Alert Eric Scheie. This is just fucking ridiculous.
Beyond ridiculous. It's disgusting.
Yes, my dears, please, please, please color me a First Amendment absolutist. No exceptions.
Consider: the Federal Communications Commission has cost Americans, this year alone, a network broadcast of Saving Private Ryan and the broadcast entertainment services of Howard Stern. Now, perhaps you are no admirer of either one -- but millions of Americans are, and these options are available to them no longer.
Is there a legitimate moral reason for the FCC to exist? No. The "airwaves" are not owned by the public, which did not invent them nor exploit them in any way other than to receive the transmissions made available thereby.
Is there a legal justification for the FCC? Clearly, no...and the entire organization is in fact illegally constituted: the Constitution very clearly and adamantly establishes a separation of powers (executive, legislative, and judicial), and bands of moralizing thugs agencies such as the FCC, which combine all three, are clearly violations of that idea.
.
What an indecent situation.
(Hat tip: Jeff Taylor at Hit & Run.)