The FCC ...Yeah You Know Me

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
1st Amendment: United States Constitution

The Supreme Court has once again decided to allow the FCC to run rampant over the rights of American broadcasters. It is now perfectly acceptable for them to fine a broadcast company up to $325,000 for any content they find objectionable, even on live programming. The court used one of the favorite arguments of statists everywhere: "It's for the children." Without the protection of the government, how can the American people be protected from the filth in the would? The airwaves would be filled with such horrors as to melt away the viewers' faces. One person arguing for the government claimed that without giving the FCC broad censorship powers "Big Bird would be dropping F-bombs." Justice Antonin Scalia and his colleagues claimed that children imitate what they hear, and since television is so pervasive, it is imperative that we protect them from any indecency on it.

Never mind what the children are exposed to everyday outside of the television. Is the government going to fine parents, the children themselves, or anyone that happens to swear in a public place? Even if we ignore the realities of ever leaving your house, the government is failing to make a logical or accurate argument. The FCC and the Supreme Court claim broadcast companies may be subjected to extraordinary regulation because of the "scarcity" of broadcast signals and the "unique" pervasiveness and accessibility to children. Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, even noted that this reasoning was on increasingly shaky ground. The simple truth is that, even though there was a point in the nation's history when television and radio did have these unique qualities, advancements in technology have rendered those points moot.

It is also very telling that the Supreme Court chose not the address the First Amendment concerns in their ruling. Justice Thomas also pointed out that :

The text of the First Amendment makes no distinctions among print, broadcast, and cable media, but we have done so.

Even members of the Supreme Court, the protectors of the Constitution, know that the FCC is violating the First Amendment, but continue to allow them to do so anyway. Censorship is censorship, no matter the reasons. Instead of dealing with the real issue at hand, the court decided to punt back to a lower court to decide if the FCC's actions are Constitutional. They were able to do this because the previous ruling against the FCC was on procedural, and not Constitutional, grounds. If the lower court finds against the FCC on Constitutional grounds, it is very likely this case will come before the Supreme Court again. If that happens they will be forced to do the right thing or show themselves as nothing more then statists in robes.

We the people need to start taking more responsibility and regulate what our families watch ourselves. If you do not support something that is on the television or the radio, change the channel or turn it off, it's that simple. There are even technologies in every modern television that can block questionable content automatically. If we are not able to do this simple thing, how can we do anything without the government holding our hands? This is especially important as the government turns its eyes toward the internet. We must stand strong against them, and not beg them to do our jobs for us. No regulation, no matter how innocuous, must be allowed to pass. Once the government has its claws into something, there is no getting them out.

Irony and Fraud

Recently in England, there was some uproar as evidence that a government agency that was supposed to help protect people's privacy was actually in collusion with an internet ad company (read about it here). As it turns out, the agency was supposed to "ensure" the online privacy of the British people, and was likely working with a company to decide how much privacy they should be protecting. This is hardly the only example of such government abuses, and it is in no way limited to the United Kingdom. America has more examples of inappropriate government/corporation collusion then a person can count. Energy, pollution, finances, and almost everything else imaginable have fallen under the watchful eye of the government. We have seen the results, and they are not good. At best, it makes noise about protecting something or someone while doing nothing more then increasing red tape and prices for the consumers. At worst, it expands government power and influence and leads to wide spread corruption.

In the United States, most of these regulatory powers are unconstitutional and they do not work. The power over industry is what creates lobbyists and the "culture of corruption" that both parties are such fans of. If the government did not have any of these extraordinary powers, then there would be no work for the lobbyists. Not only are these powers unconstitutional, but they are also usually used to create regulations that are reactionary. The regulations are spawned because of some perceived problem or complaint from the "concerned" populous. These regulations stifle competition by ensuring that no small or start-up companies can afford to enter the market. Larger corporations, that were able to operate without these restrictions, are easily able to absorb the costs or the fines created by them. There are even lobbyists to twist the regulations to benefit the entrenched companies at the cost of newer or smaller ones. If nothing else works companies have proven that they are not above giving bribes, and politicians are certainly not above taking them. Ultimately, the government is doing nothing more then hurting the consumer by driving down choice and driving up prices.

