On Censorship and Corporate Courage

 As of this writing, Nexstar and Sinclair have decided to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel upon his return to ABC in his late night slot. Let me first state that it is their absolute right to do so. Their right to free speech through their media companies is as valid and protected as anyone else's. They do not have to air any content they deem will be unacceptable. But that's not why they are doing it. They're scared.

Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission chairman, publicly threatened these companies in his capacity as chair. He is welcome to his personal opinion, but he may not exercise that opinion in his official capacity. The FCC has no authority to censor content outside of content very carefully defined by law and precedent (you can't air porn, for example, on a public network). Instead of telling the bully, who is definitively censoring, to go fly a kite until the court date arrives, they chose to capitulate to yet another Trump appointee. 

Nexstar and Sinclair, who own the affiliates that are pre-empting Jimmy Kimmel, both have business before the FCC that requires the approval of the FCC to complete. Nexstar is trying to merge with or acquire another affiliate to increase its share of the ABC audience beyond the current restrictions allowed by regulation. Currently, no privately or publicly owned broadcaster can broadcast to more than 39% of the American audience. Nexstar already does that. It is seeking to further expand it broadcast empire which requires the FCC to change the regulations. Sinclair is seeking pretty much the same thing, though on a smaller scale. 

Brendan Carr specifically told all ABC affiliates that the FCC will block any efforts to keep affiliates on the air if the do not remove, again specifically, Jimmy Kimmel from their broadcasts. This includes all methods at the FCC's disposal, including, but not limited to, blocking acquisitions and mergers, withholding licenses, and any other tool they can use to enforce the will of the present administration on these companies.

This action is beyond the authority of the FCC, its censorship at its most obvious and its illegal. Nexstar and Sinclair should both thumb their noses at Brendan Carr, then sue the FCC if their deals fall apart because of these actions. But they won't. Corporate courage is an oxymoron. Corporations are not brave. They are profit machines. They exist only to make money and will do what their directors and CEO's believe is the most efficient way to do that. If that means capitulating to illegal and dangerous government demands, that's what they'll do. Courage and "doing the right thing" do not enter in to their equations unless it positively affects the bottom line. ABC reinstated Jimmy Kimmel because their bottom line was tanking due to public reaction, not because they thought it was the thing that needed to be done. The American consumers dictated to Disney, who owns ABC, what fight they have to fight to protect their bottom line. And it ain't banning Jimmy Kimmel.

Here's how affiliates make money; they buy shows from the networks and air them at pre-scheduled times. The networks pay to produce these shows and put them out to their affiliated broadcasters in local markets. The affiliates hope these shows are fantastically popular, because the larger an audience is for a show, the more they can charge for advertising. The more advertising they sell on air, the more money they make...and here's a kicker: we're entering campaign season where candidates buy a TON of local air time to try and get votes. That's big money for affiliates. And the larger the audience for a given show, the more money they make. But if a show has a smaller or no audience?  No money. Nobody buys expensive advertising so that it won't be seen.

So what if an affiliate had no audience? Heh. No money. The affiliate would change the programming pronto. Hint, hint. Ultimately, as proved with Disney, the consumer dictates what is aired on TV. So, if your community has a Nexstar or Sinclair ABC station - don't watch it! Switch to CBS or Netflix, take a walk, set that time to have coffee (or the beverage of your choice) with your neighbors and plan on how you can insert planks into the party platforms in the next elections, read a book. Anything but give audience to that affiliate. Use your power to force these affiliates to air the shows you want to see, because, ultimately, you're paying for it. It worked on Disney in 5 days. My opinion is it will take a little longer with local affiliates because their numbers and decision makers don't have the administrative structure that Disney has. They won't see the downturn as quickly or be able to change their minds as rapidly, but when the dollars start to disappear, change their tune they will.

And if the FCC plays dirty and illegally - take 'em to court! The Trump administration has lost every single court battle brought against them. Every single one. Corporations should consider that when threatened. The bully just kicked sand in your face - punch 'em in the nose with a summons. For just once, consider where your money comes from - and it ain't the federal government. Serve your consumers first and, generally, that bottom line is safe. Otherwise, prepare to suffer the consequences of pissing off your clientele. And as one that has been in retail for a very long time, the worst thing you can do is alienate your customers. A lot of times, they don't come back. Ever.

On Charlie Kirk and Free Speech

 On September 10th, 2025 Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a lone gunman from a safe vantage point.

Permit me to enumerate at least some of the reasons this is morally abhorrent.

Political assassination , even the attempt, is the pinnacle of moral cowardice. How much courage does it take to hide on a rooftop and pull a trigger, then run away? How does one person have the right to make moral and final judgements on another? It is purely and simply cowardice at the grandest possible scale.

