The visible hand

Jeff Jarvis offers a nice little lesson in basic economics:

The bottom line: Any medium that can be government-regulated will shrink; any medium free of government regulation will grow.

Government censorship will grow until, at long last, libertarians and Republicans and Democrats wake up and realize that this is not the role they want for government, this is not the America they envision. But in the meantime, they will have destroyed a medium or two.

And why don't you tell the FCC what you think . . . I don't need a government nanny, do you? I didn't think so.

Let's hear a little liberartarian outrage at government meddling in our lives and our speech.

Let's hear a little conservative outrage at government growing beyond its bounds.

Let's hear a little liberal outrage at goverment stifling free speech.

I don't give a damn whether you like or despise Howard Stern; that's beside the point. If you're American, you cherish free speech, and you should be appalled at what is happening to it. This is not coming from media consolidation. This is coming from government intimidation.

Comments

[Goompa]

Freedom of speech doesn't free us from responsibility; it's not permitted to cry "fire!" in a theater, etc. Imagine what the founders - those champions and framers of our constitutional freedoms - would think of Stern. He would have been on public display in the stocks long before now, freedoms or not.