The only way to combat this kind of governmental scope creep is to start taking responsibility for ourselves. If you want your privacy protected online then take steps to do so. If you don't want a tiered internet system, don't support any ISPs that use it. If you don't want your children to watch filth on the television, then change the channel. Even the "big" issues can be solved this way. If a company has discriminatory hiring practices (the government got rid of that right?), then don't support them by working there or shopping there. The biggest, evilest corporations in the world still need money to exist. With out money or employees, the company will have to change its ways or die. Voting with our actions is infinitely more effective then with our politicians.

Rats Jumping Ship

In a move that shocked no one, Arlen Specter abandoned ship on the G.O.P. Seeing that he had no other choice than jump sides or get unceremoniously trounced in the primaries, Specter did what most politicians are apt to do: he looked out for number one. He made all kinds of claims about the "far right" and various demogauges in the Republican party for his decision to join the Democrats. He gave his best version of the Reagan speech where he did not leave the party, but the party left him. Unlike with Reagan, people are seeing this shill for what he is. He is little more then another opportunist politician that felt a change and the winds and decided to follow suit. His voting record was never particularly principled to begin with, unless you count his constant attempts to make himself for powerful and important.

All that has changed by his actions is that the Democrats now have 60 seats in the senate and are "filibuster" proof. Unfortunately, this means that a lot more of Obama's agenda is going to get forced through the Senate. This has nothing to do with the Republicans and the Democrats actually disagreeing with each other, it's just that they have to spite each other from time to time. With this new super-majority, Obama and the Democrats are going to be able to run rampant over the Constitution and the free markets. Government Motors will soon be a small blip when compared to what is coming now. With no real opposition remaining, every big government, Keynesian pipe dream is now on the table. The saddest thing about this is that it would only be different under McCain because the Democrats would be against this stuff if a Republican proposed it.

One of the reasons that he was being pressured out of the Republican party was his support for the bailouts. It would be wonderful if that meant that the Republicans were finally moving to an honestly fiscal conservative platform. It would do the party, and the country, a great service if there was a truly libertarian voice to stand against the statism that is currently running rampant. One of the best ways for the Republicans to recapture America is to remove the neo and theo cons and the squishy center. Sadly, this is unlikely to happen. The Republicans have made many small government promises in the past, which they quickly forget once they regain power. It also wasn't too long ago that they were largely in favor of the TARP programs when Bush was proposing them. Let's also not forget a very (neo)liberal senator that recently left the Democrats and was welcomed by the Republicans with open arms simply because he supported military adventurism. It is hard to believe that the Republicans have actually changed when this guy was almost their Vice Presidential candidate:

The Red Threat

There has been an increasingly loud cry from some conservative and Republican circles that Barack Obama is leading this country down the path of socialism. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth from them and they are yelling from the roof tops that the end of days (for the American way of life) is at hand. They look at the "radical" bailouts, budgets, and government programs as proof that Obama will be the ruin of this nation. Unfortunately for them (and the people that pin their hopes on Obama to save us), what Obama is doing is nothing new - and it certainly is not socialism. What it is are the same tricks and "solutions" the government has been using for years, and a political/economic theory that has far worse connotations.

Every President since at least Wilson has been using the same techniques that Obama is now using. Presidents like FDR reveled in the thought that the government could be used as a personal savior to each and every citizen. Even Republican superheros like Reagan, massively increased the size of the government and its expenditures. One would be quite hard pressed to find any differences between the last President and this one. What people fail to realize is that a change in velocity is not a change in direction. In fact, Obama's massive increase in spending and government intervention isn't particularly out of the ordinary either. For the most part, the government has increased dramatically from one administration to another. People are just beginning to notice because 2 may not be that much bigger then 1, but 1,000,000 is much larger then 500,000.

Through all this, the United States is still not marching on an inevitable path towards socialism. The state has no intentions (or desire) of seizing the means of production and distributing the profit. What we are actually moving towards is an increasingly corporatist system. In this system, the government and private enterprises are working together at the expense of the American people. One doesn't have to look further then the TARP programs to see these ideals in action. The banks still keep their profits, but the debt is publicized so that they don't have to face any of the consequences of their actions. Farm subsidies, auto "loans", and many other government expenditures are also examples of this. The entire Federal Reserve system is based on corporatist ideals as a private institution is working hand-in-hand with the Federal Government. Where this is leading us to has been best described by Mussolini:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.