Free speech is a guaranteed right of every person in this nation.  A right I have stated may times I would die to protect as hundreds of thousands of people already have. Anybody and everybody has the right to express their opinion openly and without threat of physical retribution. Dissent is part of the process. Disagreement and reasoned discourse -persuasion- is the way it works. To remove a conversation from the arena cheats the whole society. Cheating means you don't believe you can win, so you don't even try. Again, cowardice.

The logical corollary to free speech, the right to state your opinion openly and without threat, is the choice not to listen. You have every right to say whatever you want. I have every right not to hear you. On April 14, 1984, the Ku Klux Klan marched up Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas to the State Capital. They procured a permit from the city to do so and followed all the legal niceties that were required for them to march, as was their constitutional right. The editor of the Austin American-Statesman at the time (who was Jewish) wrote an op-ed piece defending their right to march. He also encouraged everyone NOT to attend. He postulated that if the Klan marched up an empty avenue, if they could not upset anyone, they would not further invest their time and money in marching on the state capital. As a resident of Austin at the time, I am proud to say that this advise was largely followed. The Klan marched up an avenue lined by Austin police and maybe a dozen rabble-rousers from other groups attempting to get publicity. While the Klan was afforded their rights, the citizens of Texas exercised their corollary rights of not paying attention. The Klan has never made that march since then.

Charlie Kirk made his living, supported his family and his community by exercising his right to speak. I most vehemently disagreed with his suppositions, but would not dream of denying his right to have and speak them in the public sphere. I chose to exercise my corollary rights. I did not hear him. As with the Klan in Austin, if enough people exercise the right not to listen, Charlie would have been out of a job. The other avenue open to every citizen was to engage Charlie in reasoned discourse - argue with him- and persuade his audience that, if enacted in policy, his opinions had consequences that would be unpopular if not catastrophic. 

Persuasion, not violence, is the American way. Reason and logic are the sole tools of every social endeavor. Violence can only achieve chaos. Political violence must be anathema to the society writ large. You don't have to agree, you don't have to listen, but you must allow the freedom to speak. If you take away Charlie's right to speak, you ultimately remove your own.

On Conservatism and Progressivism in America

I have recently been studying modern political philosophy as has, in the past, not been my desire. I have spent countless hours absorbing American Revolutionary history and the people and thought that went into framing the social and political experiment called American Democracy. But had not spent anywhere nearly as long studying how that history had carried forward into today's political sphere. In recent weeks, I have attempted to remedy that. 

What I have found is, that since the late 19th century, political thought in America could be divided into two schools of thought; progressivism and conservatism. Both terms bring preconceived and unstudied reactions to most modern Americans. Let me over-simplify the differences for ease of discussion: 

Progressivism is the school of thought that government should be the purveyors of well-being to the governed. It should strive to make laws, provide examples and educate the governed to provide "Happiness" to the largest possible segment of the governed, even if the outliers remain unhappy. I will discuss the fallacies of this and conservatism later in this writing.

Conservatism espouses to conserve individual liberties through small(ish) government and individual choice; a person-by person pursuit of "Happiness". Again, there are logical fallacies to a strict adherence to this policy as well.

The Founders were highly educated and highly experienced thinkers who had all read Plato's Republic and John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. They had also fought a war and waded through the (at the time) failing Articles of Confederation. They built a Constitution that defined not what a government could do, but what it could NOT do. They, very ruthlessly, limited the powers of government and built in checks and balances to keep it limited. They believed that nature granted to the individual inalienable right as you and I believe the sun will rise in the West. And foresaw the evils of government trying to usurp those rights. They also believed that the ultimate safeguard against that occurrence was the governed themselves. So they gave the governed the power over government and hemmed in the government by limiting its powers to govern and dividing those powers among co-equal branches that would, over time, serve to keep governmental usurpation of rights in check. 

Conservatism seeks to keep government small and its interference in the day-to-day life minimal. The aforementioned John Locke postulated that the ability to trust your government was inversely proportional to your distance from it. As I previously stated, Locke had a profound effect on liberal (meaning in the vernacular of the period - non-monarchal) governments across the Western world. His influence can be seen in the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, as well as other places. So the Founders sought to balance individual liberty with the absolute need of societies to be governed, with a strong bias towards individual liberties. To a true Conservative, nature gives inalienable right to the individual, not the community. Thus, in order to ultimately protect those rights, government should be kept small, its powers clearly delineated, and held in check by those same individuals. 

The pros of conservatism are the protection of minority rights, protection of individual choice, and the oversight and ultimate responsibility of the governed for that oversight of the government. However, it pre-supposes a willing and educated individual or collection of individuals that maintain at least some interest in that oversight. Its philosophy rests on nature and the place of individuals within that nature, It does not adequately address the largest social sin of the 20th, and so far, the 21st centuries: apathy.

