Defunding Public Broadcasters

Out of all the obsessive nit picking and over-analyzing on what Trump is doing - wow, look at those journalists go all of a sudden! From sloths to gazelles in their pursuit for truth and objectivity! Get your Bics and those tin foil hats on and make sure you stick that tongue out of the corner of your mouth hard! - one thing that caught my eye is the defunding of PBS and NPR.

As you all know - shock! You may want to close your eyes because trigger warning is in effect! - I've called for the privatizing of the CBC since the birth of this terrible blog.

For me it was simple. Why should I pay for something I don't intellectually and philosophically agree with? Why?

Because I have to just shut up and live in my own myopic world view while our "betters" ensure to keep this country culturally alive from coast to coast?

That angle *may* have had a purpose or been reasonable once upon a time but it's increasingly weak in today's information marketplace.

And if you tell me 'well, because you're vulnerable to fake news', I can but retort, 'f-off you pompous, paternalistic poops.

I can figure things out on my own.

In fact, from what I gather, I can't believe how half the crud that passes editorial boards get published they're so dubious and sometimes even absurd.

We all know now, without much doubt really, that the media pulls left. The 'legacy' broadcasters and papers in particular are clearly liberal and Trump's election finally put an end to their 'what, us. No, you're being paranoid' coyness.

The private broadcasters, of course, are free to do what they want. Their only offense is to tell us they're being objective when we all know they aren't. They're objective with a liberal slant.

So with them, I just don't watch or read.

But the problem with public broadcasting is it exists on public funding mostly through taxes. People have no say in the matter. Some like PBS hold pledge drives (something the CBC should do if they feel they're indispensable to the Canadian cultural and political landscape), however, the taxes is their lifeline.

For me, this poses an intellectual problem. Here are entities or organizations I do not agree with. nor would they likely hire me, but I have to pay their salaries?

I can ignore Neil MacDonald of the CBC all I want but my taxes keep his banal musings going.

If Neil is so good, let him take his spiel on the free market and see what kind of following he gets.

Public broadcasters are not for the public. They're for a segment of the public. And because they rely on extorting (I say extorting because they scare the public into thinking if we don't support their vision of the arts or whatever projects they work on the world will end and a dark age will be ushered in. Which of course is pure poppcycock. Or my personal favorite, 'cutting funding is a slap in the face to artists and scientists'! No, it isn't. Never mind, the West didn't become what it was through the giant welfare or grant mechanism of the state but the real 'slap' is the reality of accepting coerced money because you believe in yourself is parasitical. Know what else that's problematic? It makes these people feel self-entitled. It makes them feel more worth than they are. It completely creates a world that is not real. It also makes them angry. How dare you not fund me! How ignorant is the public for not seeing my greatness!) money from people who would not necessarily support them   if given the choice, they distort the market. That is, they have no fricken clue if what they're doing has any true value. 

If they do have value for some, then support it with your own wallets, no?

Another appeal to emotion tactic, and please forgive me if I'm a little over the map as I'm really just churning this out between tasks, is how organization will start a statement of condemnation with 'for over 60 years....'

I like to stop it there. The length of time you received a grant means little. It just means you were able to get successive government - for whatever reasons - to give you money. Maybe it was a time when budgets were bigger or the appetite for waste was greater. Who knows?

That someone comes along and reverses it doesn't negate the value of doing so.

Appetites and tastes change over time, no?

It's a little like the logical fallacy of how progressives think they've cornered you whenever you voice concern over public pensions (which are bankrupted by the way). They'll say something like, 'well you sure seem to enjoy your check or the free services!'

Yes. Except I had no choice in the matter being forced into it. That's not an argument.

Above all, what really grates me is ever notice how superficial people who get to travel the world on other people's dime really are?  It's not surprising. Can it be because the grant goes to a bunch of remedial minds who happen to have the 'right' trendy idea? It's amazing how many times over the years in talking to such people how despite their opportunities under whelm in their activities? The private market is much better at saying, 'yeh, I know you have that idea but you're a bit of a douche and I'm not giving you my money.'

Or, to pick on Neil of the CBC again, here's a guy who got to spend ample and valuable time in Washington and that's the best he can come up with? Run of the mill leftist drivel?

To a guy like me who spends hours and hours a week reading, talking and contemplating such people offer me nothing.

Why am I paying for it then?

They DO NOT cater to the likes of me - it's very convenient to circumnavigate me by simply labelling us as 'extremists' or whatever else they come up with. Now we're getting to the heart of the matter. Let's be frank. The modern progressive hates the free-market. It loathes the flow over country, It has a huge problem with religion. It lashes out at people who disagree with them as a 'basket of deplorables' and 'deniers' (for having the temerity of challenging the climate change cult).

Yet. Yet they have no problem taking OUR MONEY.

Says a lot about their moral and value system, no? They're like pan handlers with low IQs with excessive high self-esteem who just know what's good for the rest of us.

YOU made that bed and now the people who are fed up with it are pulling the purse strings.

Life's rough, eh?

Defunding them is a good idea.

Time to compete and sell your goods in halls of ideas kids. It's not a bad thing. You will it empowering. I mean, if it really is about intellectualism and serving the public good, right?

Or is it?

Maybe you're just pissed that you're losing money and control for its own sake?


*****

1984 is apparently going to broadway. The timing has nothing to do with Trump of course I'm sure.

I worry they will completely butcher and misrepresent its basic overall tenets - notable that the world depicted by Orwell is a world created by the left.

From Newspeak to violence to perpetual propaganda,  all of it is meant to portray the 'closing of the mind' via left-wing doctrines and rhetoric.

They will probably aim to link 1984 to Trump but to astute observers, the tracks to a real-world 1984 were laid by progressives.

Identity politics meet 1984.

It will be very ugly.