30% of Americans Want "Balanced" Blogging

Cutie Pi writes "In a recent Rasmussen poll looking at the public's attitudes toward a possible revival of the fairness doctrine by the Democrats, a surprisingly large percentage of those polled seek fairness doctrine mandates (originally intended for public airwaves) to cover the Internet as well. It is encouraging that a minority of people feel that way, but Democrats say 'hands-off the Internet ... by a far smaller margin than Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Democrats oppose government-mandated balance on the Internet by a 48% to 37% margin. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Republicans reject government involvement in Internet content along with 67% of unaffiliated voters.'"

Comments

Re:republicans favoring less government involvemen

[Ztream]

As a citizen of one of said Nordic welfare states, I think most of us (including those who agree with their ideologies) consider both your major parties to be right-wing.
Accusing the Democratic party of being communist is like accusing Hugo Chavez of being a libertarian anarchist.

Re:republicans favoring less government involvemen

[Zeinfeld]

Yep, the part about massive defense spending is part of my point. But that's actually a Democratic thing. Remember, LBJ (who kept us in Vietnam) was a Democrat. Republicans have been anti-defense spending until recent decades.

At the start of Vietnam both parties had hawk and dove factions. Nixon was originally elected on his claim to have a secret plan to end the war!

During the LBJ administration the Hawk faction in the Democrats lost influence and they were routed almost entirely during Nixon. But there is an additional layer of complexity there as Nixon's big idea was detente with Russia and re-opening relations with China.

The big change came during the Carter administration with the invasion of Afghanistan. Both parties turned considerably more hawkish. Carter began the weapons build-up but as a tactical reaction to the Soviets. For Reagan the increase in military spending was strategic and ideological.

During the Bush administration the foreign policy has been directed by the neo-imperialist wing of the Republican party. They like wars, the more the better. Their war in Iraq has been a fiasco, which is why they want a new one in Iran, or Georgia.

Re:Voluntary? Really?

[Reality Master 101]

Government grants this protection to business men so they can operate with immunity. Does this seam fair?

It is absolutely more fair than the alternative. Let's say you're the CEO of Ford, and someone has an accident and dies in one of your cars. Should the CEO be brought up on charges of Involuntary Manslaughter? On every single accident? Basically, every company CEO would be *personally* responsible for everything that ever happened in the company, whether they personally designed anything or not. Does that seem fair? You might be thinking, "Good! Then they'll be extra careful!" Except that it's literally impossible for anyone to be perfectly in charge of everything.

So make those directly in charge responsible? So, basically, you're saying that any engineer that works on a car is at risk of going to jail for any defect? Or any programmer that works on medical equipment? How would do it?

In the world you want, nothing risky would ever get created. Certainly no one is going to try creating a new drug -- you'd have to be insane, if the risk was murder charges. And look at the false charges from the silicone breast implants -- that was totally fraudulent. In your world, the designers and/or CEO all would've gone to jail.

There is a reason corporations exist. It's because society couldn't function without them.

In the free market, a *true* free market, there are no special protections awarded to people.

In a "true" free market, society falls apart.

Re:republicans favoring less government involvemen

[SIGALRM]

You clearly know nothing of the history of the Vietnam War. During the Eisenhower administration, there were a handful of CIA propagandists serving the Diem regime, that's it. Kennedy, who basically bought into the Cold War policy of Eisenhower, drew the line against Communism in Vietnam since the Bay of Pigs was a colossal failure, as was the Berlin Wall and Cuba. In 1960, Kennedy sent the first 1500 troops into Vietnam, and it is accepted by most historians that the US involvement in actual combat was from 1963-1975. If you think the '54 election Diem canceled (not Eisenhower) resembled democracy, you are a living a fantasy. Ho Chi Mihn had a peasant revolt on his hands, and was becoming increasingly unpopular. You wanted to slime Republicans but just made yourself look ignorant instead. Use facts next time. Oh, and here's another fact: it was a Republican president who finally withdrew all American troops from Vietnam.

Re:Clinton Defense Castration

[WillAffleckUW]

This is a lie.

I was serving in the Army from 1980 to 1989 (got married and wanted to settle down then), and the reality is that what got cut were mostly bogus military programs for Star Wars (which I worked on LRCSW), ships and planes we didn't need and couldn't use, and lots of expensive and very impractical mil hardware.

Instead of $10,000 laptops with removeable drives built to mil specs, we got $2000 laptops with removeable drives off the shelf under Clinton.

Instead of $250,000 fax machines with security that worked only 90 percent of the time we got $500 fax machines with better security off the shelf that worked 99.99 percent of the time under Clinton.

The LIE promulgated by defense contractors is that we got cut - but the reality is we got right-sized and more efficient.

Now, go enlist and stop whining.