Censorship: Part II

Republicans like to criticize Democrats for growing the government of the United States, for creating the welfare state and for promoting the lie that a government has the responsibility to take care of its people from the cradle to the grave. Republicans run on these criticisms, and I agree with them. Once in office, however, Republicans go to work growing government, empowering executive entities like the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] to big stick the communications industry and to police the market place of ideas.

Democrats are hostile to reality in the material world and use government to “correct” economic inequality. With force [i.e. the progressive tax code] they extort wealth from its rightful owners to feed, house, and provide heath care for people who consume more than they produce. If one argues that these people are living the lives they chose, Democrats invariably fall back on the argument: “What about their kids? Their kids didn’t do anything to deserve poverty.” Now leaders on both sides are voting to send checks to the irresponsible parents of children living in poverty. Individual rights and justice are sacrificed to create social welfare programs in the name of helping children as if there are no private sector solutions that would preserve those rights. Government power is grown to take over the parents’ responsibility to feed, clothe, and house their children.

Republicans are hostile to reality in the realm of ideas and use government to restrict speech they find offensive. When one argues, for example, that those who find profanity on the radio airwaves offensive are free to change the channel, social conservatives argue that the restrictions on speech are necessary “to protect the children.” Once again, individual rights are sacrificed in the name of the children. Government power is grown in order to take over the parents’ responsibility to monitor their own children, the private sector solution.

I am an adult. I have been for nearly thirty years. Nobody has a right to tell me what I can read, listen to, or watch. Nobody has a right to edit the workings of my mind. What I write, however unpopular, belongs to me. Every adult in existence enjoys the very same rights.

My government has a responsibility to protect me from people who would try to use government to:

>shield me from the consequences of my actions;

>force the dictates of their “commanded moral code” on me;

>demand any sacrifice of me to shield them from the consequences of their actions;

>tax my productivity so that my wealth may be redistributed;

>tell me what consenting adult I may sleep with;

>tell me what I can read or view;

>tell me what I can put into my body;

>force me to acknowledge their God.

My government has utterly failed to protect me from arbitrary censorship in the market place of ideas. I concur with Alex Epstein, "Open Access" and the Tyranny of the FCC, who wrote: Americans need to start recognizing airwaves as the private property they really are, and demand the abolition of the FCC. Then the government can hold a fair and just auction for the 700 MHz spectrum, and the others, in which each spectrum is not licensed but sold--no strings attached.