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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 7:17:08 AM

MissSCD

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You realize you just called the President elect of the US an ape on a forum that has about 60,000 people in it.
It is people like you that make me sick.
You had your eight year reign. You have the worst President listed since they started tallying approval ratings.
Grin and bear it.

Regards, MissSCD

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 1:30:11 PM

Marc2b

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quote:

Did you worry about this when the Pubs held it for six years?

Yes. I am distrustful of all power.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 1:47:00 PM

Marc2b

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quote:

You realize you just called the President elect of the US an ape on a forum that has about 60,000 people in it.
It is people like you that make me sick.
You had your eight year reign. You have the worst President listed since they started tallying approval ratings.
Grin and bear it.

Regards, MissSCD

You slander me. Please point out exactly where I called President Elect Obama an Ape. It was Al Fraken I called an ape and that was in jest (although technically true – humans are members of the ape family). What do you mean by “my” eight year reign? I am not a Republican, nor am I a Democrat. I am an independent who leans conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues. Try turning off your ideological filter and perhaps you won’t find as many people who make you sick. Bear in mind that if you know somebody only by what they post (or in this case, what you have falsely perceived someone to have posted) on the Collarme Boards then you only know a tiny piece of them – which means that you don’t really know them at all.

Peace and Prosperity to you and yours.

Marc2b

< Message edited by Marc2b -- 11/6/2008 1:51:05 PM >

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 1:50:12 PM

Marc2b

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Termy – I’ll get back to you. I’ve basically just been called a racist (and racism is something I utterly despise) without any justification whatsoever and I’m too pissed off to think clearly.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 1:50:54 PM

philosophy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

Why I am against the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine mandates equal time for opposing views. Sounds good.

..oh Marc. Precisely the same error Sanity made.

"It did not require equal time for opposing views, but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

........please do your own research and see if i'm wrong.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 5:25:45 PM

Marc2b

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I’m not sure I agree that a television or radio station is like a public utility. There are two key differences. First, public utilities are considered necessary to sustain life. While some of us may be able to trek into the hills and survive playing Jeremiah Johnson, most of us cannot. If electricity and/or water are unavailable to us – we’re screwed. As much as I like a particular television show, I can survive just fine without it. Second, public utilities don’t involve matters of free speech.

A case can be made for forcing a power company to provide electricity at an affordable rate, although market forces are still in play. A utility company would be stupid to raise its rates to an unaffordable level like you said. It would seriously cut into profits and piss off a lot of people – neither is good for business.

I don’t think a case can be made for telling a radio station what viewpoints they can air. I believe in the free market because I believe it to be essential to freedom itself. I’m not a purest. I have no problem with thou shall not dump thy toxic waste in the schoolyard play ground type of regulations but, as you pointed out, does the government have the right to tell a restaurant what kind of meals it can serve?

The problem with transferring such decision making power to the government is that you are transferring the power to people who have neither the necessary knowledge to make such decisions (who is more likely to know what that restaurants customer base enjoys: the owners or some bureaucrat who live 500 miles away?) or have a vested interest if they make the wrong decisions. It is the owners (a lot of restaurant owners in fact), not the bureaucrat, who suffers if the bureaucrat makes the wrong decisions. Only the one business suffers if it makes the wrong decisions – and existing or new businesses can fill the void.

A radio station is in the same situation. The owners know what their listeners want to listen to (and if they don’t they suffer the same fate as the restaurant). As you pointed out if the government dictates to them that they must devote airtime to programs nobody wants to listen to they will likely stick such programming into time slots when few are listening. Even then, other programming may be more profitable, thus costing the company revenue.

But it is more than that. Do we really want the government telling us what viewpoints we have to air? Such a power basically gives the government to force certain programs of the air by making it unprofitable to air them. With such a power the government can see to it that only its viewpoints are the ones that get aired. In the free market at least there is competition as well as other media to air ones views. Perhaps you can’t afford to start your own television station but clearly you have access to the internet and can blog. That’s just one example of the alternatives you have.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 5:35:34 PM

Marc2b

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quote:

..oh Marc. Precisely the same error Sanity made.

