amen...why do we see it as a right for a media outlet to be able to live on government funds? ala AMTRAC..they are a basket case..they cannot turn a profit and are on taxpayer life support..their services are either to bad, they don't serve the public interest and/or an alternative exists that people prefer to use …..they should be left to die….

IF there is an audience for pbs and npr, then as alex said why they should be able to survive the marketplace on their own.,.without taxpayer help? ..and lets be honest here...npr is the only viable leftwing broadcast media on the airwaves that exists because......it lives on gov. funds..if not for you and me and uncle sam redistributing our funds to float it...it would sink ala air America.....you know, in santa cruz California, arguably one of the most liberal counties in the US, Air America was pulled by the local affiliate…know why? because the self admitted liberal radio station manger had to pull them as they sold zero adds for their broadcast slots…and the station had to survive by putting on something else that could sell adds in its time slot…...why should we subsidize failure IF npr cannot float themselves….?

And PBS? Well the latest casualties of the PC wars he the newly appointed manger of PBS (Tomlinson) had the temerity to introduce a half hour of what is viewed as Con. programming in the form of the “Wall st Journal report” as he looked at the prgmming. And found it very heavily slanted in favor of one side…BUT while the dems in congress want to re-introduce a bill on airwave ‘equality’ ( that would force stations to broadcast each point of view equally that was shot down in the Reagan era), they could not allow a half hour prgm. from the alternative side of things without hyperventilating and attacking the manager as a right wing zealot…..please….

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor