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Celebrating Independence Day
will not be the only important event of this July 4th, 2008.
It's also the deadline for the congress to sign a petition to once
and for all bury the so call "Fairness Doctrine". The fact
that it's called the Fairness Doctrine is misleading for the
original piece grew out the fear of the infiltration of communism.
Today it concerns talk radio.
Instead of going over it with a lot of legal
babble, let me explain it in a more colloquial way.
Imagine yourself as a retailer and you have
stores. You sell various items but your specialty is "green
beans". Your business is owned by you and you are the one who
worked hard for many years building that business and it has
become very successful. The fact is, you believe in your product
and the public likes your green beans.
Your next door neighbor is also a retailer and has stores. Like
you, he has a specialty, but it's "blue beans". He also believes
in his product, however a higher percentage of the public likes
your green beans much better that his blue ones, and his business
suffers for lack of the public buying his product. Some of his
stores fail and the ones he still has struggle to survive
regardless of how much funds he puts into them. His product used
to sell very well for many years, until your stores came along and
offered an alternative product.
Your neighbor doesn't think this is fair. His
main concern is to keep his product in front of the public even if
they likes your product better than his. Since there are a
lot of people in influential places who believe as he does, he
petitions them to pass a law to force you to sell his beans in
your store. He also wants you to put the same effort into his
beans as you do yours. Sort of giving them "equal time".
This could turn out to be a two edged sword. He
may have to sell your beans in his store and give them equal time
as his. But I doubt that he will maintain an equal amount of
stores as long as he has you to sell his beans. (For a
complete description and parties involved, see
Wikipedia)
Give your congressman a call, tell him what you
think. |