A Step in the Right Direction

On February 26, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX 14) introduced H.R. 1207, which will create transparency in the Federal Reserve by allowing congress to audit its actions. The bill is currently in the House Committee on Financial Services and has recently acquired 92 cosponsors. (The full bill and its status can be found here.) These cosponsors run the political gambit from far left to far right because people are finally waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve cannot be allowed to operate freely any longer. Even if they have different reasons, from wanting to allow the free market to work unhindered again to simply being weary of an organization with that much unchecked power, Americans are beginning to call for some reigns on the Fed, if not its dismantling.

If you are an American citizen please contact your Representative (you can find out who they are here) and ensure that they are supporting and will continue to support this bill. If they are not a cosponsor yet, please write them and insist that they become one. There are also petitions and events in support of this bill which can be found at campaignforliberty.com. This is a small but very important step in reclaiming some of our control over the Federal Reserve. If we the people do not step up and demand that our employees (and their agents) be accountable for their actions, then there is little hope for this Republic. It is time that the American people know every cent that the Federal Reserve spends (prints) so that we can stop being run into these crises, which of course gives them more power. We cannot remove the Fed in one blow, but we can finally start to chip at it.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." ~Thomas Jefferson

The City on the Hill

With the release of the "torture memos", two debates have begun spreading across America. The first is whether the actions by the CIA and other agents acting on behalf of the United States Government should be considered torture. This debate has many legal ramifications and will greatly affect future intelligence gaining operations. It will likely be settled in the judiciary after many long precedings. There are many questions about what constitutes torture and how close we should come to that distinction. Even though this debate has it's share of demagogues and partisan hacks on either side that are more concerned with scoring political points then the truth, it is still a debate that must be had.

Unfortunately, there is another debate that threatens to do even greater harm to what's left of the remnants of America's ideals. The new question that is increasingly being posed is if it is ever alright for the American government to torture. The answer is and should always be emphatically no. It does not matter if these "enemy combatants" are not American citizens or don't fall under the Geneva Conventions. We are America, the shining beacon, the city on the hill, and we should never torture. A human life, no matter how terrible, is still a human life and, at the very least, should be respected. No matter how angry we are for what was done, or how much we hope to prevent by our actions, it is never acceptable to cross that line. We are not our enemies. If we have fallen so far as to question whether we can tolerate torture then it is likely that we have crossed the line past being redeemable.

Furthermore, if supposedly the nation with the best military, technology, and intelligence gathering in the world cannot use the means that it already has (many of them crossing various bounds as well), then how will torturing someone change that? The question is often posed as: "Should the government torture someone if it save 1,000 lives?" Who then should the government have tortured to prevent 9/11 or the first WTC attacks? What do we have left to say that the government cannot do? Another argument is that there are still more memos that prove the effectiveness of these techniques. If any technique is determined to be torture, then that should not even come into play. There is no doubt that when Saddam attacked the Kurds, there were some that had plans against his life. What he did was still wrong. Is that really what we want to become?

Government Marriage

Carrie Prejean (pictured), the runner up of this year's Miss USA pageant, recently became the center of a fire-storm over her comments about gay marriage. "Both" sides of the argument are using her personal opposition to gay marriage as some kind beacon for their own viewpoints. People like Perez Hilton are using every opportunity to attack and disparage her while Fox News and others on the Right are doing everything they can to defend her "honor". This firestorm started simply because someone that most of the country barely even knew made a statement based on what she probably spent her entire life hearing and believing. She is a person that would have already been out of the spotlight (for what it's worth) had she not made those comments.

What supporters of gay marriage don't understand is that by attacking and insulting her, they are just galvanizing the opposition. Insulting a person is definitely not the way to change their mind. She is also well within her rights to make the comments that she did. As wrongheaded as we might think what she said is, its much better to ignore or debate what she said then it is to attack her. There is nothing good that can come from yelling and screaming at someone and trying into browbeat them to your point of view. All it accomplishes is making you and your point of view look dumber and more reactionary then what you are fighting against. One of the great problems with the current American political discourse is that people can no longer discuss ideas without attacking the other side.

Also, why is the government involved in the business of marriage in the first place? As much as people want to pretend it's not, marriage is a largely religious institution and is, in fact, traditionally between a man and a woman. However, like all religious traditions, there are varying degrees that people and churches practice it. If people are so desperate for government involvement and enforcement of relationships, then at most the government should enforce civil union contracts. That way the government is completely separated from any of the religious aspects. There is then no reason for these contracts to be barred from any two consenting adults. If those two people want a marriage, then it is up to them, whoever they are, to find a religious institution that will marry them. It should also be the church's right to deny whoever they want. Part of being free is that there are people that will do things that you don't like.