"Don't give me this public airwaves business, either. The public airwaves argument vanished long ago with what they're putting on the public television airwaves.
Radio cannot compete with the smut that's on television. I don't care who on radio is out there. They don't compete with the crap that's being televised every night into everybody's home with little teeny bops watching it and so forth. Now if we sit idly by and let a federal government start to define what is okay for somebody to say on radio and what isn't -- and in this area it has to do with decency regarding obscenity and smut and so forth -- what happens if a whole bunch of John Kerry-John Edwards-Bill Clinton-Terry McAuliffe types end up running this country someday again and decide that conservative opinion is indecent, decide that that causes violence, decide that that is somehow damaging to the culture?"
Rush Limbaugh, February 26, 2004
"In the free marketplace, you're welcome to say whatever you like, but if people don't want to buy whatever you're selling, no whines. As long as the airwaves remain in the public domain, the public has a right through its government to stifle the profane rants and juvenile outbursts of our lesser-evolved brethren. Ain't democracy grand?"
Kathleen Parker, March 17, 2004
Of course Rush's comment is pretty self serving; he makes his money in radio, he doesn't want anybody messing up his meal ticket. But these two do show the essential split in the Republican Party; between those who would destroy the mechanisms of government and those, like Ms. Parker, who would use those mechanisms against viewpoints and positions and entertainment they don't like.
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