Al Sharpton Presses FCC to Deny Rush Limbaugh Broadcast License
(By Meredith Jessup, The Blaze) - Appearing on MSNBC Monday evening, Rev. Al Sharpton told host Ed Schultz that he was meeting with representatives of the FCC to discuss ways to prohibit conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “blatant racist tirades.” Sharpton also brags about his efforts in preventing Limbaugh from taking an ownership stake in the National Football League (NFL) last year:
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:18 PM
1 Comments:
(Hot Air) - It’s amusing, in a bitterly ironic way, to see people who make their living off of the space created by the First Amendment demand government intervene to stop speech. It’s even more ironic considering that Al Sharpton paid no price at all for his part in the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which Sharpton falsely accused an assistant district attorney of being one of the supposed rapists in a series of allegations found utterly false by a grand jury. Steve Pagones won a $65,000 judgment against Sharpton for false and defamatory statements, which Sharpton’s supporters paid instead. If anyone has grounds to be censored for utterly irresponsible and false speech, it would be Sharpton, not Limbaugh — and yet Sharpton has his own radio show and regularly appears on MSNBC.
So forgive me if I don’t take Sharpton too seriously on the topic of 'acceptable discourse', but the argument is asinine in any case. While it’s true that the FCC controls licensing, it doesn’t control content in a prior-approval manner, nor should it. Demanding a system where the government requires preapproval for political speech is a recipe for tyranny and is the antithesis of the intent of the First Amendment. Nor is there an overriding right to be free from offense, whatever Sharpton might think; freedom of speech involves tolerating ideas that people dislike as its 'definition'.
The proper remedy for bad speech is more speech. Those who can’t compete want government to fight their battles instead, and it’s clear that Sharpton knows he’s losing.
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