Saturday, June 12, 2010

Picking and Choosing

My opinion about redistribution of wealth is pretty well known. What's mine is mine and I eagerly support your opportunity to get as much as you can in the public marketplace. I will continue to do the same myself. There is no such thing as too much for me and there is no obligation for me to give any part of what I've earned to someone else under government compulsion.

Yet, we watch the emerging slide into socialism accelerate each day. Only when a large ox gets gored do we get some kickback. Apparently an ox the size of Drudge is one that is willing to kick. Throw in the Mac-fanatics with their iPops of various flavors and you've got a herd of kicking bovines.

FTC Retrenches Position on Tax for News

Frankly I don't get it. Why would any news outlet want to see a tax imposed on someone who filters through their content and then posts signs on a prominent thoroughfare directing passers-by to visit them? It is free to the news outlet and it is an incredible traffic builder. (Attn Drudge: please note my sympathetic perspective and mention me for free on Drudge Report...often!)

But, there is an angle here. Admittedly the angle is antithetical to the First Amendment concept of a free press, but that shouldn't be a deal breaker for Eric Holder, et. al.

A fee could be levied on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to the best news of the day, or a tax could be imposed on consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds collected would be redistributed to traditional media outlets.


Isn't that special? The Messiah-sympathetic mainstream media that is hemorraging readership and revenue would get a redistribution of those tax dollars squeezed out of the Internet outlets and the iWhatever users. The New York Times and MSNBC must be shivering up and down both legs on that one.

Despite the retreat on the electronics tax, it appears Mr. Leibowitz and his staff have not abandoned the opinion that the problems facing journalism can and should be solved by government - even if the exact form this control would take is open to negotiation.


That should do it for funding of the Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation in our brave new world.

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