Progressivism is the anthesis of conservatism. It holds that individual rights must give way to the majority. That social happiness outweighs individual happiness. To quote Spock, "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one". The role of government, in a progressive society, is to guarantee social "happiness" even if individual rights are usurped. It demands a large government to oversee virtually every aspect of social intercourse and legislate how it should be conducted. Work, play, and in extreme instances, speech become regulated to a social "norm". Individual rights are sacrificed to the majority so everyone can achieve "happiness".

The pros of progressivism are that no individual falls below a defined level of prosperity and education. Expectations, thus regulation of behavior, are universal across the body of the governed, and the life of the governed is simple, as long as they stay within the bounds of majority rule. However, progressivism depends on the majority ideals as being the basis for individual happiness. To paraphrase Jefferson, "There is no tyranny as that of the majority". No ideal in human political existence is universal. There is no universal path to happiness. Happiness is, ipso facto, an individual aspiration. What your grandparents told you is true, "you can't make everybody happy". 

There is, in the opinion of this less than perfect and all-seeing author, a happy medium (if you'll excuse the expression) that should and could exist between rugged individualism and the collective good. But that state must be considered on a case by case basis. Should everyone have guaranteed health care? Does an individual have autonomy over their own body? Etc., etc. ad nauseum. There is no universal approach to societal issues simply because society is composed of very different individuals who have individual pursuits of happiness. No single individual wants a life or can have one exactly like any other individual. So the differences must be addressed and respected while still maintaining a healthy, happy society. That means that  reasoned deliberation and discussion should occur and a balance or compromise reached that at least approaches the "happy medium".

It is the opinion of the writer that three things have happened in modern American history that have upset the governing apple cart; 1) progressivism has taught the American political body that the government is there to "take care of them", 2) Congress has slowly but oh so surely has ceded its powers to the Executive Branch and 3) the governed have become apathetic. All of these things are extremely dangerous to liberty and democracy.  The federal government is the least capable institution on the face of the planet of taking care of any individual. It simply has no mechanisms with which to do so and no process exists or will exist to give it those mechanisms. Congress  has had an extremely black history when it comes to guarding its powers and performing its function. Put plainly, Congress has not done its job since before the Civil War. It is aware of this, but instead of doing its job, its members collect large contributions and pass their job over to the President. I have a complete and lengthy diatribe about Congress, but that's for another post.

Now, the most dangerous of the three - apathy. Less than half of the registered voters in this country vote. Put another way, less than have of those who hold the ultimate power in this country exercise that power. The old adage of "use it or lose it" is apropos here. Hitler rose to power legitimately through the German election process where less than half of voters cast their ballots. And after that, casting a ballot was no longer an issue. If you think that cannot happen in America, think again. All it takes is for people not to care enough to use their power. This creates a power vacuum in the American body politic and nature abhors a vacuum. Someone will use that power if its not otherwise used.

The good new is that all of the problems I have outlined can be addressed by simply addressing the last. The Founders believed that the citizens would know that they had a vested and crucial role in government and would jealously guard that role. So, damn it, guard it! Educate yourself on the issues and the candidates and vote in your own self-interest. That's the way its designed to work. But American government cannot work at all if the ultimate brokers of power do not do their job. VOTE! Replace the Congressmen and Senators that would rather collect contributions from mega-corporations and billionaires than represent your interest. Does your Congressman listen when you call or write? Does your representative respond? Do they respond and address your concerns in a way that suits you? If the answer is no, then vote them out! If there is no one on the ballot you would vote for, then run yourself. Use your power!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV2Zk88beY

Copy and paste this in your browser and watch it!

Your Turn...

     For the exact number of posts on this blog, I have bored the readers with my opinions. I have stated my core beliefs politically, socially and religiously. I have received, in return, exactly one comment. 

    So - Your Turn. I have all but begged for responses and discussion, And received none. Please take a few minutes, order your thoughts, and tell me what you think about just about anything. Respond toa post. Post your own. Agreement with my opinion is by no means required or even expected. I would relish honest, open conversation. There's a ton of stuff worth open discourse. I'm from Texas. That should be an ice breaker...

STAND UP!

Stand Up, Dammit!

If one has had the misfortune to have read my previous posts, then they know that I believe that our country is facing the most serious threat in generations. And, believe it or not, I think I know how to answer that threat. To wit, my 5 ideas to avoid autocracy, theocracy and other forms of authoritarian rule in the United States of America:

1)   Look at the performance and record of your elected officials; everyone from county purser to POTUS and really look. Don't take them at their word, do your homework. Look up their records on votes, research their public appearances and statements. Find out what they are really doing to make life better for you, yours and your community. Like what you see? Excellent! Then share that with friends and neighbors so that they can do their homework, and keep voting for them. Not so happy? Then VOTE THE SOB's OUT OF OFFICE. Campaign for the candidate that you believe will do the damn job we are paying them to do. Then (trust, but verify) check their records and performance, too. They work for you, you pay them, you gave them a job description - are they doing the job?

