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Fairness Doctrine


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bleedorange - you make some fair points, but you blow all credibility citing to DOMA as evidence of anything other than Dems being spineless (as cryptique points out). I hereby demand that you retract that point now if you have any interest in retaining credibility on any issues going forward. :)

 

Everything that everyone is saying in here is a sweeping generalization. But you can't seriously be arguing that the Dems aren't, on the whole, in favor of same-sex marriage.

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Or at least more in favor than the Republicans.

 

Yeah, like I said, these are all sweeping generalizations. But if we acknowledge that these are broad brush strokes, as a general matter, Dems favor it and Repubs dont. There can be debates about a lot of things around here, but not that. Come on.

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You can look at this in so many different ways, but to me, the Confederates were today's true conservatives, and the Federals were today's true Liberals.

 

The Confederacy saw that the Union was getting too imperial and oppressive, much like England was before the revolutionary war. States were having their rights and basic freedoms taken away, and this went against the constitution. The Confederacy was basically fighting for what the Constitution was supposed to represent, individual freedom and states rights.

 

Today, conservatives want basically the same thing. Individual freedoms, and small un-opressive government.

 

Yeah, there was that ugly issue of slavery, but both sides knew it would die out eventually. Most confederates did not own slaves and never planned to. Robert E. Lee himself never owned a slave, and believed slavery was wrong and would die out eventually.

I think that speaks to the cultural difference in the way the Civil War is taught in schools. Up North, we are taught that the CW was all about slavery, and trying to spin it any other way is denial.

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That's the traditional definition of conservative, unfortunately today's so called conservatives are more concerned with limiting personal freedoms, while expanding the rights of corporations. They're ok with dictating who can and cannot marry, religions creeping influence on the democratic process, etc, they just don't want any regulations placed on stupid, trivial shit like a corporations right to spew all sorts of shit into the atmosphere, etc etc etc.

Amen, and might I add corporations which, abetted by the look-the-other-way food safety inspections by a certain ex-Confederate state which was made to howl in 1864, poisoned hundreds with their salmonella-laced peanut butter.

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I've lived in Texas for 33 of my 37 years and I've never once met someone who espoused this view.

 

I lived in El Paso (Not part of Texas according to my friends) annd the people I knew from Odessa, Lubbock, Midland out that way felt they were in the US by their good graces and that they could leave anytime they wanted. Did I meet every Texan? No, but the thoughts they expressed were exactly those.

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bleedorange - you make some fair points, but you blow all credibility citing to DOMA as evidence of anything other than Dems being spineless (as cryptique points out). I hereby demand that you retract that point now if you have any interest in retaining credibility on any issues going forward. :)

 

Everything that everyone is saying in here is a sweeping generalization. But you can't seriously be arguing that the Dems aren't, on the whole, in favor of same-sex marriage.

 

I know Clinton came out and made statements about believing marriage is only man-woman. Has he backed off that, too? I don't know.

 

But my main point was that this was something passed and signed into law over 12 years ago. Is it really much of an issue anymore? Is there someone leading a charge to expand DOMA?

 

Of course, most Dems would want to repeal it and most Republicans would want to keep it. I just don't ever really hear anything about it unless it's an election year or a state has a gay marriage ban on its ballot.

 

Could it be that this is the Dems favored issue to trumpet but have no intention of doing anything about...much like the pro-life claims of Republicans?

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Misleading.

 

Clinton signed it, but it was a Republican bill passed in a Republican-dominated Congress (both houses).

 

The GOP brought it to the floor in an election year, and the spineless Democrats went along with it because they feared that their opponents would make it a huge issue in the fall '96 campaign. Clinton probably signed it for similar reasons (in September '96, a little over a month before the election).

 

There was exactly one Republican vote against the measure, and that came from the first openly gay Republican representative (who was only open because he had been outed on the House floor by Bob Dornan), who then did not seek re-election in '96.

 

The Dems' capitulation on this issue is just one more reason why I cannot call myself a Democrat.

 

The denial of marriage rights to gays is part of the Republican party's official platform. The Democratic platform expresses opposition to the DOMA (too bad the Democrats themselves didn't do so in '96).

 

The conventional wisdom for antything that turns out bad, regardless of where it originates who passed it etc... is that if a democrat voted for it signed it whattever then the democrats are responsible.

 

 

I think that speaks to the cultural difference in the way the Civil War is taught in schools. Up North, we are taught that the CW was all about slavery, and trying to spin it any other way is denial.

 

I have never been taught that the war wasall abotu slavery, I was always taught that it was abotu states rights and how the southern states felt that the federal government was overreaching when it dictated to the southern states. Once the slave/free state ratio tipped irrevocably towards free states war became inevitable.

 

BTW Ever read the sourthern states declarations of independance? These excerpts are taken out of the ordinances of secession and are but a part of them. I realize that it is mainly about states rights, but this is the primary states right they were concerned with. To the south this was a matter of property rights and that was thier moral cause while the north viewed the slaves as people not property and that was their moral cause, well that and preserving the union.

 

From South Carolina...

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

 

From Mississippi...

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

 

Georgia...The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation

 

Texas...

She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

 

etc...

