A liberal blogger, Rob of Illinois Reason, is having fun at my expense because I'm against the renewal of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." The misnamed broadcast requirement became part of the regulatory swagger of the Federal Communications Commission in 1949 stating that broadcasters "afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance."
The broadcast airwaves were viewed as a scarce resource then. Since 1949, the number of television stations and radio outlets has grown dramatically, shooting the scarcity argument in favor of the "Fairness Doctrine" down.
In the 1980s the Reagan administration, no fan of government regulation, steadily chipped away at the "Fairness Doctrine" until 1987, when the FCC, stocked with Reagan appointees, abolished it altogether.
Well done, Gipper.
And shortly thereafter, conservative talkers such as Rush Limbaugh and a whole bunch of others put down stakes in the dying AM band of the radio dial, and helped engineer the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.
The Democrats, whose supporters dominate the other media, plotted almost immediately after the it long overdue cancellation to put the "Fairness Doctrine" into law. But Republican Congresses and presidents have stood in the way since then.
The "Fairness Doctrine" is anything but fair. Pundits have rightfully remarked that re-instituting such constraints on freedom of speech is analogous to Hugo Chavez shutting down opposition television stations in Venezuela.
But the libs claim all they want are "equal voices" on the airwaves.
Be careful what you wish for.
Chicagoans my age and older may remember Lar "America First" Daly. Sometimes he ran as a Democrat, sometimes as a Republican, other times for his "America First" party.
For many years Daly campaigned in an Uncle Sam suit, until a tragedy of sorts struck--someone stole the costume and Daly never bothered to replace it.
Daly was opposed to public schools, supported casino gambling (he was ahead of this time on that one), and he was supporter capital punishment for members of the Communist Party, along with a whole bunch of other extreme causes.
In 1975, while my brothers and tuned in to WGN-TV early for a Saturday night Chicago Black Hawks hockey game, we caught in-progess Lar Daly instead. Daly, we learned at the end of the broadcast, had commandeered airtime from WGN as a result of the "equal time" provision of the "Fairness Doctrine."
This was not the first time Daly knocked the puck at the back of the net, so to speak, as Time Magazine described in 1959 and 1964.
After several presidential runs and attempts to win the office of Mayor of Chicago from the incumbent Richard J. Daley, the legendary "Boss of Chicago," "No 'E'" Daly threw his hat in the mayoral ring once again. And he forced WGN to air a half hour of his mindless ramblings before the Black Hawks hit the ice.
I can't remember his precise political positions for that campaign, but it was standard, for him that is, whack job stuff.
But what stands out to me 32 years later was the "Lar Daly Curse." During on Channel 9 rant, Daly explained in his resonant baritone that he had placed a curse on the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert of course, for knocking him off of the Democratic ballot in the 1960 New Hampshire primary.
I can't remember his precise words, but he said something along the lines of "Both of them are now dead."
Both men of course were assassinated, and the Kennedy killings in 1975 were still fairly recent events. To put it into perspective, 9/11 happened six years ago--seven years to prior '75, Bobby Kennedy was shot to death.
Daly then went on to place a new curse: This time on Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Read closely now supporters of the "Fairness Doctrine": Because of that ditched regulation you want put into law, it's by no means a stretch of the imagination that you'll have a crackpot like Lar Daly on television implying a death curse on a leading public official. Or worse, a Jihadist nut.
Is that your idea of "fairness?"
Be careful of what you wish for.
Mayor Daley did die, of natural causes, a year later. Not to be outdone, Lar Daly followed him to the next world in 1979. History has not recorded if he had been cursed beforehand.
Of course Richard J. Daley's son now rules Chicago, the Daley family, with an "E" that is, one-upped Lar Daly.
And if Lar Daly was around today, he probably wouldn't think that was fair.
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I can't wait to see how they will react to Franks' current opposition to an income tax hike.
