the voices in your pointed little head.

Listen paskudnik the word is palmate, do you hear? As long as they let you in to this wonderful country it behooves you to learn something about its largest resident ungulate! Pointed, forsooth!

So, like, when Rush interviews Cheney, all is fine as long as he gets Lanny Davis on as well?

The memories are getting fainter, but that is not how I remember the "Fairness Doctrine" working. Perhaps someone could enlighten us on how it actually did, and how well.

I'm the wrong tool for that job, but there are some real sharp blades who could sling it right up (and my pooter is freezing up pretty regular, XP here I come.) And a couple of chislers.

Gee, Mona, a guy like me could think of the tremendous infrastructure, civil, political and physical which makes it possible for publicly traded companies (think of the tremendous resources devoted to that aspect alone) to do their Hi-tech broadcast and cable business.

A person could see this infrastructure as a highly valuable thing, and a very expensive undertaking, to which public resources are devoted.

And then maybe, just maybe, he could see his way towards making companies pay their share, and shoulder certain responsibilities deemed to be in the public interest.

I know, it sounds so crazy and impossible.

Wait a minute! When I think of the alternative, a world in which broadcast companies compete by sabotaging each other's lines or truckers compete by burning their competitor's trucks, and killing rival drivers, well it just makes all that infrastructure seem so unecessary.

Me, I would go into the toddlers-for-ransom game, in a libertarian society that is always a growth industry.

I don't even really like kids, and babies are the frozen limit. I'll find some other niche in the brave new world.

Hiya, Celery! Well, having attended my FIL's 76th birthday party (he can drive but they ought to take the keys to the BBQ away) I am in much better odor here at Moosehall. She's tough, but not impossible.

Face it: the populace likes simpletons. Rush and Fox, not to mention the right blogosphere, give them authoritarian simpletons in abundance.

Ah, libertarians. Their unstinting faith in the ability of people to govern themselves without government interference is always inspiring.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, who would play the role of agreived party who required free time to rebut?

That doesn't seem too hard to me. It would be anyone who wishes to represent the American people's interests, and they could be organised under about a hundred different rubrics.

However yes, under the media organisation (centralisation) as it existed at that time it would have made no difference. The broadcasts would have simply dropped into a hole.

Given a more diverse media, although the anti-War On Iraq information may have utilised the FD to get a hearing, there would be many, many more outlets who would be interested in picking the story up, and running with it.

Who is agreived by the "pre-emption" policy, for instance? Certainly those in the military! Just about any American who's got his head screwed on right. But Americans have got to hear about the policy, and it's ramifications, in order to generate political action.

You are never going to get Rush's dittoheads to listen to Rachel Maddow. Not. Ever. Not even by putting her on immediately after Rush.

Why are you pretending that you have no idea how American freedom of speech works with political discourse and the public interest?

There is no necessity for Rush's dittoheads to listen to Rachel Maddow for there to be free speech, and you've been told this many times. I went back through your letters, and you are refusing to understand now stuff you seemed to understand well in earlier letters.

I always thought of that as right-wing obtuseness, but maybe it's an essential component of libertarianism. Or even libertarianismality. You decide.

I'm telling you, "that read all the letters" button is very useful. It doesn't take long to see a case of Asperger's syndrome-by-proxy syndrome, by proxy. I'm sure that would be the case with mine, anyway.

Actually, libertarians like counter-majoritarian Constitutions precisely because most of us are not willing to see our rights buffeted by the whim of a majority at any particular time.

Oh Jesus! So you see, you should be walking on air! We do have a libertarian Government. We have rejected the "tyranny of the majority" for a good old tyranny of an influential minority.

But again, many people with better writing skills have explained it to you, you didn't listen then, and you won't now.

On the other hand, you are a Fountainhead of information.

Whatever that rant was about, please be advised that my youngest son actually has Asperger's Syndrome

Devil take the hindmost, baby! That's the libertarian way! You're gonna have winners, and losers.

I am so sorry about my behavior towards Mona last night. That is why I had to leave, after I picked my anterior mandible off the floor.

I mean, after all, she was only asking for a little fairness!

And I knew good and goddam well she has a habit of spectacularly demolishing her own arguements.

Well, I'm going over to DCLaw1's place- there's no "fairness doctrine" there.

Out of the Black Churches of America came Gospel music. As far as I'm concerned, for that one thing alone (among others) I will treasure that institution my whole life, and America should also. We owe them a debt for that music which can never be repaid. If it was calculated on a basis of theft of intellectual product alone, in that almost all of American popular music is based on Gospel music (if it doesn't quite obviously and shamelessly rip it off directly), the recompense would be, well, incalcuable.