Unconstitutional Subsidies For Public Broadcasting Must GO!

Unconstitutional support oIn spite of the constant denials, Conservatives know that public broadcasting has a consistent left wing bias.The recently disclosed under cover dinner interview with NPR Senior VP Ron Shiller and Director of Giving, Betsy Lily, exposes the fraud of publicly supported media in America. There is an obvious reason why this is inherently true.

Any entity that gets its funding from public largess will invariably oppose any idea or group that believes that government largess should be limited. Thus we see Acorn for example, an allegedly non partisan tax exempt non profit, dedicated to increasing the voter roles, in reality was dedicated exclusively to signing up left wing voters, fraudulently if necessary, to perpetuate itself and big government programs in general. If the entity getting the public funding is a media organization then it will certainly use it’s megaphone to belittle those who believe government needs to be limited. It’s no coincidence that big government liberals, invariably love public media. Thus, PBS and PBR are by definition big government propaganda machines.

Regardless of whether the tape was edited, it can not be denied that Shiller, in the interview, criticizes Tea Partiers, who are Americans simply exercising their constitutional right to protest government expansion and excessive spending. In the interview Shiller goes farther than simply disagreeing by calling them “weird evangelicals” and “gun toting white people” who are “scary” and “racist”. Note to Shiller, PBS and NPR: the First Amendment guarantees free exercise of religion and the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Although there is no proof that tea partiers are more “racist” than any other political group, the point is made that the government is disseminating through public broadcasting, disparaging opinions of those it sees as political opponents of its power. This is inherently unconstitutional.

It is not necessary to prove that public broadcasting has a bias. It is enough that some taxpayers do not agree with the information and opinions being expressed. Liberals argue that if the use of the word “God” offends one person at a high school, then it is unconstitutional. Then if one taxpayer feels his political beliefs are being belittled by his own governments publicly funded broadcasting “news” outlet and he is thus offended and even intimidated from expressing his own views, then this violates the first amendment as well.

Ironically, the most often advanced argument to support the funding of public broadcasting defeats its own point. The argument is that the private media is supported by big business so it is inherently biased in favor of big business, so public media is needed to present the unbiased view. However, if this is true then, then the opposite must also be true, that the government influences the public media message?

The problem is the former, private media, is constitutional, the latter, public media, is not. The government has no constitutional right to use the taxes of the people to chill anti government free speech. In fact this is prohibited by the very concept of a right of free speech in the citizens. The founders wanted the public discourse to be free from government influence. A public broadcasting system, disguised as fair minded reporting and opinion, that criticizes various groups and ideas has an inherently chilling influence on free speech and free press. When the government tries to control the message, it is, by definition, violating freedom of speech and of the press.

The argument that private media controls the message and therefore its monopoly must be broken, does not stand up to scrutiny. Michael Moore, an open communist, capitalist hating, big government liberal, for example, has no problem getting his movies shown in private theaters, nor is he having any difficulty getting interview time on the private media news shows. The fact that he charges the going movie ticket rate to his viewers instead of donating his movies to the good of the people, proving he’s a hypocritical phony,is beside the point. Moore still gets his message out all he wants and his dopey fans get to watch all they want, through the private, not public, media. The overarching point is that liberal views get plenty of air time through for profit outlets and there is no need for a public outlet.

Democrats who perennially fund public broadcasting know that their argument that it provides better programming than private enterprise is a ruse to cover the unconstitutional intent to provide pro government propaganda and chill freedom of speech and religion of political opponents. They try to hide behind Big Bird and Kermit the frog and masterpiece theater, when this is pointed out; but, have you ever watched “Democracy Now!”? The Shiller remarks support the existence of what has been obvious all along: the anti Christian, anti conservative agenda of public broadcasting.

And this is just the beginning if we do not get this stopped here and now. Our current big government administration is actually gearing up to do much more to control free speed and freedom of the press. Various of the Obama’s czars are considering public subsidies for dying left wing big city newspapers, prohibiting by law dissemination of any political ideas classified as “conspiracy theories”, reinstating the fairness doctrine and imposing net neutrality. The latter two ideas require the publication of contrary ideas to every expressed political opinion in the traditional broadcast media and links to contrary opinion sites in all opinions expressed on the net. Guess who decides what "contrary opinions" must be published or what links must be provided?

Liberals claim that the government needs to support this or that because it’s a good idea. So please fund it if you want it and leave my first amendment alone. The amount of money that goes to public broadcasting is not the issue. The constitution can not be a little violated. If it is violated at all, it is too much.

