Now here is a REALLY scary thought....

FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content
McDowell warns reinstated powers could play in net neutrality debate, lead to government requiring balance on Web sites.

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
8/13/2008 9:08:51 AM

There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

Putting it another way -- a vote for Obamanation, Pelosi, Reid, and your neighborhood's Dimocrat rep to Congress ---- is a vote for Government Speech Control and the demise of the 1st Amendment. They have already said that they will reverse the 2nd Amendment, now they are working on the 1st!
I've heard jokes that reinstating the 'Fairness Doctrine' would mean that CNN would have to include Rush Limbaugh, and the NBC today show would have to let Matt Lauer go and hire Glenn Beck as co-host... Trust me folks, this whole fairness doctrine scheme has nothing to do with balancing the left... merely with gagging the conservatives!

Keep those eyes peeled and those ears alert.. 1984 may be 30 years late .. but it's coming, Pilgrims ---