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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.'"
Holocaust denial? Must both sides be given a equal voice by mandate? How about flat-earth theory? Or moon hoax hypothesis? Or is this where the government suddenly decides what is "mainstream" and what is kooky. If they decide that, where will the boundary be for other, much more legitimate ideas that Government may not like. Will it be that they suddenly decide what the bounds of fair discourse is by controlling the parameters?
Why is it that so many people think that the government, a large force with its own agenda, will do a much better job than many individuals not geared around a singular goal/entity? The Patriot Act was not patriotic, and the Fairness doctrine will not be fair.
States need to start handing out their electoral votes based on results from the individual representative districts, with the statewide winner getting both 'senate' votes. The "winner takes all" rule is so bizarre, and causes certain states (those with a moderate to high amount of electoral votes and razor-thin state-wide margins) to become more important than other states. I live in California, and Republican presidential candidates don't even bother coming here, and Democratic candidates use us as an ATM machine. They both know that all 55 electoral votes are going Democratic. Those people voting Republican in northern districts aren't being represented in the electoral college vote.
Of course, the second people started talking about using this district-based system, the Democrats started whining, because they knew this would cost them around 20-25 electoral votes that they currently don't have to work for.
I wonder what would happen if a state decided to secede without military force. If South Carolina seceded again, but instead of putting up a military, they just stopped paying the feds and accepting help and whatever else they'd have to do, then when the US military came in to stop them, they all just sat down and let the military walk by. If the military were to start shooting people who weren't defending themselves, I'm pretty sure that would be a disaster of epic proportions. In that situation, what could the US do to stop a seceding state? I would guess nothing. Maybe they could try to start a rebellion in the state to get the locals wanting to rejoin the rest, but that's about all.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying the above is a good idea, just wondering.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!