PUBLIC UNIONS CLAIM "RIGHTS"- TO OUR TAXES!

Photo: Michael Moore, well known communist, Castro and Chavez supporter, who claims all private wealth belongs to the people, spoke at a Wisconsin public union rally to huge cheers and applause from the assembled public union members.

Scott Walker's bid to curb public union power has focused a lot of discussion in the media recently on collective bargaining "rights.” This is a great step forward since, unions have been destroying American industries since the 1950’s with little public notice. They almost finished off the last major US manufacturing industry, the auto industry in 2009, and they would have, if our union puppet President hadn't stepped in, confiscated the common stock and the bonds and gave it to the unions.

Collective bargaining "rights" are not provided for in the United States Constitution, which preserves only individual rights, not collective rights. Collective bargaining is a privilege provided under some statutes. In fact, Federal employee unions do not have collective bargaining rights and most states prohibit or severely limit public employee collective bargaining. Union supporters argue that free association is guaranteed under the US constitution and that collective bargaining rights are therefore guaranteed under this provision. Actually the opposite is true. As with all "collective" Right, laws that establish collective bargaining rights, sacrifice the individuals' right of free association for the benefit of the collective.

Collective bargaining laws like the one just amended in Wisconsin, generally create a legal frame work for the establishment of a union. The employees decide to have a union represent them or not by an election. This means that, if the required percentage of employees vote for the union, the union then becomes the exclusive representative for all of the employees, including the percentage who did not vote for it. Once certified, all employees must become members of the union and they must pay union dues whether they like it or not. Any effort of the employer to go around the union is an unfair labor practice, which subjects the employer to severe sanctions.

The public collective bargaining law in Wisconsin attacked by Scott Walker, provided that the individual had no right to be employed by the state government, without being a member of the union. Once employed, the individual was prevented from negotiating or receiving a raise or other benefits based on individual merit or direct negotiation with the employer. The individual employees must accept what the union negotiates (although the members vote on the negotiated contract again, majority rules). If the employer does not agree to the union terms then there is required binding arbitration where a govenment employed and politically appointed "judge" imposes an "agreement". This system can hardly be described as preserving an individual right, but, rather it is a deprivation of personal rights to have a personal relationship with one’s employer in return for collective rights.

In the name of protecting workers and increasing union dues, the union has an interest in preventing any worker from being fired and to minimize the work done by any one worker. In actual practice, the unions serve to protect the less competent workers from being fired or disciplined for poor performance. Thus, it is axiomatic that the union fosters poor performance because inefficiency requires more employees which increases union dues. That minority of workers who are the best workers, by definition, must be held back to the same wages and the same benefits as other less competent workers. Thus, a collective system tends to enslave the best to work for the benefit of the worst. "Each according to his need," Carl Marx.


Statistics show that there are typically about a third to 35% of unionized workers including teachers and other public employees, who vote Republican and see themselves as "conservative." By definition these people do not like the union or they would not be voting for a party seen as pro employer and anti union. It stands to reason therefore that the better employees are generally also the 35% of union members who reliably vote Republican.

On the other hand, the poor workers who can’t be fired and are most responsible for Wisconsin being the 44th worst public school system in the country are almost certainly the same ones in the Wisconsin rotunda screaming, “Walker is another Hitler” and “don’t touch my collective bargaining rights.” Walker has stated that many thousands of public workers have sent him messages of support saying they want the right to opt out of the public union. These are the public employees who do not think being forced to join the union is a "right." Take a guess as to whether the teachers protesting are the good teachers or the ones you hope your child doesn't get next year. Anyone who is a hard worker by nature and likes to do a good job who ever worked in a closed union shop will tell you that the union promotes inefficiency, poor performance and holds back the best workers.

If that were all it would be bad enough, but it gets worse. Collective bargaining is rarely a genuine arm's length negotiation in the government sector because the politician negotiating, supposedly on behalf of the taxpayer, is typically beholden to the union that contributed the funds and votes that got him in to office in the first place. We can see this even at the Presidential level where national union bosses have more access to the President than cabinet members.

We are witnessing a classic battle between the collectivists and the people who are going to have to pay for their outrageous demands. Who will win depends in part on whether Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin and governors around the nation can get the necessary information to the public to understand what is really at stake. Unfortunately, if we loose this battle, the last chance to to save our prosperity we all have come to expect will go with it.