Another editorial on federal funding of public broadcasting

[listener-in]

I read your subsequent comments. They are the same typical specious arguments that revisionists have used for years to justify ignoring the Constitution under the principle that it's a "living document" that can be twisted any way you want it to be twisted. Here in Radio-Info.com, I do not intend to go into details about the subtleties of politics. If you want to get that deep into constitutional law, there are other forums where you don't get a two week time-out for talking politics instead of radio.

Then why did you bring the Constitution into it??? You can't raise it and then escape the burden of defending your viewpoint. For the constitution to be frozen in time would require that the principles and precedents it lays down to have nothing to say by inference or implication about the features of modern life that didn't exist at the time of ratification. What a poor excuse of a document that would make it. You must have a low opinion of the framers.

 

[Talk_Dude]

In here, the depth of my comments will remain the same as the depth of detail presented on a typical top-of-the-hour radio newscast.

I would look for a different image, a different parable. Today most of us look upon the typical top-of-the-hour newscast as a waste of energy, the delivery of too little too late.

I don't think that is the image you want to give to your view on this subject.

It was the only parable I could think of that was radio-related. And here in Radio-info.com, posts must be kept related to radio somehow.

I read your subsequent comments. They are the same typical specious arguments that revisionists have used for years to justify ignoring the Constitution under the principle that it's a "living document" that can be twisted any way you want it to be twisted. Here in Radio-Info.com, I do not intend to go into details about the subtleties of politics. If you want to get that deep into constitutional law, there are other forums where you don't get a two week time-out for talking politics instead of radio.

Then why did you bring the Constitution into it??? You can't raise it and then escape the burden of defending your viewpoint. For the constitution to be frozen in time would require that the principles and precedents it lays down to have nothing to say by inference or implication about the features of modern life that didn't exist at the time of ratification. What a poor excuse of a document that would make it. You must have a low opinion of the framers.

I hold it as a self-evident truth that the Constitution means what it says. I raise the issue of constitutional authority regarding the Federal government redistributing wealth by collecting taxes and then giving some of the money to public radio station operators because that one single argument is the only argument that cannot be refuted except with smoke and mirrors.

If I were to express the opinion that water is wet, I wouldn't go into any great detail in supporting that contention, either.

 

[TheBigA]

I raise the issue of constitutional authority regarding the Federal government redistributing wealth by collecting taxes and then giving some of the money to public radio station operators because that one single argument is the only argument that cannot be refuted except with smoke and mirrors.

But they're operating under a law that was passed 43 years ago and wasn't challenged. It's not wrong to obey the law, even if you disagree with the law. In fact, if you disagree with a law, and for that reason disobey, you've committed a crime, and can't use the Constitution as a defense.

 

[Talk_Dude]

I raise the issue of constitutional authority regarding the Federal government redistributing wealth by collecting taxes and then giving some of the money to public radio station operators because that one single argument is the only argument that cannot be refuted except with smoke and mirrors.

But they're operating under a law that was passed 43 years ago and wasn't challenged. It's not wrong to obey the law, even if you disagree with the law. In fact, if you disagree with a law, and for that reason disobey, you've committed a crime, and can't use the Constitution as a defense.

Hogwash. Or Sheep-dip. Take your pick.

As I said earlier, just because a district attorney decides for whatever reason to not prosecute a case doesn't mean that a crime wasn't committed. If there was someone who had the resources for a protracted legal case and who had standing to raise the challenge, then it would be challenged. The fact that no such person has stepped forward changes nothing.

 

[TheBigA]

If there was someone who had the resources for a protracted legal case and who had standing to raise the challenge, then it would be challenged. The fact that no such person has stepped forward changes nothing.

Then your point is moot. Congress and the country operate under law and precedent.

 

[listener-in]

I hold it as a self-evident truth that the Constitution means what it says. I raise the issue of constitutional authority regarding the Federal government redistributing wealth by collecting taxes and then giving some of the money to public radio station operators because that one single argument is the only argument that cannot be refuted except with smoke and mirrors.

If I were to express the opinion that water is wet, I wouldn't go into any great detail in supporting that contention, either.

Bad analogy - you don't need to defend saying water is wet because you won’t find anyone to disagree with you. It must be nice to be similarly certain about the Constitution when people who make it their life's study aren't always sure what it means. Even the framers themselves argued over it. Your assertion about the unconstitutionality of Federal funding for public radio is just that - an assertion. That and $1 would buy you a cup of coffee at McDonalds.

TheBigA is right, what really decides is whether federal funding for public radio is legally challenged, and the final ruling on any challenge. I’m sure that constitutional lawyers could have been found to challenge the principle of federal subsidy for postal communications sometime during the past couple of centuries, if there had been a serious constitutional argument against it.

What you are saying is that because radio didn't exist and wasn't expressly mentioned when the Constitution, therefore federal funding public radio is automatically unconstitutional, notwithstanding the contrary guidance provided by Article 1, Section 8. Talk is cheap - put your money where your mouth is and find yourself a lawyer who will agree with you. Good luck.

