# More fallout from the half-time fall out. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 15, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319 "2004-07-15T20:45:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/41 "2004-07-17T11:02:23Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > Okay **Llib** , your proposal makes a lot of sense, but does that mean you would have a right to be heard only if you have enough cash? Well, that **is** how Libertarianism would work if it were applied in “the real world”. ---
**Author:** ![factorial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed8c4c/32.png) [@factorial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/factorial)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/42 "2004-07-17T20:37:54Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I haven’t stopped beating my wife because I never started. I don’t advocate that government enforce anything except peace and honesty. Nor do I advocate that any one corporation take control of it. After all, that’s what we have now. Politicians in government and business already work together for their own mutual benefit. It is in the interest of the FCC to levy fines so that it can have revenue. And it is in the interest of broadcast corporations to contribute to campaigns of politicians who make them promises of special legislation and leniency. I didn’t say, “Let government appoint a private overseer of the EM spectrum.” I said, “Eliminate the FCC”. Just drop it. Just let it go. Just disband it and leave entrepreneurs to figure out what to do with the EM spectrum. It’s probably too late for that now since it’s already all mucked up. I cannot, for example, hear WBT from Charlotte, a powerful radio station with interesting talk that must broadcast directionally after a certain time of day so that its signal won’t interfere with the signal from a station in Omaha. But I can’t hear Omaha either because it’s too far away. So, how is this an improvement over the alternatives? Do you have an understanding of the technical aspect of this, and are thus aware of the absolute chaos that would result? It’s a lot more than just “two FM radio stations might interfere with each other.” Think “Police, Fire, and Military would no longer be able to communicate with each other, and I couldn’t listen to any radio station,” because I can transmit whatever the heck I want on whatever frequency I want. Is one of the “certain unalienable rights” a “right to transmit on whatever part of the EM spectrum I want” or is it the right to the “life” (safety) provided by these essential services? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/43 "2004-07-17T21:13:07Z")
> [@factorial](#): > > Do you have an understanding of the technical aspect of this, and are thus aware of the absolute chaos that would result? It’s a lot more than just “two FM radio stations might interfere with each other.” Think “Police, Fire, and Military would no longer be able to communicate with each other, and I couldn’t listen to any radio station,” because I can transmit whatever the heck I want on whatever frequency I want. Is one of the “certain unalienable rights” a “right to transmit on whatever part of the EM spectrum I want” or is it the right to the “life” (safety) provided by these essential services? **Lib** did say that the frequencies would be auctioned off, so it’s not “transmit on whatever part of the EM spectrum I want.” I’d imagine that the ownership rights would also be limited by location, such that the owner of frequency X in San Francisco would not necessarily own that frequency in New York. People would be legally required not to broadcast on a frequency that isn’t theirs, much the same as people cannot cover up other advertisements on billboards that they are not paying to use. Second, I am sure that the military, police, and fire bands would not be auctioned off, because they are necessary to the security concerns of our country. ---
**Author:** ![factorial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed8c4c/32.png) [@factorial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/factorial)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/44 "2004-07-17T21:39:57Z")
In the post I quoted, **Liberal** implied that there would be no regulation of EM transmission: > [@](#): > > I didn’t say, “Let government appoint a private overseer of the EM spectrum.” I said, “Eliminate the FCC”. Just drop it. Just let it go. Just disband it and leave entrepreneurs to figure out what to do with the EM spectrum. This, to me, is saying that people can transmit whatever they want, is not “private ownership”, and does not make allowances for fire/police/military use of EM spectrum. Further, he said: > [@](#): > > I cannot, for example, hear WBT from Charlotte, a powerful radio station with interesting talk that must broadcast directionally after a certain time of day so that its signal won’t interfere with the signal from a station in Omaha. But I can’t hear Omaha either because it’s too far away. Implying he’d want regional controls over spectrum done away with as well. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/45 "2004-07-17T22:39:07Z")