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I have never been taught that the war wasall abotu slavery, I was always taught that it was abotu states rights and how the southern states felt that the federal government was overreaching when it dictated to the southern states. Once the slave/free state ratio tipped irrevocably towards free states war became inevitable.

 

Thanks for posting John Smith. Interesting stuff there.. It does appear that regardless of whether people in the South supported slavery or not, the Confederacy argued that it should be up to each state on whether they decide it should be legal or not. Again, it was all about states rights.

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OK, but I have a hard time believing it would have descended into a shooting war over any other issue but slavery.

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OK, but I have a hard time believing it would have descended into a shooting war over any other issue but slavery.

 

Yeah, it's been said that slavery wasn't the single cause of the war, but if it weren't for slavery, the war never would have happened..

 

But if you asked many confederates what they were fighting for, they were fighting against an enemy invader. After Ft. Sumter, Lincoln called on 75,000 troops to use force to bring the South back to the Union. The South was basically defending themselves, that's why it came to a shooting war..

 

But I guess that's it. The South fired first on the Union occupied Ft. Sumter.. And Lincoln said "oh no you didn't..."

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I wonder if anyone has ever made a bong in the shape of the head of Jefferson Davis ...

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If Limbaugh isn't entertainment than neither is this:

 

Oh man

 

I think a big difference is that people do not quote the onion as fact, well except for that woman I know who thought the Harry Potter story was real. Rush listeners do not readily admit that Rush s one of, if not the primary news source for them. Nope they don

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I turned on Hannity during the election and couldn't take it. If people think of him when they think of Conservatives, I can see why they hate Conservatives.

But the real problem is that too many conservatives think of Hannity when they think of the ideal Conservative. Nearly every single one of my Republican or conservative friends thinks he's the cat's pajamas.

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I think a big difference is that people do not quote the onion as fact, well except for that woman I know who thought the Harry Potter story was real. Rush listeners do not readily admit that Rush s one of, if not the primary news source for them. Nope they don’t admit it, but they ape his arguments and the Democratic party is not taking cues from the onion while it appears that Rush is the public voice of the republican party now.

 

Its a fair point, yet plenty of liberal wanks use John Stewart as a legitimate news source. The Pee Wee Herman of nightly news. I don't think Limbaugh is at all more destructive or influential than Stewart. The Onion doesn't care. I like that.

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I know this won't appease the wingnuts who insist that the Big Bad Fairness Doctrine is on its way back regardless of what anyone says, but it should be pretty definitive to the rest of us whose brains still function on some level.

 

From Fox News:

 

White House: Obama Opposes 'Fairness Doctrine' Revival

 

A White House spokesman tells FOXNews.com President Obama opposes any move to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

President Obama opposes any move to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a spokesman told FOXNews.com Wednesday.

 

The statement is the first definitive stance the administration has taken since an aide told an industry publication last summer that Obama opposes the doctrine -- a long-abolished policy that would require broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.

 

"As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.

 

That was after both senior adviser David Axelrod and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs left open the door on whether Obama would support reinstating the doctrine.

 

"I'm going to leave that issue to Julius Genachowski, our new head of the FCC ... and the president to discuss. So I don't have an answer for you now," Axelrod told FOX News Sunday over the weekend when asked about the president's position.

 

The debate over the so-called Fairness Doctrine has heated up in recent days as prominent Democratic senators have called for the policies to be reinstated. Conservative talk show hosts, who see the doctrine as an attempt to impose liberal viewpoints on their shows, largely oppose any move to bring it back.

 

Fueling discussion, a report in the American Spectator this week said aides to Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, Calif., met last week with staff for the Federal Communications Commission to discuss ways to enact Fairness Doctrine policies. The report said Waxman was also interested in applying those standards to the Internet, which drew ridicule from supporters and opponents of the doctrine.

 

Both the FCC and Waxman's office denied the report.

 

The Fairness Doctrine was adopted in 1949 and held that broadcasters were obligated to provide opposing points of views on controversial issues of national importance. It was halted under the Reagan administration.

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Thanks for posting John Smith. Interesting stuff there.. It does appear that regardless of whether people in the South supported slavery or not, the Confederacy argued that it should be up to each state on whether they decide it should be legal or not. Again, it was all about states rights.

 

On presidents day the history chanel was running all kinds of stuff on presidents. I was particularly interested in 12 - 16 and the origins of the war. Seems like everything they mentioned about what one president did or did not do that led to war centered on the issue of slavery for the south and ending slavery for the north. From the compromise of 1850 right on through the election of Lincoln. So sure the war was nominally about states rights, butultimately the states right they staked their claims of independance on was slavery.

 

Its a fair point, yet plenty of liberal wanks use John Stewart as a legitimate news source. The Pee Wee Herman of nightly news. I don't think Limbaugh is at all more destructive or influential than Stewart. The Onion doesn't care. I like that.

 

In akll fairness Stewart is cloaser to real news than Limbaugh and many of the sqwaking heads. The only difference is that Stewart passes himself off as comedy right from the get go. Rush passes himself off as the mouthpiece of the party and they let him.

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I know this won't appease the wingnuts who insist that the Big Bad Fairness Doctrine is on its way back regardless of what anyone says, but it should be pretty definitive to the rest of us whose brains still function on some level.

 

Tom, I hope one day my brain functions at some level close to yours.

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