House of Eratosthenes

In a piece entitled “Limbaugh Is Right on the Fairness Doctrine,” with the delicious sub-headline “Liberals don’t need equal-time rules to compete,” [Jon] Sinden espoused views most Air America listeners are sure to disagree with (emphasis added):

When we founded Air America, we aimed to establish a talk network that lived at the intersection of politics and entertainment. Of course, we were motivated by our political leanings. But as a lifelong broadcaster, I was certain that at least half the American audience was underserved by conservative talk radio. Here was an opportunity to capture listeners turned off by the likes of, say, Sean Hannity. The business opportunity was enticing.

It never occurred to me to argue for reimposing the Fairness Doctrine. Instead, I sought to capitalize on the other side of a market the right already had built.

Wouldn’t it be nice if more liberals felt this way?

My own opposition to the Fairness Doctrine is that it would make an awful lot of sense — on an ideological spectrum that was truly one-dimensional, with an absolute centerpoint. Like a seesaw with an absolute point of fulcrum. That is how the weaker minds see this thing called “politics,” to be sure. But the weaker minds have trouble adapting to reality, and that’s shown to be the case here.

This stuff about which we argue, is just an endless and fascinating bouquet of questions, with little bundles of personal priorities and principles guiding the way to the answers, sometimes packaged together with other complementary priorities and principles…sometimes, not.

The hitch in the giddy-up is that this is not our daddys’ “right” and “left.” They are due for a shake-up, a major overhaul. Here’s just one example: The sense of community. Both the hard-right and the hard-left demand one. Our vision of it here, at The Blog That Nobody Reads, is an unorthodox one because we demand a sense of community as well, but we lean, like Jefferson, toward voluntary membership in all matters and coercive membership in none. To us, the merit of an idea has everything to do with the substance of the idea, and nothing whatsoever to do with the size of the population in which it finds support. The “majority” can be right, the “majority” can be wrong.

Also, when two sides are presented of a given issue, it’s possible for one side to be completely wrong and therefore missing any weight by which it could credibly demand any compromise whatsoever. And this, in turn, has nothing to do with the results of an election. One guy says humans breathe air and another guy says humans breathe water, do you stick your face in the toilet 50% of the time out of a spirit of compromise? No, you do not. One of those guys is all-the-way-wrong. All of life is like that, we think here.

Furthermore — the notion of an absolute center-point is wrong in every single sense possible. Which is the most frightening aspect, of all, with regard to this proposed Fairness Doctrine. Because when all’s said and done, there would have to be a task to be completed, bureaucratic in nature, that involves defining where the centerpoint is. You want the Government to be in charge of defining that?

Here, let’s try it on the subject of Rush Limbaugh himself.

For every hour spent discussing how incredibly awesome Rush Limbaugh is…you have to devote an equal and opposite hour, spent discussing how incredibly super-duper-duper awesome he is. It’s important to present both sides, after all.

I think that nails down, better than anything else I can imagine, the problems involved with having some nameless faceless anonymous bureaucrat stranger guy decide for you where the centerpoint is. It’s not an absolute thing in any sense. And our political discourse is not one-dimensional. Especially if we start thinking for ourselves; that’s when it gets really messy. That is when it truly becomes this endless procession of questions.

Are we our brothers’ keepers? Do we matter? Is there a God? Can we worship Him? Do we have a right to keep and bear arms? Are the three branches of our government co-equal, and if so, how? Is abortion murder? When does life begin? Is that government which governs least, that government which governs best? Is war ever necessary? Do fathers have any parental rights at all? Should Rick Warren be participating in Obama’s inauguration ceremonies?

Do we want our government requiring hours broadcast on one side or the other of these questions, regardless of the feelings of those broadcasting or listening, or the circumstances under which the requirement is enforced?

So Sinden is correct, although not for the reasons he articulates, because his point is that liberals don’t need the Fairness Doctrine in order to win. I’m not entirely sure which point would win his allegiance if they veered off in opposite directions, were he to think the Fairness Doctrine was necessary: That it’s wrong, or that liberals should always win. I’m thinking the latter. But in my worldview, the Fairness Doctrine is wrong because it’s a poor fit. The seesaw model simply doesn’t fit our discourse, even though it may be the only thing a cumbersome bureaucracy would be able, over the long term, to functionally comprehend.

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Airhead America Founder Agrees with Rush…Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Airhead America Founder Agrees with Rush…
Monday, December 22nd, 2008