I’m so glad we have the FCC to decide what is appropriate for us or not, since we _obviously_ cannot flip channels or tuners. I mean, heaven forbid we should hear an “offensive” word! One offensive word is let free and the next thing you know there will be utter chaos throughout the world! I just wait for the day when the FCC hits the museums and art textbooks. Picture the [Venus of Willendorf](http://www.coco.cc.az.us/apetersen/_ART201/_images/venus_w_side.gif) or Michelangelo’s [David](http://www.bioethics.gov/images/david.gif) with that nifty black censor signage. Ok, I know I’m being extremist. But this stuff scares me. Yes, some of the boob flashes and foul language you see on network TV is blatantly gratuitous, but PBS? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/46 "2004-07-18T13:09:57Z")
> [@Factorial](#): > > Do you have an understanding of the technical aspect of this, and are thus aware of the absolute chaos that would result? Probably not a lot. I doubt that I know anything more about the technical side of it than do the politicians and bureaucrats in whom you entrust it. But I really am not concerned about the technicalities; I am concerned about the ethics. Entrepreneurs can hire technicians to take care of the technicalities. It has often been that case the entrepreneurs have succeeded where government has either failed or has come in after the fact to screw everything up. The Wright Brothers were competing with Dr. Samuel Langley, president of the Smithsonian Institution, who had government backing and funds. Samuel Broder, onetime director of the National Cancer Institute and an NIH official once said, “If you had demanded that the NIH solve the problem of polio not through independent, investigator-driven discovery research but by means of a centrally directed program, the odds are very strong that you would get the very best iron lungs in the world — portable iron lungs, transistorized iron lungs — but you wouldn’t get the vaccine that eradicated polio.” The point is that, given a society of free people, the best ideas rise to the top, so long as no person may coerce another. You know only one way of using the EM spectrum because you think like a bureaucrat — we can’t get rid of the iron lung because polio victims would die. It is nothing more than yet another application of Nobel laureate F. A. von Hayek’s Theory of Spontaneous Order. (Disclaimer: he did not win his prize for that theory specifically, but for proving deductively that socialism is not a viable economic model.) Here are a couple of articles discussing the issue that may interest you: [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg16n2e.html](http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg16n2e.html) [http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/010418-tk.html](http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/010418-tk.html) ---
**Author:** ![Denis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@Denis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Denis)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/47 "2004-07-19T00:01:16Z")
**Lib** , in this thread, you are presenting the face of Libertarianism that I love. Basically: Very little to zero government interference in matters that do not affect public safety. Tits and “dirty words” don’t affect public safety. If people don’t like them, they can simply change the station, or turn off the TV or radio. While stations and networks do use rating systems (voluntarily, I hope), I don’t think they are necessary except as a warning to some that some images and words are potentially disturbing. This could also be applied to major newspapers as well. I know I find (in spite of my self-avowed status as a cynic) the news of the day very upsetting. I also know that I would be very pissed if some government drone decided I couldn’t read that because of the effect on my ‘morale.’ I know, the major media outlets have been complicit in several government ‘for our own good’ coverups, or softening of bad news. I am tired of media catering to the lowest common denominator in the interest of not offending the FCC or the public. Remove the FCC’s discretion as far as ‘offensivness’ is concerned, and let the public decide. Maybe all we’ll get is pablum, but at least there will be some who are interested in presenting life, in all its ugliness and glory who succeed. My $.02. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319/48 "2004-07-19T23:13:04Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > …Samuel Broder, onetime director of the National Cancer Institute and an NIH official once said, “If you had demanded that the NIH solve the problem of polio not through independent, investigator-driven discovery research but by means of a centrally directed program, the odds are very strong that you would get the very best iron lungs in the world — portable iron lungs, transistorized iron lungs — but you wouldn’t get the vaccine that eradicated polio.” The point is that, given a society of free people, the best ideas rise to the top, so long as no person may coerce another… You don’t think this kind of coercion, central planning and groupthink happens just as much in a corporate research lab? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-fallout-from-the-half-time-fall-out/255319.md?page=2)