media already left-wing commie hippes? How can a doctrine that's supposed to create more conservative POVs be a "liberal agenda"?

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 8/10/07 06:43 AM, Slizor wrote: I love how mistrust of the Government is something that is mainstream, but mistrust of corporations and the private, unelected individuals that run the corporations is not. Look at the first poster - he thinks that the government requiring broadcasters to offer "balanced" views on controversial subjects would take away his freedom of speech.......maybe I missed something, but did he say he was a broadcaster?

Corporations can't legally hold you at gunpoint like government can. Corporations may be powerful, but only the government has the ability to legally take away your rights.

As for the "voting with your dollars" argument, or the plurality argument (where there are many broadcasters and you can simply turn one you don't like off) there is a lack of understanding that media consumption is a dynamic process that shapes people's views. People don't suddenly, at the age of 40 after having spent their life studying politics, philosophy and history, turn on the news and then make an independant decision if the station they are watching is agreeable to them. Most people are brought up with certain news stations and have their views shaped by that making the continued watching of a station more agreeable.

Of course. But how is this the corporation's fault? If my political views growing up were gleaned and formed by reading the editorial of the local newspaper, how would that be any different? Moreover, what makes you think that government implementing the fairness doctrine is going to change any of this? People don't follow along with what a station says because of the station itself, they follow along because they have their views validated by the station's programming. If the Fairness Doctrine goes into place, then they'd just listen for the hours that their views are validated, and either tune out or tune to another station validating their views?

Take for example, the Rush Limbaugh show. Suppose the Fairness Doctrine is implemented and they have to counter Rush's raging conservative 3 hour show with raging liberal Lefty Gomez. Do you think that all the dittoheads would then listen to Lefty's show and listen to their views being invalidated? Of course not. They'd just turn off the dial, or find another right winger on another station.

[Cuppa-LettuceNog]

I didn't view the video after the very first text that popped up, since it's a blatant lie. The fairness doctrine was a Cold War Era FCC regulation, removed and deemed unconstitutional in 1984. Since then, absolutely no bill's have been proposed to reinstate it, and no claim to the contrary has ever been proven.

What next, are we going to make a thread about how the House of Un-American Activities threatens our rights?

[Cuppa-LettuceNog]

At 8/10/07 09:44 AM, Ravariel wrote: I love how it calls the doctrine a tool of the leftists to remove any religious speech and populate the airwaves with a liberal agenda.

I mean, isn't the media already left-wing commie hippes? How can a doctrine that's supposed to create more conservative POVs be a "liberal agenda"?

You know what's even more proof that it's not a liberal agenda?

The Fairness Doctrine was implemented by a Republican >_>

Oh Em Gee, Damn those Republicans with their blatant liberalism.

[Begoner]

On one side, you have the disturbing media consolidation which virtually eliminates the public's source for unbiased information and substitutes it for the blatant bias of obscenely rich businessmen; this yields a palpable conservative bias and thus threatens the foundations of our democracy. On the other side, implementing the Fairness Doctrine would be tricky as it is difficult to objectively define the various facets of an issue and would, at best, simply serve to perpetuate the stranglehold that the two major parties have on the American electoral system. The best course of action would be to heavily divert public funds to independent institutions (such as NPR) which report the news accurately with a minimum of bias. It would also be prudent to pass laws restricting the slanted news coverage so typical of major corporations.

[The-evil-bucket]

The video is pretty biased, but I know enough about the FD to know I don't want it.

[AwesomeSauce]

That's sick. Sometimes there are "right" opinions and "wrong" opinions. Just because something is controversial doesn't mean we need to hear the crazy radicals vent their opinion.

[JugoDeMonstruo]

That's sick. Sometimes there are "right" opinions and "wrong" opinions.

You need to recheck the definition of "opinion."

[AwesomeSauce]

At 8/10/07 04:40 PM, JugoDeMonstruo wrote:

That's sick. Sometimes there are "right" opinions and "wrong" opinions.

You need to recheck the definition of "opinion."

Is that what your pre-school teacher taught you? That everyone's opinion is equal? I'm afraid she's wrong.

[Cuppa-LettuceNog]

At 8/10/07 04:47 PM, AwesomeSauce wrote:

Is that what your pre-school teacher taught you? That everyone's opinion is equal? I'm afraid she's wrong.

No, she was right. And apparantly she had a HUGE advantage over you; the ownership of a dictionary.

An opinion cannot be wrong; an opinion is merely the formation of judgments within the mind. To call an opinion wrong is to imply that the opinion holder doesn't truly believe said judgment.