 

[Talk_Dude]

TheBigA is right, what really decides is whether federal funding for public radio is legally challenged, and the final ruling on any challenge. I’m sure that constitutional lawyers could have been found to challenge the principle of federal subsidy for postal communications sometime during the past couple of centuries, if there had been a serious constitutional argument against it.

What you are saying is that because radio didn't exist and wasn't expressly mentioned when the Constitution, therefore federal funding public radio is automatically unconstitutional, notwithstanding the contrary guidance provided by Article 1, Section 8. Talk is cheap - put your money where your mouth is and find yourself a lawyer who will agree with you. Good luck.

You can find a lawyer who will handle any case, if you pay him enough. Talk might be cheap, but pursuing a lawsuit through the courts requires mega-bucks.

 

[listener-in]

TheBigA is right, what really decides is whether federal funding for public radio is legally challenged, and the final ruling on any challenge. I’m sure that constitutional lawyers could have been found to challenge the principle of federal subsidy for postal communications sometime during the past couple of centuries, if there had been a serious constitutional argument against it.

What you are saying is that because radio didn't exist and wasn't expressly mentioned when the Constitution, therefore federal funding public radio is automatically unconstitutional, notwithstanding the contrary guidance provided by Article 1, Section 8. Talk is cheap - put your money where your mouth is and find yourself a lawyer who will agree with you. Good luck.

You can find a lawyer who will handle any case, if you pay him enough. Talk might be cheap, but pursuing a lawsuit through the courts requires mega-bucks.

Most lawyers will dissuade a client from pursuing a case that they feel has no chance of prevailing, and I don't think you would find a lawyer to take on the constitutionality of federal funding for public radio for any price - that was precisely my point. You'll just have to content yourself with the one and only argument you seem to know: I say it's unconstitutional therefore it is unconstitutional.

 

[DonTheTrucker]

Sound familiar?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

That's pretty clear. Just because it hasn't been followed very well over the past 100 years or so doesn't make it right. It's not just something people who "hate NPR" made up.

 

[TheBigA]

Just because it hasn't been followed very well over the past 100 years or so doesn't make it right.

No...but it's the law. Not all laws are right. But they're still the law.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You can find a lawyer who will handle any case, if you pay him enough. Talk might be cheap, but pursuing a lawsuit through the courts requires mega-bucks.

But any lawyer skilled enough to win such a case will have an ego that says: This case has a 98% probability of failure and whatever this guy is willing to pay me, it is not enough money to take a chance on being known as a lawyer who lost!

Several years ago in Georgia we went through the pain of deciding if we would remove the essence of the Confederate Battle Banner off of the state flag. It was not a pretty fight. Talk Show Neal Boortz who has a rather strong river of Libertarianism in his thinking came up with some interesting legal style thinking on the subject: (Boortz, by the way, is also an attorney) He explained how trade mark law works. (Which I am told is a bit like patent law.) You can have a registered trade mark, but you must defend it. If some one encroaches on your trade mark and you stand by and fail to take action, that becomes the defense of the party poaching your trade mark. He made no effort to enforce it. Now it belongs to us for all practical purposes. Boortz went on the chide the more respectable supporters of the sanctity of the Confederate symbol. For years and years you stood by and watched people use the Confederate symbol to support socially unacceptable purposes. Since you did not "enforce" your trade mark, it no longer has the kind of righteous symbolism it once had. It has become the symbol of evil, no matter what it once was.

Maybe that is where we are on some things that people want to tell us are not within the permissible powers granted by the ORIGINAL constitution and the ORIGINAL INTENT. The trade mark was not enforced on a timely basis (if your interpretation is correct) and since it was not enforced, there will be little or no legal horsepower to reverse what we are doing.

In the broader scope, it is hard to know where broadcasting as a whole is when it comes to legal issues. The industry does NOT ahere to the some legal understanding of how licenses are to be granted and maintained. And since no one took legal action through the years, we are not likely to see the industry turned upside down today by court action. It will take legal action by congress to make a significant change in how broadcasting functions.

 

[listener-in]

Sound familiar?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

That's pretty clear. Just because it hasn't been followed very well over the past 100 years or so doesn't make it right. It's not just something people who "hate NPR" made up.

Before you can apply this to the case of federal funding for public radio, you first need to argue why Article 1, Section 8 does not establish the principle. I think that would be a tough sell even to the current Supreme Court. And, as TheBigA says, unless and until that sale can be successfully made, federal funding of public broadcasting will remain legal.

By way of comparison, National Parks have no implied support in the Constitution equivalent to the Post Offices and Post Roads [communications] clause which by implication support funding public radio. Their only possible constitutional support derives from the phrase "general Welfare" which appears twice. Now, who would like to go out on a limb and claim that National Parks are unconstitutional and therefore illegal? Anyone???

 

[DonTheTrucker]

There is a difference between what can be realistically done, and what's proper. It's not proper for the Federal government to be involved with subsidizing anything, whether it's corn or radio. Realistically neither will be getting defunded anytime soon. I was just helping out with where the idea that government shouldn't be funding broadcasting comes from. It's not some crazy lunatic ranting of people who want to put Garrison Keillor in the poor house.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

It's not proper for the Federal government to be involved with subsidizing anything, whether it's corn or radio.

