What Should We Do About A Lying Billionaire Who Dominates the Free Press?

An easy answer. No, you leave him free to do what he does and grit your teeth. You also do what you can to counter the bull**** of a guy like him, being spewed upon the world, by spewing the truth. Start to "curb" someone like Murdoch, and before you know it, he'll be busy curbing you. We don't want what has happened in Venezuela to happen here, where the government, and its supporters, are fast becoming the only source of information. There are many worse examples than that. Nope, freedom of the press, warts and all, was enshrined in the constitution for a reason and is a big part of what we are in this country

 

Now this is a different topic. TR, a hundred plus years ago, fought to curb corporate excess and monopolies. I am very much in favor of rules designed to curb the creation of media giants who border on media monopolies. We used to have such rules and it was a travesty that they were changed. Murdoch is a perfect example of why we had them in the first place, and he's not the only one. Sadly, the radical Roberts court will probably side with Corporate America if there is an attempt to reinstate such rules. It doesn't help any that the Democratic majority, which was such a struggle to achieve, looks shaky at the moment. We are in accord here.

 

discredit him

or do nothing

but don't resort to force if you are unpersuasive

The idea that anyone dominates the press is silly, there is more access to different sources of info than ever before.

Sounds like you just want to silence popular folks you disagree with.

If you were in China or Venezuela you might have an argument.

 

Funny how insecure liberals have become with Murdoch even after owning the medium for a century now. Seriously you think he is a threat to a "free" press?

Murdoch was only a response to market demand for something other then the usual leftist media outlets. Take him out of the equation today and some one else will pop into place. So naturally the course has been to prop up a competitor for Fox and Co. Well, MSNBC's ratings are in toilet so that's not a fixer. Now, I see why liberals are worried of losing dinosaurs like the NYT, CBS, and NBC. BTW if libs would only watch their own news and read the leftist papers, maybe then you wouldn't have to worry about "evil" Murdoch taking over your empires.

I care neither about Murdoch or his media empire. Let the man build whatever he wants as long his methods are legal. But I laugh at the libs who want to somehow suppress the guy cause his political views differ from their own.

Heck I'd give you Murdoch's head on a platter, if you leftist promised to put George Soros' on a tray with an apple stuffed in his mouth.

Deal?

 

Pirate radio.

Pirate webcast.

There are plenty of avenues to fight this abuse. All you need to do is take the initiative.

 

fixed.

 

Yet is was Clinton who allowed for a lot of this to happen ironically.

While it is eyebrow raising to see how much misinformation is spread by Fox and some of the radio shows - I don't think it's necessarily a terrible thing.

It's not like the truth isn't out there nor accessible. People tune into Fox because they want to. It's their choice to believe whatever they want.

And if Fox is causing that much damage, other news outlets can point out the inaccuracies - you see it all the time with Jon Stewart afterall.

But to me it's more comical than anything - particularly that Fox gets liberals really bent out of shape and that conservatives think outlets like CNN is the "liberal" media.

 

That being the case, how did Obama ever get elected and how did the Democrats mop up in the 2008 elections? I don't think you are giving the American people enough credit. There are plenty of media outlets for folks to get information.

 

What's more ridiculous, that Fox spews that stuff or that people believe it?

For me it's the latter.

As much as I understand your concern, I think free speech / press is critical to a functioning democracy and that to put constraints on this might have unintended consequences down the road that would be far worse.

 

More of a statist, but the distinction is minimial. Rather than running the private economy where you need to get results (Soviet breadlines and pos cars), he wants to control/regulate it, banks, car companies, energy sector, health care sector, he wants state power over all of it.

True, although it's not so much the type of tax as what the revenue is used for that's wrong.

Well if you tax at %100 no one will work and you won't have any revenue, there is some optimal value for generating revenue, and you could argue whether we are currently above or below that rate.

This is where the type of taxation comes into play as well. If you tax income you discourage productivity, if you tax consumption you discourage purchasing, if you tax wealth you discourage savings.

I would say a sales tax is the way to go, since productivity and savings create growth, which creates tax revenue. A national sales tax would be better than an income or wealth tax. My guess is, the current crop in power would like all three (VAT and wealth taxes have been floated around).

Sort of, all government that controls rather than protects/edjudicates is evil.

But hey this is all unreasonable and dangerous, so let's silence it.

Shut up, he explained.

 

Wow. So freedom of press unless they agree with you?

I think its true that both sides at their extremes are fascists.

 

Your right. The government should regulate the media. That has worked well in the past!