Reply #56: Done :-)

[CitizenPatriot]

Hey

Boy, the Boilster just begs to be boycotted, doesn't he?

I've thought a lot about the free speech part of this as well as the fairness of it. I am usually loathe to interfere in the process; however, there are times when people have to take a stand.

Each person determines their boundary.

Mine was crossed when he called for Obama's head to roll, played the Barck the Magic Negro song, and said he wanted our President to fail.

It seems to me that other programs which are not fit for the ears of children are on at night, and usually a subscriber service. We don't hear Bill Maher being played in the afternoon on the pubic airwaves.

Now, Bill doesn't offend me, but he does offend many people. They don't think it's decent to have him on network TV- he's gotta be on cable. Fine. Why is Rush any different?

Sure, he's entitled to free speech, and we are entitled to some level of decency on the public airwaves.

I find racism, bigotry and vaguely treasonous calls for the failure of the country to be indecent.

I was really disappointed in the reaction of most of the sponsors -- though kudos go to Geico.

Many of them feel this is merely someone I don't like, so too bad. They've missed the point.

Imus? How did that work? What were the standards? Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction?

THOSE things are indecent but hate speech and vaguely treasonous talk is cool? What lessons does our tolerance of this rhetoric teach our children? How do we say, this man, Rush, who is now the defacto head of the Republican party of this nation, can say these horrid things...but you can't? How do you explain that to a child?

The idea that we have to be fair and balanced is actually the dangerous rabbit hole, as it has been exploited to imply false equivalencies such as the comparison of CNN to Fox news above. As long as we allow these kinds of ideas to remain unchallenged, we will be run by the worst of our country and not the best (note: I realize the poster was simply giving an example and was not defending such a position -- but it happens to be an argument you hear a lot from the far right).

It can be proven and has been proven empirically that Fox news is a bad source of information - a spreader of deliberate MISinformatrion.

Leaving that kind of rhetoric unchallenged and unanswered is poisonous to this nation IMO.

I agree with the local sponsors point an upthread poster made. And as I said in the earlier thread, my goal was never to get him taken off the air, but rather to expose the point of view that he was a fringe person whose call for our President to fail was indecent and that we WERE paying attention. If this had happened when Bush was in office, the right would have covered the media with outrage. We must not let our tolerance and acceptance for those with whom we disagree lull us into not speaking up when the boundary has been crossed.

I expect more responsible choices from the companies I patronize. I don't want to fund any company who is helping to fund someone who wants this country to fail. It's really quite simple.

Those of you who agree, can also write to the FCC.

[email protected]

Edited to add this link to the prior thread on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4918133