not of this world

sometimes you strike the muse, and sometimes the muse strikes you…
the guest op-ed I would submit if I had some place, time, and the clout:

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. – Thomas Jefferson, September 28, 1820

While most of my generation knows more than I about the American Idol finalists, current concert tours and the latest gaming trends, thanks to my dearly departed talk radio junkie father (who was also a physician, pilot, and scholar), I know more than they about current developments in Iran, free speech atrocities in Venezuela, the mind numbing legislative details of current bills working their way through Congress, and the Glorious Revolution and other newly released, vital non-fiction books that “feed an informed citizenry good,” to name just a few topics.
Yes, I am a Gen-X talk radio junky, and a well informed one at that, even a little uppity.

I confidently leave much of what can be said to full time columnists and opinion writers who are leveling fine critiques against the witch hunt currently brewing in the halls of Congress – by establishment Republicans as well as “free speech champion” Democrats - to restore “balance” and “fairness” to our airwaves by some all knowing, behind the curtain, mythically balanced, bureaucratic committee’s fiat. But I can’t resist fuming a few of my own amateur observations, especially as I do not fall into the typical category most critics consider to be the talk radio demographic (i.e. longtime NPR listening, SWF graduate student, Santa Cruz, CA native hippie with eclectic tastes, liberal friends, and independent leanings).

It seems the First Amendment has no lack of strenuous defenders when it comes to pornography, flag burning or artwork found offensive to Judeo-Christian sensibilities, but many of those same defenders seem themselves sorely lacking in intellectual honesty and consistency when it comes to the arena of some of our professional political class’s desires to forcibly foster, as Senator Feinstein put it, a “much more serious correct reporting to people.” (Fox News Sunday, June 24) Now, I’m not a seasoned Senator, but it doesn’t seem too nuanced a consideration that the protection of the citizenry from molestation that our founders enshrined in the First Amendment was instituted more with an eye towards their political speech rights than it was foresight and concern for the moral or immoral excesses of expression that naturally flourish within the privilege and responsibility of liberty.

Far from stifling dissent or shying away from challenges to their arguments, every one of the nationally syndicated hosts I regularly listen to, thanks to the effortless convenience of podcasting – Prager, Ingraham, Beck and Hewitt – actively seek out guests whom they disagree with, and bump to the head of the calls they take anyone who has a bone to pick, or correction to offer, regarding something they’ve said. The biggest obstacle they face with such attempts at self-policing balance is many potential guests’ unwillingness to come onto their programs to debate substantively those differences, or consternated callers spewing out angry, often unintelligible rants before hanging up in overt cowardice or impotence. Dennis Prager, who is as far from angry and hyperbolic dogmatization as you can find, repeats often his motto, “I prefer clarity over agreement.” It would appear that those who seek to monitor and dictate what and how Americans discuss the issues of the day nationally prefer content determined, governmental control (which does so well with everything else it touches…) over free market and choice based, time and reputation tested, intellectual merit. All criteria, by the way, which are key ingredients contributing to the strength and greatness of America throughout her history.

What is most irritating about the comments I’ve heard in recent days is the obvious factor that most if not all of talk radio’s critics don’t tune in themselves enough to discover that their criticisms of the majority of hosts hold absolutely no water, or what is worse, they know the falsehood of such charges and are engaging in the most shameless demogogary. It appears to be a phenomenon very much akin to those on the left who voice fears of fundamentalist Christians – which I, for the record, am not counted among. As has repeatedly come out in recent years, such fears more often than not are voiced by people who, when asked, admit that they don’t actually know any personally. Likewise, most of the august Senators who decry the deleterious affect on the national debate don’t know the first thing about which they speak. Their outcry is based, on the one hand, upon memos coming from leftist watchdog groups that monitor the airwaves day and night, furtively isolating comments in attempts to demonize the speakers, and on the other, upon the phonecalls, faxes and emails interfering with their personal and financial interest lobbied agendas. A free medium which makes possible a real national dialogue, one that calls them on their actions, follows up on their promises, catches them in their contradictory records, and rallies working private citizens by keeping them informed beyond what they would have the time for on their own, is not something they have any use or sympathy for in carrying out their calling as “public servants.”

In my current studies of Greek, coming across the roots of a word thrown around so mindlessly in our day recently gave me pause: democracy. From Demos, the people, and Kratos, power. The power of a democratic republic like ours rests with the people. However not just any people, but by design an educated, reflective, deliberative and participatory citizenry. Knowledge, as is often said, really is power, and talk radio has made possible an education of busy citizenry that is exerting its effect upon the incestuous power structures of Washington. While cable news offers mostly “tragedy T.V.” ad nauseum and five minute segment, sound bite serving, caricatured screaming matches, and network news and newspaper editorial boards a controlled window of carefully presented, agenda shaped stories, when large numbers of Americans would rather escape to fantasy gaming and “reality” entertainment totally divorced from the legion serious domestic and international issues that all of us will be forced to face sooner or later, the in-depth debate and gad-fly like relentless challenging conversation drawing millions of Americans every day into taking an interest in the duties of citizenship via talk radio is sounding alarms and passing on the torch of thoughtful deliberation and democratic dialogue that made such a “best last hope” as this nation possible in the first place.

While the Republican establishment is pushing their weight around to serve the interests of big business backers on the one hand, and the Democratic establishment scurrying around to ever enlarge a permanent victim underclass to insure their party’s electoral ambitions on the other, an ever growing, informed section of the American tax paying citizenry is making their voice heard and educating themselves on a daily basis, being The People that this nation was established by and for. Our Representatives work for us, their job is to speak for us, to legislate on behalf of the law abiding citizenry that elected them into office, not to enjoy an insular, out of touch permanent political class lifestyle that bristles at hearing from their constituents and seeks to monitor and regulate their political speech. That they are so arrogantly and insultingly attempting to stifle the “loud ones,” as Trent Lott put it, calling for legislative control of dissenting viewpoints through government monitoring of the airwaves, is the best argument that can be given for term limits in the Senate, and the best illustration of the sort of abuses that the First Amendment was truly established to guard against.