"It did not require equal time for opposing views, but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. "

And who decides what constitutes contrasting views? The fairness Doctrine opens up radio stations to lawsuits from the government and other political groups. Considering how heated people get about politics, do you really think such lawsuits won’t happen? It just becomes easier for the radio stations to avoid the problem by avoiding political viewpoints altogether. Again, it is the difference between intent (or professed intent) and effect. There is nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 7:46:52 PM

philosophy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

quote:

..oh Marc. Precisely the same error Sanity made.

"It did not require equal time for opposing views, but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. "

And who decides what constitutes contrasting views? The fairness Doctrine opens up radio stations to lawsuits from the government and other political groups. Considering how heated people get about politics, do you really think such lawsuits won’t happen? It just becomes easier for the radio stations to avoid the problem by avoiding political viewpoints altogether. Again, it is the difference between intent (or professed intent) and effect. There is nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine.

....you're moving the goal posts........you suggested it meant equal time. It doesn't. Never did. Now, as you are clearly wrong on that part.....perhaps you're wrong on others. Seems to me you're engaging in a piece of sophistry. You don't like it, fair enough, but how about you don't treat me like an idiot. Read the Fairness Doctrine. The wiki page i linked to has arguments both for and against it.
i caught you cold in an error of fact regarding it. Simply pretending you never said that and trying to force another line of argument is something i expect of Sanity but not of you.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 9:05:59 PM

Marc2b

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quote:

....you're moving the goal posts........you suggested it meant equal time. It doesn't. Never did. Now, as you are clearly wrong on that part.....perhaps you're wrong on others. Seems to me you're engaging in a piece of sophistry. You don't like it, fair enough, but how about you don't treat me like an idiot. Read the Fairness Doctrine. The wiki page i linked to has arguments both for and against it.
i caught you cold in an error of fact regarding it. Simply pretending you never said that and trying to force another line of argument is something i expect of Sanity but not of you.

Fine. I concede the point (I thought I already had by reiterating the phrase “contrasting views”). I confused the “balance” bullshit of the Fairness Doctrine with the equal time rule for political candidates. But it is not relevant. I simply jumped to the relevant point. I don’t know why you would interpret that as treating you like an idiot because that was certainly not the case. Nor was I trying to force another line of argument but rather was returning to my points that intent does not necessarily equal effect and that the Fairness Doctrine can be used as a weapon to squelch free speech.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/6/2008 10:46:48 PM

philosophy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

........... intent does not necessarily equal effect and that the Fairness Doctrine can be used as a weapon to squelch free speech.

....true. However so can the market place be used to squelch free speech. In fact, it routinely is used to squelch free speech. The Fairness Doctrine has many similarities with affirmative action. In an ideal world it would be wholly un-necessary, even wholly unethical. It is not, sadly, an ideal world. While big money controls the means of communication, it has the ability to set the agenda and prevent certain viewpoints being heard. Thus is the basis of propaganda, and i'm sure you wont deny the power of that. Money talks.......what speaks for those without money?
Think of the Fairness Doctrine as the equivilant of those bits of small print on advertising which, in essence, says 'the preceding may well be hyperbole, it is encumbant on you to do your own research'.
As you know, the motto of the USA is 'e pluribus unum'....from many one. There is nothing to fear from the many voices, even if they are not all profitable.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/7/2008 5:53:52 AM

Marc2b

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You’re still focusing in on intent and not effect. So what if the intent is to give voice to the voiceless, if that is not the effect? I disagree with the notion that big money has the power to prevent certain voices from being heard. They may be able to prevent it in certain media (but since we have both CNN and Fox News, I consider even that doubtful) but they can’t prevent other forms of communication from being used. Besides, the freedom to speak is not the freedom to be heard. If people don’t want to hear certain views (as demonstrated by their choice of what stations to listen or not listen to), why should they be forced to? Lastly, as I’ve said often enough before, the solution to the abuse of power (e.g. a rich corporation) is not to hand that power to someone else (e.g. the government) to abuse. I don’t pretend to have all the solutions but I see no reason to pretend something is a solution when it clearly isn’t.

