A DEMOCRACY TOWN HALL: The Unfairness Doctrine

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Monday, January 29, 2007

The Unfairness Doctrine

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14 Comments:

Bob said...: The unfairness doctrine

----------------------
Posted: January 25, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

It didn't take long for the Democrats in Congress to try to consolidate
their
power with Soviet-style Orwellian newspeak legislation that would
subvert the
very idea of constitutionally protected free speech in America.

Make no mistake about it, that is exactly what is happening with
efforts to
bring back the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," S. 1 and other draconian
legislation being introduced and debated in Congress.

Under the guise of "fairness," these attacks seek to limit the very
kind of
speech America's founders sought to protect ? political speech, the
lifeblood
of a self-governing society.

The goal is not to promote "fairness" ? anything but. The goal is to
limit the
impact and effectiveness of certain voices in the media ? and I can
prove it to
you.

These attacks on the First Amendment are motivated by the power and
appeal of
media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage
and Laura
Ingraham on radio, people like Glenn Beck, Neal Cavuto, John Gibson and
Lou
Dobbs on television and sites like WND on the Internet. Once these
power-hungry
control freaks are able to emasculate those voices, they understand
they have a
virtual monopoly on political speech in this country.

In "1984," George Orwell showed how the totalitarian mindset works ?
making
words mean exactly the opposite of their true definitions. Black became
white.
Peace became war. Truth became lie. Orwell didn't have to imagine a
society
that operated like that. He based his novel on a real-world example of
totalitarianism ? the Soviet Union.

When the Soviets talked of freedom of religion, they meant atheism was
the
official state religion. When they talked about the free press, they
meant a
press controlled totally by the government.

And there are people in the U.S. government today who think very much
like the
old Soviets did. Many of them saw little wrong with the Soviet Union
when it
was around. They apologized for it. They excused its barbarism. They
minimized
the threat it posed to the U.S. and all free people in the world.

While their buddies in the Politburo may be gone, these American
totalitarians
are still around ? still pushing the same old agenda of state control
over
everything, from health care to the news media.

They won't settle for having 90 percent control over an institution. It
has to
be 100 percent. The U.S. news media, for the most part, are already
promoting
an agenda in lockstep with the American totalitarians. These efforts
under way
today reflect the desire to consolidate all media power ? to ensure
that a
handful of dissenting voices, alternative voices, independent voices,
are
squelched.

Where's my proof?

Notice what it is they want to control.

Are these totalitarians trying to control entertainment programming on
television? No. Why not? Because it's already under control.
Entertainment
programming is already promoting their agenda. There's no need for the
federal
government bureaucrats to involve themselves in this arena because
entertainment programming is doing what it is supposed to do ?
conditioning the
American people for control.

The totalitarians have no problem with sadistic and pornographic
programming,
because it serves their immoral agenda.

What they have a problem with are points of views and news that expose
them.

Understand this: Government control is the opposite of freedom. A
government-controlled or government-regulated press is no press at all.
It is
propaganda, mind control, newspeak.

The only way to preserve the First Amendment in this country is to keep
the
government's mitts off the press ? and that means broadcast, cable,
Internet,
newspapers and radio.

That I even need to explain an idea so rudimentary to American freedom
today is
disturbing, chilling, alarming.

We need more voices, not fewer. We need more ideas competing for the
public's
attention, not fewer. We need more viewpoints expressed, not fewer.

-; 1:29 PM
Anonymous said...: You going to give credit where you lifted this from?; 7:02 PM
Anonymous said...: The Fairness Doctrine
How We Lost it, and Why We Need it Back
by Steve Rendall

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
— U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from pre-election plans to force its 62 television stations to preempt prime-time programming in favor of airing the blatantly anti–John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, the reversal wasn’t triggered by a concern for fairness: Sinclair back-pedaled because its stock was tanking. The staunchly conservative broadcaster’s plan had provoked calls for sponsor boycotts, and Wall Street saw a company that was putting politics ahead of profits. Sinclair’s stock declined by nearly 17 percent before the company announced it would air a somewhat more balanced news program in place of the documentary (Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04).

But if fairness mattered little to Sinclair, the news that a corporation that controlled more TV licenses than any other could put the publicly owned airwaves to partisan use sparked discussion of fairness across the board, from media democracy activists to television industry executives.

