dhett: Thanks for a well thought-out contribution to this thread, this discussion.
Our nation went through a very dramatic era of coming to terms with the relationship between Federal and States in the era that resulted in that little unpleasantness back in 1860. In that era we did some rethinking of how we would interpret what the Founding Fathers intended in those precious documents that are the foundation of our national culture.
Since the 1860 era we have had some significant bumps in the road to the future: The so-called Robber Baron era which resulted in the Anti-trust movement, the migration from a predominantly rural population rather uniformly scattered about the nation in the pursuit of agriculture to a predominantly city oriented industrial nation, two World Wars that in some ways erased the oceans as insurmountable barriers between cultures. We have gone from a business model built around Proprietorships and non-public family-oriented corporations to the era of Public Corporations and now we face international corporations that know no boundaries.
Part of me is a Conservative. I wrapped my arms around the concept while living in Missouri in the early 1960s. In the last 50 years it has become evident that the Conservative thrust is built on a foundation that the 10th Amendment must be understood the way it was in the 1790s.
As Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz.... "We're not in Kansas anymore!"
dhett said:
The question isn't so much about public funding of television as it is about federal funding of public television. Many people who oppose federal funding of such things (including the other services you named) take their view from the 10th Amendment, which declares that duties not mentioned in the Constitution as belonging to the federal government, belong to state and local governments, or to the people themselves.
Since the early 1930s this nation decided that broadcasting IS NOT a local or state activity. It is a federal issue that crosses state lines and is part of inter-state commerce. For the purposes of regulations, primarily the assignment and allocation of frequencies, we accept that.
What we are discussing is the fact that as a nation we do not see the flow of operating funds as being federal issue. Except in commercial broadcasting. Commercial broadcasters have long argued in state legislatures that they cannot impose sales taxes on broadcast advertising because broadcast advertising is a federally regulated and directed function. Broadcasting operators have long argued that state and local government cannot license and regulate the journalism arm of broadcasting because it is regulated as a federal issue. In fact broadcasters have tied themselves in knots insisting that the Constitution language that we refer to as Freedom of the Press should be liberally allocated to include not only the journalists of the print industry, but journalists of the broadcast industry. And now the Internet information industry.
Here is the change I see that really forces us to think deeply about the 10th Amendment. Early America: business were very local. Business had no political reason to press up against the 10th Amendment. In fact, business was very "retail" and was happy to use the state legislature to keep the developing national corporations out of the local business-sandbox.
Since WWII we have become a business community in America dominated by national and international corporations. I don't care how Conservative Jack Welch or the Walton family may be, the last thing GE, Wal-mart, big Pharma companies and other giants want is to NOT be able to have one nation-wide set of employee policies and benefit plans. Big Conservative led corporations NOT want the problem of finding that they can no longer transfer their employees from state to state in the best interest of the corporation (and some would argue in the best interest of employee careers) because employees revolt: "No sir/mam, I will not accept a transfer to that state because the schools are lousy, their state regulated insurance companies are lousy, they have traffic laws that can send you to prison for 20 years because you were considered at fault in a traffic accident, and because of state-only funding, there are no decent nursing homes in which to place my aging mother.
And they have NO PBS stations in that state for my children!
35 years ago I created from scratch a corporate self-funded employee medical benefits program for my employer. One of my orders was to attend meetings of organizations where the personnel staff folks from the big corporations gathered. Guess what I learned: It was not Liberals who were driving the changes in laws about how we deal with the relationship between employees and employers. It was the personnel and benefits officers of companies headed by big-time Conservatives who were driving the push for state and federal laws that only a Liberal could admit in public to loving. While Conservatives openly scream about Obamacare, it is the personnel mechanism of corporations headed by well known Conservatives that have built the launch-pad for Federal involvement in medical care and funding.
Tying the discussion of how we fund the PBS/NPR type of broadcasting activity to the 10th Amendment is to tie the discussion to the carcass of a dead horse that is floating down the river toward the ocean. Public TV and Radio were admonished by Congress a few years ago to find ways to become self supporting. They seem headed that way. There will be severe head-butting displays with the industry of commercial broadcasters as they travel that road. You are likely to get your wish (but it may take 10 to 20 years) but it probably won't be because the nation has a sudden "Come to Jesus Meeting" over the 10th Amendment.
I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