If I have been coming across as snarky, I apologize. It’s just that every time I come to this thread I am reminded of MissSCD’s unwarranted attack upon my character and it puts a bug up my butt.

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/7/2008 8:13:31 AM

Termyn8or

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Miss S he did say Franken, not Obama. Also just where did that figure of 60,000 come from ? I mean it is possible, but that the bottom of the page where you select the forum it says "There are ___ users and ___ guests". It usually adds up to somewhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred. Granted that is at a given time on a given day, so it would not be unreasonable to say perhaps 20,000.

Now to the topic to which we have been derailed. A valid topic, considering the power of the media. Intent is hard to guage, and they seem to somehow screw up alot of laws and render them innefective for their apparent purpose. However we have this problem.

The root problem is that ownership of major media outlet is becoming more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Via mergers and aquisitions there are but a handful of people who control what is broadcast and printed in this country.

People can see this and many in the US like to read the BBC online and some other sources, with some just about giving up on the local news. They might even get to the point where they turn the TV off, I did.

So this so called fairness doctrine is actually telling a private entity what to do. Problem is, if the government can do that, why not just tell the media that they can't criticise the government ? Well they don't have to, if you look into it you will find the owners/CEOs of the major media monopolies have close political ties.

Let's say we have a fairness doctrine, Obama gets time, therefore McCain gets time. But what of Ron Paul ? What of me ? What of you ? Obviously you can't put 300,000,000 people on the air. So a line must be drawn and that is the dangerous part, because someone has to draw the line, who shall that be ?

Now there is an economic barrier. Have you any idea how much is costs just to put up a TV commercial, or a full page ad in a major newspaper ? Mainly market forces propelled these prices into the stratosphere, but I think sometimes that they are kept artificially high to freeze out dissenting voices as well as small businesses. I have known people who work for TV stations and they tell me that the real money is made by those at the top, and regular employees are not paid all that well. It's not hard to figure out where that money is going.

There used to be strict guidlines that in any major market would not be dominated, that one entity was allowed to own only one AM, one FM, one TV station and one newspaper in any given major US market. Those regulations have been stripped away over the years and Micheal Powell just about gutted the rest of it not too long ago. It's getting to the point where one person could own every major media outlet in this country.

The fairness doctrine in it's original form doesn't fix this, but what would ? Force the monopolies to sell off some of their assets ? Germany tried to force the sale of I believe I.G. Farben, and it didn't work. They don't even pretend to be a free country. Neither does England, but they have some sort of oversight panel that judges the media and advises. I don't know if that body has any real teeth, but to my knowledge nothing of the sort exists in the US. So what do we do ?

I am totally sick of seeing one anchorperson spewing out some crap while the other bobs their head up and down as if to nod yes. An obvious ploy.

So what do we do ?

T

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/7/2008 11:33:19 AM

philosophy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

You’re still focusing in on intent and not effect.

...well, thought i was focussing on both, but perhaps i've been a bit obtuse.

quote:

So what if the intent is to give voice to the voiceless, if that is not the effect?

....well, a failed idea with good intentions can occur. i'm open to further ways to remedy the situation, but think there is an urgent issue to address.

quote:

I disagree with the notion that big money has the power to prevent certain voices from being heard. They may be able to prevent it in certain media (but since we have both CNN and Fox News, I consider even that doubtful) but they can’t prevent other forms of communication from being used.

...well, here we do disagree. Seems to me this is something of a chicken and egg situation. Do media outlets reflect peoples views or do they form them? Mass media, by definition, speak to/of the masses. i should have been more specific though. Big money controls mass media. Of course that doesn't prevent me from printing pamphlets and handing them out, or starting a blog. However the voice embodied in such forms of communication pales in comparison to Fox News when it is placed next to the Simpsons.

quote:

Besides, the freedom to speak is not the freedom to be heard. If people don’t want to hear certain views (as demonstrated by their choice of what stations to listen or not listen to), why should they be forced to?