Variety (10/25/04) underlined industry concerns in a report suggesting that Sinclair’s partisanship was making other broadcasters nervous by fueling “anti-consolidation forces” and efforts to bring back the FCC’s defunct Fairness Doctrine:

Sinclair could even put the Fairness Doctrine back in play, a rule established in 1949 to require that the networks—all three of them—air all sides of issues. The doctrine was abandoned in the 1980s with the proliferation of cable, leaving citizens with little recourse over broadcasters that misuse the public airwaves, except to oppose the renewal of licenses.

The Sinclair controversy brought discussion of the Fairness Doctrine back to news columns (Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04; L.A. Times, 10/24/04) and opinion pages (Portland Press Herald, 10/24/04; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10/22/04) across the country. Legal Times (11/15/04) weighed in with an in-depth essay headlined: “A Question of Fair Air Play: Can Current Remedies for Media Bias Handle Threats Like Sinclair’s Aborted Anti-Kerry Program?”

Sinclair’s history of one-sided editorializing and right-wing water-carrying, which long preceded its Stolen Honor ploy (Extra!, 11–12/04), puts it in the company of political talk radio, where right-wing opinion is the rule, locally and nationally. Together, they are part of a growing trend that sees movement conservatives and Republican partisans using the publicly owned airwaves as a political megaphone—one that goes largely unanswered by any regular opposing perspective. It’s an imbalance that begs for a remedy.

A short history of fairness

The necessity for the Fairness Doctrine, according to proponents, arises from the fact that there are many fewer broadcast licenses than people who would like to have them. Unlike publishing, where the tools of the trade are in more or less endless supply, broadcasting licenses are limited by the finite number of available frequencies. Thus, as trustees of a scarce public resource, licensees accept certain public interest obligations in exchange for the exclusive use of limited public airwaves. One such obligation was the Fairness Doctrine, which was meant to ensure that a variety of views, beyond those of the licensees and those they favored, were heard on the airwaves. (Since cable’s infrastructure is privately owned and cable channels can, in theory, be endlessly multiplied, the FCC does not put public interest requirements on that medium.)

The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows or editorials.

Formally adopted as an FCC rule in 1949 and repealed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan’s pro-broadcaster FCC, the doctrine can be traced back to the early days of broadcast regulation.

Early on, legislators wrestled over competing visions of the future of radio: Should it be commercial or non-commercial? There was even a proposal by the U.S. Navy to control the new technology. The debate included early arguments about how to address the public interest, as well as fears about the awesome power conferred on a handful of licensees.

American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations, for publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a republic. And when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one person, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership or dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.
— Rep. Luther Johnson (D.-Texas), in the debate that preceded the Radio Act of 1927 (KPFA, 1/16/03)

In the Radio Act of 1927, Congress mandated the FCC’s forerunner, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), to grant broadcasting licenses in such a manner as to ensure that licensees served the “public convenience, interest or necessity.”

As former FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson pointed out (California Lawyer, 8/88), it was in that spirit that the FRC, in 1928, first gave words to a policy formulation that would become known as the Fairness Doctrine, calling for broadcasters to show “due regard for the opinions of others.” In 1949, the FCC adopted the doctrine as a formal rule (FCC, Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees, 1949).

In 1959 Congress amended the Communications Act of 1934 to enshrine the Fairness Doctrine into law, rewriting Chapter 315(a) to read: “A broadcast licensee shall afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of conflicting views on matters of public importance.”

It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market, whether it be by the government itself or a private licensee. It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here. That right may not constitutionally be abridged either by Congress or by the FCC.
— U.S. Supreme Court, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.

A decade later the United States Supreme Court upheld the doctrine’s constitutionality in Red Lion Broadcast-ing Co. v. FCC (1969), foreshadowing a decade in which the FCC would view the Fairness Doctrine as a guiding principle, calling it “the single most important requirement of operation in the public interest—the sine qua non for grant of a renewal of license” (FCC Fairness Report, 1974).

How it worked

There are many misconceptions about the Fairness Doctrine. For instance, it did not require that each program be internally balanced, nor did it mandate equal time for opposing points of view. And it didn’t require that the balance of a station’s program lineup be anything like 50/50.

