President Barack Obama accuses greedy doctors of maiming diabetics. Democrats label people Nazis and un-American for rejecting government health care. Meanwhile, King Hopey-Changey moves against free speech.
Recently, attorney Mark Lloyd was appointed Federal Communications Commission Chief “Diversity” Officer. Lloyd’s new boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, says that his agency “must ensure that the communications field… is open to new ideas from all sources.” But as we’ll see, some “sources” take precedence over others.
Writing for the leftwing Center for American Progress, Lloyd coauthored “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” which complains thT 91 percent of talk radio runs conservative programming. The report notes “more balanced” programming “in markets such as New York and Chicago.” It also predicts the return of Peter Pan and happiness for all.
The “study” matter-of-factly implies that balance means half conservative and half progressive programming. This of course means that Monrovian cross-dressing hermaphrodites will continue to feel slighted. Never mind, for although twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative versus liberal, the liberal, or “progressive,” is the self-appointed guardian of “balance.”
Lloyd and his coauthors lament that “no matter how the data is analyzed” conservative talk emerges supreme “over and over again.” So then, the data have spoken. But enlightened ones with hay-wired cerebral cortices know better. The market is wrong and progressives are right—in a left sort of way. The report maintains that “conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast.” Classic projection: Progressives habitually “push” progressivism as a substitute for self-respect.
Mark Lloyd can now use the FCC to push progressivism over conservatism without uttering the words “Fairness Doctrine.” Lloyd and his coauthors question if “companies licensed to broadcast over the public airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.” People obviously should need what progressives wantthem to need. Lloyd and company use the word “gap” to label the difference between what Americans demand and what progressives want to force-feed by government diktat. But when nine-tenths of customers support a product, whatever “gap” might remain is microscopic. Such truth doesn’t faze know-it-alls who cannot accept that customers have free wills and common sense.
The “gap” supposedly flows from “structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system” and failure to consider “clear public interest requirements.” Progressives never met a market they didn’t want to regulate. When the masses don’t recognize value, progressives must lead them to it. If “public interest requirements” aren’t met by programming that people love, progressives are reflexively motivated to use government to force programming that customers will hate. Fair’s fair.
Lloyd and company dredge up a well-worn fallacy, bellyaching that “ownership diversity” could be the “single most important” reason conservative talk dominates. They praise “stations owned by women, minorities, or local owners” as “less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.” This story is now a familiar one. Progressives impulsively invoke tribalism—a.k.a. multiculturalism—to justify an agenda which the people abhor.
What do Lloyd and company recommend?
Government regulation. Specifically, government regulation to force social engineering. Government should require “diversity” in station ownership. This provides a mechanism to inflict persistently rejected viewpoints on the people.
Mark Lloyd and his co-zealots push three actions.
- Legal discrimination: “caps” on the proportions of various types of people who can own stations.
- “Greater local accountability over radio licensing.”
- Forcing broadcasters that don’t meet “public interest obligations” to fund public broadcasting. Stations would have to do what liberals say or else pay to be ridiculed by liberals on competitor stations.
“The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” makes an especially priceless point in a portrait of a priceless reality: Three companies own 82 stations broadcasting all conservative programming—not an ounce of progressivism. New rules would require that conservative stations provide progressive programming, Rumor has it that the tactic is spreading to other sectors of the private economy, all enforced by enlightened government bureaucrats. French chefs will have to prepare gopher guts for people ordering Crêpes Suzette, auto dealers will be required to sell Air-Obama shoes to SUV customers, and dentists must cut the feet off abscessed tooth sufferers.
Lloyd’s and his coauthors’ “study” points out a major reason given for conservative talk’s dominance: The “marketplace favor[s] conservative shows and audiences over progressive ones.” Their response? It ain’t so. Government bureaucrats know markets better than the people and products comprising those markets. More pointedly, zealots have a duty to teach the people what they should want.
When a broadcaster’s license comes up for renewal, the public must “participate in the process to determine whether the license should be extended.” The FCC Diversity Czar wants the public to determine if a company licensed to do business should do business. How long before government types try to control how much people make or whether certain folks should gain entry into jobs or schools ahead of “preferred” candidates? No, this could never happen.
Commenting on President Obama’s slight-of-hand style, classicist Victor Davis Hanson observes, “He was the ultimate stealth candidate who knew that masking his intent was the only way to get elected. ‘Hope and Change’ really meant ‘I am an old-fashioned statist progressive whose views are at odds with most of America,’ which is too dumb to recognize wisdom ‘from on high by gifted elites like myself’” The Greeks’ Trojan Horse had nothing on the FCC beast that Obama is feeding. Blink their eyes, and Americans will miss what’s happening.
Americans mustn’t blink.
