When they tried to force cable systems to carry religious channels (a blast from the past)

Let's take a trip back to the bubble gum bustin' year 2005!

This is when self-described "moralists" – yes, they used that term to describe themselves – wanted to pass a law requiring cable TV systems to carry religious channels. Several members of Congress inserted such language into a bill dealing with the switch from analog TV to the much-despised digital format.

Supporters of this plan said cable companies were deliberately shoving religious broadcasting aside – even though many companies offered several religious channels. Several years earlier, one cable provider even struck a deal with congressional "leaders" to drop a local channel that covered liberal rallies and replace it with full-time fundamentalist preaching.

How about fair coverage for all minority groups? If cable companies had to carry religious channels, they should have also had to open up access to any other group. Public access channels were required to allow such access, but no group got a whole channel. In fact, most public access channels were just filled with a rotating series of messages consisting of text on a computer screen. There was nothing preventing religious groups from making public access programs – like everyone else had to do.

The proposed law also blasted a gaping cavern through the claims – which persist today – that the FCC can't bring back the fairness doctrine and impose it on cable channels, or that the FCC can't place ownership caps on how many channels a large corporation may own. It also rips to shreds any claims that the FCC can't encourage stations to show quality children's programming.

Those who endorse government censorship based on content are usually the same weenieistic hypocrites who oppose regulation for the purpose of public interest – such as ownership caps.

If a pound of doublethink is worth a million dollars, I want mining rights to our rulers' heads.