Nor, as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly claimed, was the Fairness Doctrine all that stood between conservative talkshow hosts and the dominance they would attain after the doctrine’s repeal. In fact, not one Fairness Doctrine decision issued by the FCC had ever concerned itself with talkshows. Indeed, the talkshow format was born and flourished while the doctrine was in operation. Before the doctrine was repealed, right-wing hosts frequently dominated talkshow schedules, even in liberal cities, but none was ever muzzled (The Way Things Aren’t, Rendall et al., 1995). The Fairness Doctrine simply prohibited stations from broadcasting from a single perspective, day after day, without presenting opposing views.

In answer to charges, put forward in the Red Lion case, that the doctrine violated broadcasters’ First Amendment free speech rights because the government was exerting editorial control, Supreme Court Justice Byron White wrote: “There is no sanctuary in the First Amendment for unlimited private censorship operating in a medium not open to all.” In a Washington Post column (1/31/94), the Media Access Project (MAP), a telecommunications law firm that supports the Fairness Doctrine, addressed the First Amendment issue: “The Supreme Court unanimously found [the Fairness Doctrine] advances First Amendment values. It safeguards the public’s right to be informed on issues affecting our democracy, while also balancing broadcasters’ rights to the broadest possible editorial discretion.”

Indeed, when it was in place, citizen groups used the Fairness Doctrine as a tool to expand speech and debate. For instance, it prevented stations from allowing only one side to be heard on ballot measures. Over the years, it had been supported by grassroots groups across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, National Rifle Association and the right-wing Accuracy In Media.

Typically, when an individual or citizens group complained to a station about imbalance, the station would set aside time for an on-air response for the omitted perspective: “Reasonable opportunity for presentation of opposing points of view,” was the relevant phrase. If a station disagreed with the complaint, feeling that an adequate range of views had already been presented, the decision would be appealed to the FCC for a judgment.

According to Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of MAP, scheduling response time was based on time of day, frequency and duration of the original perspective. “If one view received a lot of coverage in primetime,” Schwartzman told Extra!, “then at least some response time would have to be in primetime. Likewise if one side received many short spots or really long spots.” But the remedy did not amount to equal time; the ratio of airtime between the original perspective and the response “could be as much as five to one,” said Schwartzman.

As a guarantor of balance and inclusion, the Fairness Doctrine was no panacea. It was somewhat vague, and depended on the vigilance of listeners and viewers to notice imbalance. But its value, beyond the occasional remedies it provided, was in its codification of the principle that broadcasters had a responsibility to present a range of views on controversial issues.

The doctrine’s demise

From the 1920s through the ’70s, the history of the Fairness Doctrine paints a picture of public servants wrestling with how to maintain some public interest standards in the operation of publicly owned—but corporate-dominated—airwaves. Things were about to change.

The 1980s brought the Reagan Revolution, with its army of anti-regulatory extremists; not least among these was Reagan’s new FCC chair, Mark S. Fowler. Formerly a broadcast industry lawyer, Fowler earned his reputation as “the James Watt of the FCC” by sneering at the notion that broadcasters had a unique role or bore special responsibilities to ensure democratic discourse (California Lawyer, 8/88). It was all nonsense, said Fowler (L.A. Times, 5/1/03): “The perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced by a view of broadcasters as marketplace participants.” To Fowler, television was “just another appliance—it’s a toaster with pictures,” and he seemed to endorse total deregulation (Washington Post, 2/6/83): “We’ve got to look beyond the conventional wisdom that we must somehow regulate this box.”

Of course, Fowler and associates didn’t favor total deregulation: Without licensing, the airwaves would descend into chaos as many broadcasters competed for the same frequencies, a situation that would mean ruin for the traditional corporate broadcasters they were so close to. But regulation for the public good rather than corporate convenience was deemed suspect.

Fowler vowed to see the Fairness Doctrine repealed, and though he would depart the commission a few months before the goal was realized, he worked assiduously at setting the stage for the doctrine’s demise.

He and his like-minded commissioners, a majority of whom had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan, argued that the doctrine violated broadcasters’ First Amendment free speech rights by giving government a measure of editorial control over stations. Moreover, rather than increase debate and discussion of controversial issues, they argued, the doctrine actually chilled debate, because stations feared demands for response time and possible challenges to broadcast licenses (though only one license was ever revoked in a dispute involving the Fairness Doctrine— California Lawyer, 8/88).