If we lived in a perfect world, I would like to agree with you.

Early in the 20th Century this nation was hit by the "Dust Bowl" phenomena which laid many a farmer flat. And then we had the financial upheaval known as The Great Depression. Then as we came out of World War II the giant industrial machine that our nation had become quit making weapons and among other things, turned out a fantastic fleet of farm mechanizing hardware and the munitions industry began producing fertilizer like we had never seen. (As Oklahoma City and Tim McVey reminded us, bombs and fertilizer are close kinfolks.)

And suddenly we faced an economic situation in our nation. We could subsidize farm production (the corn you talk about) and let these farm people (of whom there were now TOO MANY) maintain some amount of dignity and productivity, or we could line them up in the soup lines of the 1930 for the next 50 years and tell them every day how worthless they were.

Its real easy for armchair philosophers and political thinkers to demand a pure, no nonsense, hard line interpretation of the Constitution.... the way they think it should be read.

Are you really suggesting it would have been more American to let people like my Dad lay down in his cotton field and die of starvation than to corrupt some people's view of the constitution and say: "We ain't subsidizing no stinking corn or wheat or cotton or soybeans."

The theory of life is so simple. In practice, life is a bitch!

It would seem to me that what the debate should really be is: How MUCH subsidy for public broadcasting is realistic; should it taper off until it stops; and what is the acceptable use of the subsidy while it still exists?

Part of our problem is this: There are political forces that don't want public broadcasting to get well. As long as we keep them on the subsidy then we can justify keeping them hobbled to where they don't bother anybody... you know, like commercial broadcasters. And, yes, there are public broadcasters who don't want the hobbles removed because they would then face the corrupting forces (as they see them) that drive commercial broadcasting into the swamp where they live.

Lest you think my colorful description of life on the farm is some kind of fantasy.... I am a member of the last generation to actually drag a cotton pick-sack through the U.S. cotton fields and hand pick the stuff. And I have dodged some of those tumbleweeds as they came rolling through like dust-bowl left-overs.

 

[TheBigA]

Early in the 20th Century this nation was hit by the "Dust Bowl" phenomena which laid many a farmer flat.

That was the turning point in this country. Still reeling from the crippling cost of World War 1, the nation was then thrust into a great depression. That's when the federal government realized it had a different role from what it had played in the 19th century. It's become more pronounced in the 21st century, as we've become a global economy, so entrepeneurs are less interested in investing in our own country and our own people, and direct their money to other countries. So who is left to invest in America and Americans? Foreign governments and our own federal government.

 

[DonTheTrucker]

Government can't just decide it wants a different role. There are very specific limits placed upon it. But we'll put that aside for the moment since we're already too far down that hole to even try digging out.

Using the analogy of corn subsidies, or agricultural subsidies in general, why should ConAgra and ADM be getting billions of taxpayer dollars? The Dust Bowl is long gone thankfully. Not so thankfully, also gone are the days of the small family farm. If Clear Channel were to get that kind of money, the same people who defend public broadcasting subsidies would have conniptions. If we're going to continue subsidizing radio, then why not subsidize the modern day radio equivalent of those Dust Bowl farmers?

 

[TheBigA]

Government can't just decide it wants a different role.

Maybe, but it did. And the Supreme Court was pretty upset about it at the time, and ruled several things unconstitutional. Until the President made a teenie weenie change in the court.

If Clear Channel were to get that kind of money,

Well, you know, in a way they do. They get to broadcast on the people's airwaves and not pay rent.

 

[listener-in]

If we're going to continue subsidizing radio, then why not subsidize the modern day radio equivalent of those Dust Bowl farmers?

If you mean high-speed broadband across America, I'm all for it. If anything could sow the seeds to revive American communities and the small businesses that support them, that's it. And I don't mean subsidizing the big telecoms to cherry pick where they want to go, either.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

If we're going to continue subsidizing radio, then why not subsidize the modern day radio equivalent of those Dust Bowl farmers?

If you mean high-speed broadband across America, I'm all for it. If anything could sow the seeds to revive American communities and the small businesses that support them, that's it. And I don't mean subsidizing the big telecoms to cherry pick where they want to go, either.

For a breath of fresh air on this topic, may I refer you to WPVM in Asheville, NC... where they refer to themselves as MAIN-FM.... because of the mission of their parent organization.

Warning to ultra-conservatives: Look this station up on a day you are feeling in good health. The PVM in WPVM stands for Progressive Voice of the Mountains. Their mission is to bring enhanced Internet connections to Applachia... an area NOT cherry-picked by big telecoms.

 

[DonTheTrucker]

If we're going to continue subsidizing radio, then why not subsidize the modern day radio equivalent of those Dust Bowl farmers?

If you mean high-speed broadband across America, I'm all for it. If anything could sow the seeds to revive American communities and the small businesses that support them, that's it. And I don't mean subsidizing the big telecoms to cherry pick where they want to go, either.

Actually I was suggesting that small non-comm radio stations get the money. They need it more than NPR or APM.