Big Brother Durbin

Friday in the Senate Dick Durbin squelched debate. He thinks he knows better than we do what ideas we should listen to.

Dick Durbin---Big Brother.

Sen. Durbin (D-IL) wants the government to censor the free market in ideas carried by free media at the demand of the public:

The airwaves belong to the American people. Those who profit from them do by permission of the people through their government.

But profit is not illegitimate, untrustworthy or evil. Profit is just one of the best ways to efficiently respond to the demands of the people. It's a measure of millions of individual choices, ultimately allocating resources to those who best fulfill that demand. If they don't they go out of business. (Too bad we don't have the same kind of accountability with the government, we can only try to vote out a few politicians.)

Dick Durbin may say the airwaves belong to the people, but he wants to take them away from us, to centralize control---he wants the government to filter our free speech. And that is censorship. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN):

Here's what I -- Mr. President, I would say to my -- to my learned colleague from Illinois, here's our point of disagreement. There is no question, in fact, that there's a licensing process. I was a former mayor. We licensed a lot of things. But I think one of the basic principles at stake is that we don't license and measure content when it comes to speech. And that's my concern. That, in fact, because of the multiplicity of -- of communications options that are available to citizens today -- as I said before, blogs and internet and broad broadband and satellite which we didn't have -- didn't have 20, 30 years ago. Where my objection lies and the importance of this amendment is to say government shouldn't be monitoring and regulating content. We're not talking about obscenity. There are things that the senator from Illinois that government has an absolute right to -- to monitor or to deal with. But we're not talking about -- when we get to content, and that's my concern, that those who have raised the issue "bring back the fairness doctrine," are bringing it back. And the cry then is to regulate content and that's what I object to.

And where's your supposed concern for civil liberties, hmm liberals?

But Dem leader Sen. Big Brother Durbin doesn't want to debate this. Sen. Coleman spoke well of the cherished value of Americans' wealth of information and quoted a champion of liberty, who wouldn't find a home in the undemocratic Democrat party of today:

John Kennedy stated, "we are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

What are you afraid of Sen. Durbin?

Republicans are fighting back. Let the people decide.

Previous posts: Durbin's Disregard, Dim Reason, Fair or Unfair?