The FCC stopped enforcing the doctrine in the mid-’80s, well before it formally revoked it. As much as the commission majority wanted to repeal the doctrine outright, there was one hurdle that stood between them and their goal: Congress’ 1959 amendment to the Communications Act had made the doctrine law.

Help would come in the form of a controversial 1986 legal decision by Judge Robert Bork and then-Judge Antonin Scalia, both Reagan appointees on the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Their 2–1 opinion avoided the constitutional issue altogether, and simply declared that Congress had not actually made the doctrine into a law. Wrote Bork: “We do not believe that language adopted in 1959 made the Fairness Doctrine a binding statutory obligation,” because, he said, the doctrine was imposed “under,” not “by” the Communications Act of 1934 (California Lawyer, 8/88). Bork held that the 1959 amendment established that the FCC could apply the doctrine, but was not obliged to do so—that keeping the rule or scuttling it was simply a matter of FCC discretion.

“The decision contravened 25 years of FCC holdings that the doctrine had been put into law in 1959,” according to MAP. But it signaled the end of the Fairness Doctrine, which was repealed in 1987 by the FCC under new chair Dennis R. Patrick, a lawyer and Reagan White House aide.

A year after the doctrine’s repeal, writing in California Lawyer (8/88), former FCC commissioner Johnson summed up the fight to bring back the Fairness Doctrine as “a struggle for nothing less than possession of the First Amendment: Who gets to have and express opinions in America.” Though a bill before Congress to reinstate the doctrine passed overwhelmingly later that year, it failed to override Reagan’s veto. Another attempt to resurrect the doctrine in 1991 ran out of steam when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto.

Where things stand

What has changed since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine? Is there more coverage of controversial issues of public importance? “Since the demise of the Fairness Doctrine we have had much less coverage of issues,” says MAP’s Schwartzman, adding that television news and public affairs programming has decreased locally and nationally. According to a study conducted by MAP and the Benton Foundation, 25 percent of broadcast stations no longer offer any local news or public affairs programming at all (Federal Communications Law Journal, 5/03).

The most extreme change has been in the immense volume of unanswered conservative opinion heard on the airwaves, especially on talk radio. Nationally, virtually all of the leading political talkshow hosts are right-wingers: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Reagan, to name just a few. The same goes for local talkshows. One product of the post-Fairness era is the conservative “Hot Talk” format, featuring one right-wing host after another and little else. Disney-owned KSFO in liberal San Francisco is one such station (Extra!, 3–4/95). Some towns have two.

When Edward Monks, a lawyer in Eugene, Oregon, studied the two commercial talk stations in his town (Eugene Register-Guard, 6/30/02), he found “80 hours per week, more than 4,000 hours per year, programmed for Republican and conservative talk shows, without a single second programmed for a Democratic or liberal perspective.” Observing that Eugene (a generally progressive town) was “fairly representative,” Monks concluded: “Political opinions expressed on talk radio are approaching the level of uniformity that would normally be achieved only in a totalitarian society. There is nothing fair, balanced or democratic about it.”

Bringing back fairness?

For citizens who value media democracy and the public interest, broadcast regulation of our publicly owned airwaves has reached a low-water mark. In his new book, Crimes Against Nature, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. probes the failure of broadcasters to cover the environment, writing, “The FCC’s pro-industry, anti-regulatory philosophy has effectively ended the right of access to broadcast television by any but the moneyed interests.”

According to TV Week (11/30/04), a coalition of broadcast giants is currently pondering a legal assault on the Supreme Court’s Red Lion decision. “Media General and a coalition of major TV network owners—NBC Universal, News Corp. and Viacom—made clear that they are seriously considering an attack on Red Lion as part of an industry challenge to an appellate court decision scrapping FCC media ownership deregulation earlier this year.”

Considering the many looming problems facing media democracy advocates, Extra! asked MAP’s Schwartzman why activists should still be concerned about the Fairness Doctrine.