...ok, hypothetical situation for you. If a news outlet flat out lies about world politics but because it is damn good at its job it gets a wide viewership, should there be any redress for truth? Or do you truly feel that truth is a democratic process?

quote:

Lastly, as I’ve said often enough before, the solution to the abuse of power (e.g. a rich corporation) is not to hand that power to someone else (e.g. the government) to abuse.

...as i said in an earlier post i don't think we'd need any remedy in an ideal world, but it's not an ideal world. If a rich corporation abuses its power what remedies do you suggest?

quote:

I don’t pretend to have all the solutions but I see no reason to pretend something is a solution when it clearly isn’t.

...what's clear to you isn't clear to me, i'm afraid. i do see a problem......i want all the voices to be heard, not just the ones that can afford the airtime or have captured the popular imagination. Only then can an electorate be informed fully......and an informed electorate has to be the basis of a true democracy.

quote:

If I have been coming across as snarky, I apologize. It’s just that every time I come to this thread I am reminded of MissSCD’s unwarranted attack upon my character and it puts a bug up my butt.

...oh we all get defensive sometimes. i got a bit miffed when you appeared top channel Sanity

.....i was thinking a bit more about this and i think you may be making the same mistake Mr Greenspan owned up to recently. Essentially he thought the free market would work for the best interests of all concerned. They didn't. Likewise i think you see an unregulated news media will act in the best interests of all concerned......i don't think they will, or have.

(edited for a missing / )

< Message edited by philosophy -- 11/7/2008 11:34:38 AM >

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RE: What is the big deal ? - 11/7/2008 4:47:47 PM

Marc2b

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Sometimes when people are debating they end up dancing around the central issue (often without realizing it) and I think that could be happening here. I’ve already stated my reasons why I consider the Fairness Doctrine a bad idea and won’t bother going over them again. The unspoken issue here, I think, is whether there is even a need for government intervention to achieve a balance a views. I don’t see it. I find it fascinating that both liberals and conservatives often believe that the media is monolithic – against them! I flip through the channels and find both liberal and conservative views well represented. You compare a person passing out pamphlets to a giant media corporation and, quite correctly, find that the pamphleteer comes up short. But while that particular individual may not be able to compete with Time/Warner, that doesn’t mean that the viewpoints the pamphleteer holds are not represented in the media marketplace.

Even if we agreed on the need for government intervention in presenting a balance of views there is the question of whether the government should have such a power. Government power is different from power accrued in the private sector. Government (I’m using the term generally here, not specifically in reference to the U.S. Federal government) power is backed up by force of law (which in turn is backed up by force of arms), by the ability to deprive people of the life, liberty, and property. History has shown us time and time again that such power lends itself to abuse. With the free market there is a least an opportunity (again, no guarantees) for alternate viewpoints to be aired. With government, you get what they deign to give you.

As for your hypothetical about a corporation abusing its’ power – if they are violating laws, then there are courts to remedy the situation. If they are not violating laws, then perhaps what others view as abusing their power is merely success in the marketplace; a success that pisses of the losers who then seek to rig the game in their favor via government intervention. As for truth, who decides what truth is? Both CNN and Fox News consider themselves to be bringing us the truth.

You state that we need these remedies because we don’t live in an ideal world. When has it ever been an ideal world? And again, the question must be asked: who decides what an ideal world is? What you consider an ideal world and what I consider an ideal world (not to mention six billion other people on planet Earth) are not likely to be the same thing. So who get to decide what version of an ideal world we get? Rather than focus on outcomes (since everybody will never be satisfied anyway) I focus on rights and freedoms. We may not be able to create an ideal world but each of us should have a chance to create an ideal life for ourselves by exercising our freedoms and rights (while respecting those of others).

Lastly, I have never contended that the free market works for the best interest of all concerned but just as Winston Churchill considered Democracy to be the worst form of government - except for all the others, I consider the free market to be the worst economic system – except for all the others.

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