Reply #27: I'm sorry, that's just not a strong argument. [View All]

Nevermind that the argument is moot because Sen. Clinton is not in a conspiracy to end talk radio here. But whatever---

The public, in a lot of cases, owns the land from which trees are cut down for the paper for the presses to print. The public owns the roads upon which the printed word is then transported. The public has never owned the TV studios themselves where the material for broadcast is created, but only the medium by which the messages travel, i.e. the air.

Of course it's a restriction on the first amendment right to a free press! The real issue is whether it is a JUSTIFIABLE one. Basically the justification boiled down to War of the Worlds and fear of use of the airwaves for demagoguery in pursuit of violent revolution by enemies of American liberty. That has not remotely ressembled American reality for decades. Whatever the woes of the United States, they have not been caused by violent revolution with vast swaths of bodies left bleeding in the streets; they have been through the political and legal processes over the course of decades.

It will always be a weak argument to argue that this reality has to be reversed through shutting the other side up.