What has not changed since 1987 is that over-the-air broadcasting remains the most powerful force affecting public opinion, especially on local issues; as public trustees, broadcasters ought to be insuring that they inform the public, not inflame them. That’s why we need a Fairness Doctrine. It’s not a universal solution. It’s not a substitute for reform or for diversity of ownership. It’s simply a mechanism to address the most extreme kinds of broadcast abuse.; 7:06 PM
Anonymous said...: In the summer of 2006, Zogby International conducted a poll demonstrating that Americans know more about the Three Stooges than the fundamental structure of our democracy. Seventy-three percent of Americans could name all three Stooges, just 42 percent could name the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The poll also showed that while 77 percent of the people can name two of the Seven Dwarfs, just 24 percent can name two Supreme Court justices.

Even though the Zogby poll was commissioned by television reality show producers, they are asking the right sort of questions. The same cannot be said of the Federal Communications Commission, which once again is failing to exercise its congressional mandate over media ownership rules in our country.

The Federal Communications Commission will complete its review of FCC media ownership policies this spring. All those concerned about the state of our democracy should be very worried, which is why the Center for American Progress early next week will unveil a new set of formulas that the FCC could use to measure the diversity available to all communities in local media markets across the country. But first, let’s outline the problem.

The last time the FCC engaged in an ownership review the Republicans in charge of the regulatory agency rammed through a set of rules designed to loosen restrictions on media concentration so that the big mainstream media conglomerates could further tighten their grip on public discourse in America. Once the public got wind of this, there were widespread howls of protest, causing both Congress and the courts to step in to undo some of the damage.

As the Third Circuit Court of Appeals said last year in the case that overturned the FCC’s first set of media ownership rules: “The FCC’s delegated responsibility to foster a robust forum for national debate is unique in administrative law and essential to the vibrancy of our deliberative democracy.” Yet the FCC, obliged by the court to review what it had originally proposed, continues to listen almost exclusively to the big broadcasters as they lobby to raise the ownership cap.

Case in point: Mark Mays, the president of Clear Channel Communications, which controls more than 1,200 radio stations across the country, argues that “free radio is at risk.” He insists “There’s room,for free radio companies to own more than eight stations” in a single market. Mays argues that the new kid on the block, satellite radio, is creating competition for broadcast radio and therefore the federal government needs to step in to protect “free radio” by allowing the giants to get even bigger.

That Clear Channel, which generated nearly $2 billion in revenue in 2005, is crying for government relief to allow it to acquire even more broadcast licenses should be laughable. But the FCC, particularly when dominated by Republicans, is peculiarly susceptible to these “market” arguments. Make no mistake, the FCC is listening.

Whatever happened to the FCC’s obligation to consider the public interest? Well, that depends on what the meaning of the public interest is. As long as the FCC defines the public interest as some sort of competition in media markets, then the FCC can assure Congress that letting Clear Channel get bigger is in the public interest. After all, they are just positioning themselves to compete with satellite radio.

Even though the FCC will occasionally acknowledge that the fundamental purpose of broadcast regulation is to further the informed discussion so necessary to a democracy, this is almost always immediately ignored. The world is so topsy-turvy at the FCC that the measure the agency used to justify loosening the media ownership rules in 2003, its so called Diversity Index, is actually based on something used to measure market concentration, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.

The HHI was developed as a tool to identify and curb antitrust violations; the latest approval of the merger between telecommunications giants SBC and AT&T shows how effective the HHI is at limiting monopolies. Still, the FCC deserves some credit for attempting to use modern tools to rationalize and explain why Big Media should get what it wants. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the Diversity Index in principle but rejected the way the FCC calculated it.

Unfortunately, the FCC has learned the wrong lesson and seems to want to avoid developing any sort of measurement tool the public or the courts could critique.

Instead, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, with little input from his colleagues at the agency, has commissioned a small set of vaguely described studies that seem to focus on changes in the media market. The FCC gives no hint that it is even considering the impact local media will have on local democratic engagement in its second review of media ownership concentration rules. Index or no, the FCC cannot think outside the box of market considerations.

But what if the FCC did something that was really new? What if it defined the public interest in a way that actually seemed to coincide with what most of us think that means? What if the FCC defined the public interest to mean the best interests of a democratic public? What if the FCC created an index that could really show the relationship between media ownership and what local citizens know about government?

