Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
THE "UNFAIRNESS" DOCTRINE
Customers who peruse the Current Affairs section at a prominent Oceanside bookstore may be getting a preview of what access to contrary opinions will be like if the Obama Administration reinstitutes governmental regulation of radio broadcasts.
Whether a left-wing patron or some Obama-worshipping employee is responsible, I don’t know. What I do know is how frequently I find conservative books concealed behind leftist volumes or scattered about the shelves in alphabetical disarray.
My most recent visit to this establishment provided an egregious example of ideological rearrangement—with Bill O’Reilly’s mug obliterated by some “pinhead’s” oeuvre, Ann Coulter’s books given a minimum of semi-orderly exposure, and works by Bernard Goldberg, Dick Morris, and Newt Gingrich distributed across the a-to-z spectrum.
By contrast, a veritable shrine was devoted to publications by and about Barack Obama. (Mind you, this is the Current Affairs section, not the coffee table memorabilia shelf.)
Not surprisingly, the store didn’t have the book I was looking for—or perhaps it was in stock (as their computer indicated) but had been moved to an undisclosed location for politically incorrect titles.
The good news is that a same-brand store in Encinitas seemed to have a handle on things—with almost all Current Affairs material displayed in proper alphabetical order. There was a nice “Obama” section, but not one that dominated the racks. Furthermore, face-front displays seemed evenly divided between left and right opinion. Finally, the Encinitas store had the un-PC book that had apparently gone missing in Oceanside.
My “where’s Waldo” browsing experience foreshadows the difficulty most Americans will have gaining access to dissenting opinions if Obama’s leftist allies succeed in reimposing, either through the front or back door, the Orwellian-titled “Fairness Doctrine.”
It’s staggering to think that Democrat Senators like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed support for this Constitution-trampling relic of a world where electronic media outlets could be counted on one hand. But then leftist politicians tend toward a totalitarian mentality where opposition to their own thinking is denounced as “divisive” but a 24/7 attack machine on their side (replete with character, and real, assassination scenarios) is taken for granted.
Not content with the overwhelming left-wing bias of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Hollywood, Letterman, Leno, “Law and Order” and most of the nation’s major newspapers, Schumer and friends want to stifle opposition voices in the one medium where conservatives, by dint of commercial success, have achieved a modicum of balance in the total media universe.
While President Obama has said he opposes reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” (more honestly called The Anti-Limbaugh Democrat Enabling Act), FCC commissioner Robert McDowell warns that the policy will probably be rebranded and promoted in the name of localism and diversity—a likelihood reinforced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s evasive “Fairness Doctrine” responses to a Senate committee.
Under McDowell’s worst-case scenario, community advisory boards, filled with book-squelching ACORN activists, would determine whether Rick Roberts or Roger Hedgecock are serving what they conceive to be “the public interest.” For leftists, that’s “fairness.”
Whether a left-wing patron or some Obama-worshipping employee is responsible, I don’t know. What I do know is how frequently I find conservative books concealed behind leftist volumes or scattered about the shelves in alphabetical disarray.
My most recent visit to this establishment provided an egregious example of ideological rearrangement—with Bill O’Reilly’s mug obliterated by some “pinhead’s” oeuvre, Ann Coulter’s books given a minimum of semi-orderly exposure, and works by Bernard Goldberg, Dick Morris, and Newt Gingrich distributed across the a-to-z spectrum.
By contrast, a veritable shrine was devoted to publications by and about Barack Obama. (Mind you, this is the Current Affairs section, not the coffee table memorabilia shelf.)
Not surprisingly, the store didn’t have the book I was looking for—or perhaps it was in stock (as their computer indicated) but had been moved to an undisclosed location for politically incorrect titles.
The good news is that a same-brand store in Encinitas seemed to have a handle on things—with almost all Current Affairs material displayed in proper alphabetical order. There was a nice “Obama” section, but not one that dominated the racks. Furthermore, face-front displays seemed evenly divided between left and right opinion. Finally, the Encinitas store had the un-PC book that had apparently gone missing in Oceanside.
My “where’s Waldo” browsing experience foreshadows the difficulty most Americans will have gaining access to dissenting opinions if Obama’s leftist allies succeed in reimposing, either through the front or back door, the Orwellian-titled “Fairness Doctrine.”
It’s staggering to think that Democrat Senators like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed support for this Constitution-trampling relic of a world where electronic media outlets could be counted on one hand. But then leftist politicians tend toward a totalitarian mentality where opposition to their own thinking is denounced as “divisive” but a 24/7 attack machine on their side (replete with character, and real, assassination scenarios) is taken for granted.
Not content with the overwhelming left-wing bias of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Hollywood, Letterman, Leno, “Law and Order” and most of the nation’s major newspapers, Schumer and friends want to stifle opposition voices in the one medium where conservatives, by dint of commercial success, have achieved a modicum of balance in the total media universe.
While President Obama has said he opposes reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” (more honestly called The Anti-Limbaugh Democrat Enabling Act), FCC commissioner Robert McDowell warns that the policy will probably be rebranded and promoted in the name of localism and diversity—a likelihood reinforced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s evasive “Fairness Doctrine” responses to a Senate committee.