2)  Vote, every time there is an election. Take the time to be informed, and vote. Go to the precinct conventions (or the local equivalent in your district) and vote on the planks you want added to the platforms of the party and who your delegates will be to the next level. Get down in the real grass roots of how the system works and work it.

3)   Run for office. I especially encourage the young people to look at this. My friends and I are older. My generation is not famous for its understanding of technologies that are so essential to communications today. It is my belief that most of my generation is either dead or should be taking on a mentorship type of position and allowing younger minds, dreams and hopes steer the future. We had our shot. We didn't do so great. Below, I have listed some URL's of videos of young people who are making their voices heard in new and exciting ways. Give them a peek. And if you're a boomer, give them the resources they need to make the world a better place - your respect, your time and your money.

4) Volunteer. Find a cause or issue that you can serve. Service to others is the highest calling, the most satisfying accomplishment, and best medicine for what ails you. Every good cause you can think of never has enough resources. Become a resource.

5)  DO NOT CAPITULATE! Have you read the Constitution and all of its 27 amendments? Do you understand them? Stand your ground! Know your rights and insist on them being preserved. Help your friends, your neighbors, and members of your community to enjoy their rights. And then insist they pay it forward. DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE. Do not abdicate your rights without being told to by someone can enforce that abrogation. Don't give up without being forced to. Stand up for yourself, your family, your friends and your neighbors. Say no, loudly, at length and very, very often.

https://www.katforillinois.com/

https://www.jamestalarico.com/

Now, do your homework. Get to work making this the best place in the world to be. And, as always, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions. I promise, I will listen.

My Thoughts on "No Kings" Day

 Before entering yet another diatribe on my opinions, let me take this opportunity to write that I am completely taken aback by yet more political violence as occurred in the state of Minnesota. Let us all remember that the people attacked were first and foremost just that: people. My thoughts are with their families and friends; their people.

Democracy in America started and still exists as an governmental, social and political experiment. Our founding fathers believed that a society had the right, responsibility and capability to govern itself. "Liberty" was not just a slogan, but a heartfelt, widely-held belief in self governance. It stopped, just short, of rugged individualism. But that, together as a nation, we could, should and would seek out and attain "life, liberty" and successfully pursue happiness. And for nearly 250 years, we have.

This is not the first time, and if we continue to be a democracy, it won't be the last time that internal threats to that liberty have occurred. Andrew Jackson tried (and failed, thanks to Congress) to consolidate power in the executive. Sen. Joseph McCarthy wielded fear and "otherness" to gain power, but again was stopped (thanks to journalists). While I have called out institutional responses that stopped previous threats, I left out the one common factor: the people. The people reigned in their fear, raised their voices and casts their votes to remove these threats and, in the end, were the forces that saved democracy.

Most recently, our current President seeks to rule unilaterally from the White House. He has sewn hatred and branded a peoples "other" and "evil". This is a common thread among despots and dictators. He has issued edicts, spewed lies and sewn fear. Fear is his motivation to keep, not just "others" in line, but everyone. This includes you, gentle reader and I. 

If a sitting U.S. Senator can be manhandled and shackled for daring to ideologically oppose the executive branches policies and actions, what, for a second, do you imagine can happen to you? If persons legally in the United States are detained without warrant and due process, what do you think can happen to you? If these same persons are separated from their families, their children and legal counsel, what do you think can happen to you? 

And that's the idea behind these actions - to instill fear among everyone. Fear is a natural and understandable response. It is OK to be afraid. It is not OK to let that fear take from you what generations of people in this country worked for, lived for and died for. It is not OK for fear to lead you to believe that violence is the only cure. It not OK to let liberty go from you without raising your voice, not your fists, to simply so "no".

The founding fathers believed in "reasoned discourse". Let me urge anyone unfortunate enough to read my diatribe to talk, and listen, to opinions you might not agree with, dig in and find the reasons behind those opposing opinions. Listen to what your fellow Americans have to say. You don't have to agree, but engage in reasoned discourse. Tell them your opinions and why you hold them. They don't have to agree with you, but if you'll truly listen, you'll learn what your fellows believe and feel about their lives in America. And their lives are no less a part of this society than yours. So hear them out, ask them to return the favor. Reason with each other. Agreement is not a necessity.

And bear in mind that we are all immigrant to this country, unless you are Native American (all Latin have aboriginal roots in the Americas, by the way.) They are not "other" simply because English isn't their primary language, their skin color may not be sunburn prone, or any other absolutely meaningless distinction. People are people everywhere. They want pretty much the same things no matter their backgrounds. What is that? Easy- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.