As a new Congress controlled by Democrats begins oversight of an FCC controlled by Republicans, it is crucial to begin asking why the agency repeatedly fails to ask the right questions before it tries to loosen media concentration rules. Congressional oversight, however, is not sufficient. An entirely new way of discerning media diversity in local American broadcast markets is clearly needed.

That’s why the Center for American Progress in partnership with Fordham University’s Donald McGannon Communication Research Center and a small group of media scholars

developed a way to measure local media diversity and its impact on local civic knowledge. Our Local Media Diversity Metrics is really a fairly straightforward count of all the independent local media (from newspapers to the Internet) that actually produce local news and public affairs programs in a given community. This new index is complemented by our new Civics Index, which is a measure of local civic literacy from sample communities.

In the development and testing of these metrics we identified a variety of problems about the way the FCC determines whether broadcasters are operating in the public interest. Most notably we found an over reliance on private data companies such as The Nielsen Co. and Arbitron Inc. for information about the activities of federally licensed broadcasters, and a failure to capture media owned and operated by women and minorities.

On Tuesday, Jan. 30, the Center will host an event in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill to unveil our new Local Media Diversity Metrics and Civic Metrics. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) will deliver the opening address, after which the authors of the Center’s report will discuss their new methodology for the FCC to set local media ownership rules.

The work of determining whether our present or future media ownership policies promote democratic engagement and civic knowledge should not be left to private industry. We believe that the proposed measurement tools will help clarify the true impact of the FCC’s media ownership rules on our democracy.; 7:08 PM
Bob said...: 7:02, I received this article just as it is.; 7:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Sorry Bob, didn't realize there were no credits given as it indeed came from a very credible source:

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business; 9:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Uh, the Fairness Doctrine would then bring us such great films, artilces and views such as these? Are there really 2 sides to every story and each view point could be right? Or left as the case may be.

'Do you take this ewe …'

By Les Kinsolving
Posted: January 30, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

As my great friend and colleague on WCBM Baltimore, Tom Marr, put it: "If anything goes, everything's gone."

Did you ever believe that Utah's famed Sundance Film Festival would present a documentary film on bestiality?

The Los Angeles Times reports that this documentary, entitled "Zoo," was made when director Robinson Devor and his writing partner, Charles Mudede, who live in Seattle, "were stunned, as were many in the state, by a story that broke in 2005, about a local man who died after having sex with an Arabian stallion."

The Times went on to report:

"Though bestiality is not illegal in Washington, the subsequent revelation of the existence of an Internet-based zoophile community (the men refer to themselves as zoos, hence the title) was a shock.

"Though there was the inevitable tabloid fuss, what Devor called 'the prurient spectacle,' the filmmaker was also 'shocked that nobody did an in-depth look at this, that there was no investigative reporting rounding the story out with the psychology involved. I thought, "This is an opportunity."'

"In introducing 'Zoo' at Sundance, Devor called it 'a difficult film and a difficult film to make. … I was certainly asked many times, often with a wrinkled brow, "Why are you making this film?" It was something I did resent; I thought artists had the opportunity to explore anything.'"

Devor also quoted the Roman writer Terence, who said "I consider nothing human alien to me," he added, "so it's part of who we are."

That is a notable observation indeed. This begs the question as to whether director Devor believes there should be a Sundance Festival documentary on the reported urinary sexual practices of the late Adolf Hitler.

They, too, happen. And if featured at Sundance, wouldn't they and bestiality do a great deal toward helping develop public toleration of sodomy (even though bestiality and Adolf's Aberration have no reported death rate due to AIDS).

Last year, the Associated Press failed to report nationally that in Michigan, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported that Jeffrey S. Haynes, age 42, who pleaded guilty to sodomizing a sheep, argued unsuccessfully that he should not have to register as a sex offender.

After Haynes serves his prison sentence of two and half years, Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Conrad Sinot ruled that he must register with the Michigan State Police Public Sex Offender Registry.

Haynes had argued that this registry is intended to keep track of people who have committed crimes against humans, not those who copulate with sheep.

