From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 11:53:04 MDT
-->Kevin Bluck
> >>I'd say, the only explanation is the threat of losing their license,
> >>which is a form of censorship. The FCC employees involved in
> this attack
> >>on free speech should be fired, all of them. The shock jocks would soon
> >>return to the airwaves, where they belong. And the religious ones can
> >>always listen to their Sunday school broadcasts.
> >Those are my sentiments exactly. Despite the assertion of
> others on this
> >thread, I don't really see how this *isn't* a free speech issue;
> while I,
> >or others on this list, may not like such programming, it should
> still be
> >allowed to exist. And, as Rafal points out, it seems that the
> station had
> >no choice to fire the shock jocks, lest their license be removed.
>
> Well... as usual in the real world, the question is not quite so
> black and white.
>
> If you wish to adopt a thoroughly libertarian position on this issue, you
> must also be willing to accept the natural consequences. If
> anybody can say
> anything they want at any time on the airwaves, and the FCC has
> no business
> regulating that, then the FCC *also* has no business allocating spectrum.
> They have no business eliminating signal interference. They have no
> business setting technical broadcast standards.
Kevin makes a point that slips past again and again: 90%-100% of
arguments/discussions about power, authority and legislation are occuring
several levels too high. They presuppose an existing, immutable ground level
fixed reality (no matter how bad) and proceed to argue on top of that. That
fixed reality is of course only legislation, and completely mutable. For
some strange reason, people eventually stop arguing about whether or not to
have an evil dwarf repeatedly punch them in the stomach, and argue instead
about what color his beard should be.
(Having dropped the argument one level, Kevin then goes on to rest on
another immutable level that is in fact legislation as well, and up for
change).
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:25 MST