I just caught a few minutes of Glenn Beck before turning my Sirius Satellite to Mike Church. While I am not a huge Beck fan, I fear he may be right. This year may be the death of talk radio as we know it. It's obvious that members of Congress and other political pundits are rallying against talk radio as the ultimate reason that drove Jaren Loughner to shoot up the Safeway store that Gabrielle Giffords was at. Oh, you think its safe because we have Republicans in the House?
Let me remind you of Republicans like Peter King (R-NY) who is calling for more gun control laws. Did you expect to see a Republican join the whiny Democrats who are using this tragedy to push their agenda on the American people? There are other examples that I am privy to where other Republicans in Congress are playing this game as well, intimidating free speech in light of the Saturday's tragedy.
If Republicans are willing to join the ranks of Democrats, who hope to infringe upon American freedoms after this tragedy, what makes you think they are going to stand up for free talk radio without a Fairness Doctrine? I have not faith in Republicans based on what I have read and experienced in the last 24 hours. We may be seeing the death of talk radio as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin now all have received some kind of blame as the reason Gabrielle Giffords lays in a hospital.
The problem is, none of these politicians and pundits have produced one shred of evidence that Jared Loughner listened to any of these talk show hosts. We do know that Loughner listened to heavy metal, specifically death metal which may inspired the skull alter he set up in the backyard. So why isn't heavy metal getting the blame? After all, liberals have a long history of transferring the blame for the actions taken by troubled youth onto performers like Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest, who are lightweights compared to today's death metal that has retreated to underground radio stations once again.
Do the Loughner shootings prove Tipper Gore failed in her federal government censorship efforts on rock music that led to Twisted Sister's Dee Snider testifying in Congress on the First Amendment against the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)? Perhaps, the labels encouraged Loughner to pick up the heavy metal CD and get lost in this generation of heavy metal's darker images that have long forgotten the days of fun hair metal bands. I guess the simple question is why is talk radio and not heavy metal under attack by the liberals? We have plenty examples in the past were federal officials hoping to babysit for American parents have attacked heavy metal music as well.
So if politicians resurrect the Fairness Doctrine, what measures will be taken to ensure that heavy metal will not inspire the next Jared Loughner to go on a Safeway shooting spree? After all, it is called the Fairness Doctrine and since it's only fair to look at what Loughner REALLY listened too, why aren't the politicians blaming heavy metal, that is if they are really looking to be fair?
I know, madness! Just like Congress has no Constitutional authority to limit the free speech on talk radio with a Fairness Doctrine, they have no right to regulate heavy metal music. I just find it interesting that Rush Limbaugh and not heavy metal is under attack, because it's well documented that Loughner listened to metal. Nobody knows if he embraced the Rush Limbaugh program, and we know from the list of his favorite books that See I Told You So and the The Way Things Ought to Be weren't on his list as favorite books. We do know he listened to lots of heavy metal, yet Limbaugh and others are under attack for this mentally ill dolt's actions.
This knee jerk reaction from politicians and pundits aiming their political rhetoric (I didn't really mean aiming) against Rush Limbaugh and talk radio has nothing to do with prevention of anything more than the criticism these very politicians deserve.