Since the Episcopal Church is currently beginning a major breaking over a small majority of its bishops supporting sodomy, the independent monthly magazine The Christian Challenge published the following satire from a commentator identified only as "One Thoughtful Commentator":

"Whether or not Haynes is an Episcopalian, clearly General Convention is now faced with the difficult issue of whether a person can engage in legitimate sexual relations with a sheep and still be a member in good standing, and whether or not the relationship should be cemented by holy matrimony, or simply given a blessing. Its resolution will depend upon the good will of the various parties incident to the debate and their willingness to enter into serious discussion.

"Since the Church is responsible for entering into new areas of theological exploration, we can expect a clouded response that can be interpreted in any number of ways," the observer continued. "The loudest voices will doubtless come from those convinced that persons engaged in bestiality were created by God to love sheep in this manner, that their integrity should be fully respected, and that both eweophobia and ramophobia represent an uncharitable attitude that demonstrates moral defects worthy of repentance. Moreover, Virginia Theological Seminary should adjust its housing policies in such a way that seminarians [are] allowed to keep sheep partners in their rooms.

"Above all, we must engage in dialogue with those whose sexual preferences happen to be for animals. A careful process of listening is recommended to allow our brothers and sisters who are engaged in meaningful, committed relationships with animals to express their feelings in an open and caring atmosphere.; 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Here's some more of the left's call for fairness (control) whether you want it or not.

Forcing girls to cheer for girls
By Dennis Prager
Posted: January 30, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

High school cheerleaders must now cheer for girls' teams as often as for boys' teams thanks to federal education officials' interpretations of Title IX, the civil rights law that mandates equal playing fields for both sexes. According to the New York Times, almost no one directly involved wants this – not the cheerleaders, not the fans, not the boys' teams, and not even the girls' teams. But it doesn't matter: The law coerces cheerleaders to cheer at girls' games.
Of all the myths that surround left-right differences, one of the greatest is that the left values liberty more than the right. Regarding a small handful of behaviors – abortion is the best example – this is true. But overwhelmingly, the further left one goes on the political spectrum, the greater the advocacy of more state control of people's lives.

That is why, with the exception of Nazism – which was an acronym for National Socialism but, rightly or wrongly, because it was race- and nationalism-based and because it allowed private enterprise, Nazism has been generally considered a far-right, not far-left, doctrine – nearly all totalitarianism of the 20th century was on the left.

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty with regard to anything except sexual behavior and abortion.

Taxation is an obvious example. It is difficult to imagine greater government control of a person's life than forcing the person to give half or more of his honorably earned money to the state under threat of being imprisoned. All rational people acknowledge the need for taxes – who other than the state should pay for police, roads and national defense, and serve as the last resort for the truly helpless? But all rational people should equally acknowledge that the greater percentage of one's money the state forcefully confiscates, the less liberty the individual has.

But the single greatest example is law. The means by which the state exerts control over the individual is law. As with taxes, the more laws, the less individual liberty. And just as rational people acknowledge the need for taxation, all rational people appreciate society's need for laws. But just as taxes increase the further left one moves, so, too, the number of laws passed increases.

As liberalism has moved left in the past 50 years, there has been a veritable explosion of legislation. That is why the mainstream, i.e., liberal, news media, characterize local, state and federal legislatures as successes or failures based on the number of laws the legislature has passed. The worst legislature is one that repeals laws, and the next to worst is a "do-nothing" Congress or state legislature, in other words, one that has not passed enough new laws.

There are many reasons for the liberal/progressive/left's adoration of laws. Three of them are:

Most activists on the left believe that they, not only their values, are morally superior to their adversaries. Therefore, coercing people to adhere to "progressive" values is morally acceptable, even demanded. It is thus quite understandable that laws would compel high school cheerleaders to cheer at girls' athletic events as much as at boys'. And true to leftist totalitarian models, not only is behavior coerced, but emotions as well. As the New York Times article reported, "A statewide group of physical education teachers in California called for cheerleaders to attend girls' and boys' games 'in the same number, and with equal enthusiasm' as part of its five-year goals." It is Orwellian, but not inconceivable, that either the California legislature or a California judge will require "equal enthusiasm" from cheerleaders at the girls' games.

"Progressives" are often unsuccessful in competing in the marketplace of ideas. Same-sex marriage and affirmative action are two contemporary examples. And when persuasion fails, laws are used. If you can't convince, coerce.

