The Fairness Doctrine and the Pending Counter Revolution

It seems the right lately is in fury over the possible renewal of the Fairness Doctrine. They fear that by bring back the fairness doctrine that somehow the liberals are deliberately trying to silence the right wing squawking brigade that we all know as talk radio. Some are even armed and ready, literally, to fight a pending violent revolution. This quote courtesy of Bert over at Folkbum from a guy named Ralph from Delafield, a caller into the Jay Weber show.

"You can’t say I’m not a crackpot, and neither are you [literal transcript, swear to God], but you know, they’re really playing with fire. They really, really are. They’re getting very, very close to inciting a very violent counter-revolution. The thing about conservatives, we are out here, and we are armed."

Jay, very amiably, then added that he has been getting lots of emails with a similar message about a coming revolution.

And now Charlie Sykes is buying into this fear by posting in his “Sunday Hot Read” regarding the fairness doctrine with the title of his post HERE COME THE SPEECH COP; he writes:

A telling non-denial from the Obama Administration. My read on this: It's on. As we saw on the stimulus package, Obama is letting the left drive his agenda, and this is deareat, fondest, most passionate wish of "progressives."

And Bruce at Badger Blogger suggest that WTMJ AM radio may want re-hire Kathleen Dunn. Really, I can’t figure out why they would be scared of her. She’s doesn’t present opposing viewpoints all that well anyway.

The Fairness Doctrine as we know it is defined as follows;

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the Commission's view) honest, equitable and balanced.

[It should not be confused, but often is, with the Equal Time rule. The Fairness Doctrine deals with matters of public importance, while the Equal Time rule deals only with political candidates.]

[…]

The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented.

By the very definition of the Fairness Doctrine it’s really hard to figure out why they are frightened by its renewal. It certainly doesn’t appear that it would Silence the squawking brigade or censor their propaganda. Their fear is opposing viewpoints being expressed on critical issues; and ask this question, why would Obama or the Democrats make some unrelenting drive to eliminate right wing radio now? The election is over, and the Obama campaign weathered the worst that right wing radio could throw at it. All that room on the radio dial seemed to have done more harm than good to their cause, so why would the liberals want to silence it now?

A pending violent revolution is upon us? Please, that’s ridiculous; stop with all the fear mongering.