Under McDowell’s worst-case scenario, community advisory boards, filled with book-squelching ACORN activists, would determine whether Rick Roberts or Roger Hedgecock are serving what they conceive to be “the public interest.” For leftists, that’s “fairness.”
Friday, March 06, 2009
PROP 8: THE CRITICAL ISSUES JUDGES MAY IGNORE
The March 1 Perspective pages of the North County Times contained a spirited two-on-two reprise of arguments for and against Proposition 8.
I say “two-on-two,” but supporters of the November measure doubtless noted that one of the arguments against overturning Prop. 8 was authored by an editorialist who opposed the law but hopes to preserve the integrity of the amendment process. Thus, only one of the four pieces agreed with Proposition 8 on the merits—a law approved by about 60% of North County voters.
On the positive side, at least there were two substantive reasons given for upholding the will of the people when it comes to maintaining as normative the male-female definition of an institution as it exists in all but a handful of “progressive” bastions in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
Still, little was said that countered the hyperbolic rhetoric in the anti-8 piece that claimed citizens throughout California were in grave danger of losing their rights unless an institution that’s existed for millennia is redefined to post-modern specifications. Ignored in this argument were the two central questions at issue: Are there persuasive reasons for defining marriage as male-female? Are there persuasive reasons for defining homosexuality in the same class as race?
The answer to the first question is clear. The reason marriage is male-female is because only male-female unions produce children, and without children a compelling rationale for marriage as a state-sanctioned institution disappears.
The fact that some men and women get married and don’t have children doesn’t alter the basic link between marriage and raising children. Laws are general, and the essential component of reproduction is male plus female.
On the other hand, changing the definition of marriage to include unions that by their nature exclude procreation sends a quite different message—that marriage is not about children but rather about “feelings of affection.”
Beyond the biological facts of life, sociological evidence demonstrates that children are best raised in families with a mother and a father. Thus, laws promoting this ideal are warranted and can’t be logically equated with segregation codes rooted in notions of racial superiority.
One race isn’t superior to another, but male-female households are better (in general, and thus in law) than households where one sex does all the child-raising or (presumptively) where only one sex is represented in the parental mix. Similarly, Western societies have long presumed the superiority of monogamous over polygamous households.
Concerning parallels drawn between homosexuality and race, there is no compelling evidence, after decades of partisan research, that sexual inclinations are in the same genetic class as skin color. What’s obvious, however (from Greek antiquity to the present) is that social mores greatly impact sexual behavior, whatever the hormonal or genetic givens.
Unfortunately, I suspect that four of California’s Supreme Court jurists have already made up their minds and that same-sex marriage will soon become a “right” like abortion—conjured out of emanations from “progressive” penumbra. Judges rule—history, nature, and democracy be damned.
I say “two-on-two,” but supporters of the November measure doubtless noted that one of the arguments against overturning Prop. 8 was authored by an editorialist who opposed the law but hopes to preserve the integrity of the amendment process. Thus, only one of the four pieces agreed with Proposition 8 on the merits—a law approved by about 60% of North County voters.
On the positive side, at least there were two substantive reasons given for upholding the will of the people when it comes to maintaining as normative the male-female definition of an institution as it exists in all but a handful of “progressive” bastions in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
Still, little was said that countered the hyperbolic rhetoric in the anti-8 piece that claimed citizens throughout California were in grave danger of losing their rights unless an institution that’s existed for millennia is redefined to post-modern specifications. Ignored in this argument were the two central questions at issue: Are there persuasive reasons for defining marriage as male-female? Are there persuasive reasons for defining homosexuality in the same class as race?
The answer to the first question is clear. The reason marriage is male-female is because only male-female unions produce children, and without children a compelling rationale for marriage as a state-sanctioned institution disappears.
The fact that some men and women get married and don’t have children doesn’t alter the basic link between marriage and raising children. Laws are general, and the essential component of reproduction is male plus female.
On the other hand, changing the definition of marriage to include unions that by their nature exclude procreation sends a quite different message—that marriage is not about children but rather about “feelings of affection.”
Beyond the biological facts of life, sociological evidence demonstrates that children are best raised in families with a mother and a father. Thus, laws promoting this ideal are warranted and can’t be logically equated with segregation codes rooted in notions of racial superiority.
One race isn’t superior to another, but male-female households are better (in general, and thus in law) than households where one sex does all the child-raising or (presumptively) where only one sex is represented in the parental mix. Similarly, Western societies have long presumed the superiority of monogamous over polygamous households.
Concerning parallels drawn between homosexuality and race, there is no compelling evidence, after decades of partisan research, that sexual inclinations are in the same genetic class as skin color. What’s obvious, however (from Greek antiquity to the present) is that social mores greatly impact sexual behavior, whatever the hormonal or genetic givens.
Unfortunately, I suspect that four of California’s Supreme Court jurists have already made up their minds and that same-sex marriage will soon become a “right” like abortion—conjured out of emanations from “progressive” penumbra. Judges rule—history, nature, and democracy be damned.
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