The more secular the society, the more laws are needed to keep people in check. When more people feel accountable to God and moral religion, fewer laws need to be passed. But as religion fades, something must step into the moral vacuum it leaves, and laws compelling good behavior result.
Unlike the nearly contemporaneous French Revolution, which affirmed "egalite" along with "liberte," the American Revolution never held equality equal to liberty. The Founders knew that you cannot have both, and so, the further left one moves, i.e., the more like France and Western Europe we become, the more coerced equality and the less personal liberty we will have.

Now, even high school cheerleaders know that.; 11:13 AM
Anonymous said...: WND=World Daily News is owned and ran by the biggest manipulators of the good conservatives. These are the power hungry elite who sacrifice your sons and daughters to battle, to increase their profits.

Look at the characters behind this publication and track their political activity.

If you really care about freedom and liberty of 'government promised safety', then this ain't your rag.

They laugh at the poor and manipulate the informed. They are as honest and unbiased as MoveON.org; 2:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Let's look at some fo the recent articles published by the WND:

SOY MILK MAKES YOU GAY:
In December 2006 written by Jim Rutz of "Megashift Ministries" where he claimed that eating soy at a young age increases the chance that a child will be gay, and that soy's estrogen content will feminize a young boy. Such claims are contradicted by research done by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania. The article was referenced by Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed piece on December 17, 2006, describing the reaction to homosexuality in the Republican Party.

In 2004, WND published a commentary by James Sanders entitled "The Downing of United Airlines Flight 93"which proposed that, to defend Washington D.C., Flight 93 had been intercepted and shot with a missile by a military aircraft. It also alleged that the government had tried to cover up this information.

Nevermind. To follow this you'd actually have to be of normal cognizance. We all know that this is not the case here. Right?

The Fairness Doctrine stands to break the MSM hold on the information we get. When you really get to the top of it, there are more mediums than there were 25 years ago not counting the internet, yet there are far less owners than 25 years ago. While the markey grew, ownership and therefore influence narrowed.

Conservative, Liberal, Educated and Idiots all have to know that that's not a good policy to have.; 2:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Recent articles published? Being published as the main stream media won't publish these sort of articles. So isn't this the argument that you've been making here. That everyone has an objection and opionion? By the way you seem rather brash about defending the very liberal minded ways out there. Abortion is still wrong, gay marriage and acting out gayness is still wrong. You can't have it both ways. WND is owned and operated by obviously those that of which you do not agree with. What if I said that Baraka Osama and Hillary were evil disguised as the great hope for the liberals. Would you like it? Of course not, because you kneel at their existence as if they will save the world. What about global warming. Save the world and all will be at peace. Stop the war, which by the way I now agree that we need to just get outta there. The Iraqi people, Iran, Turkey, Somalia, etc, will be fighting each other for ever and ever and they do not want democracy. This was foretold centuries ago. Brother against brother and if you don't believe me turn on the uh em "news" and watch. You will fight me because of my opposition to what you believe, so be it. That's the way of the world and you and the now liberal government can't stop it. Not global warming, not war and certainly not the truth.; 4:03 PM
Anonymous said...: I wouldn't like it because truely christian people judge acts, not people. It would make you a hypocrite to say that.
Abortion and gays are wedge issues that have divided this nation and sort of made it OK to hate. Well in government, your personal religeous opinion has to be squandered so that you can offer th best bang for MY buck to every white protestent southerner as well as dark skinned muslim Somali in Minnesota, as well as every Irish Catholic in Boston, as well as every Buhddist practicing Homosexual. It shouldn't factor in in what kind of service you offer.

This blog is about government service. Mostly bad and corrupt service, but none the less government service.

My problem with some conservatives like you, is that you claim to love America but, clearly you hate Americans.

While Bob and Co. are wrong and funny to watch, people like you are just plain dangereous. You look for a religeous theocracy and those types of governments have caused havoc throughout history. It's exactly what we're fighting against now.; 7:11 AM
Anonymous said...: It's Barack Obama
(I do understand your point of spelling it Osama. The Bin Ladin family are/were close friends of the Bush family. The Obamas never met them.); 7:15 AM
Anonymous said...: None of you even get it!; 9:31 AM

A DEMOCRACY TOWN HALL

Monday, January 29, 2007

The Unfairness Doctrine

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