Stop funding National Public Radio!

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 crated what now is the present system of public broadcasting. Like virtually all government-funded projects, "public" broadcasting has grown into a more-than-billion-dollar monster which is virtually free of accountability to the taxpayers who are striped of hundreds of millions of dollars to keep it on the air and competing against private-enterprise broadcasters.

Originally conceived to provide educational programming the system has festered into a taxpayer-subsidized political indoctrination tool for leftists -- although it still produces a bit of worthwhile educational programming.

National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) have been feeding at the public trough for far too long. Their intolerance of honesty and diversity of opinion, as manifest by the recent termination of Juan Williams is inexcusable. National Public Radio fired Mr. Williams because he admitted on Fox television to becoming nervous when he sees Muslims on airplanes -- for saying what we all feel!

It is interesting to note the hypocritical difference in how NPR views disparaging remarks about conservatives. Last year, Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio affiliate KCRW, said that she would "Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out" if she saw Rush Limbaugh having a heart attack; Spitz was not fired. In 2001, NPR's Bill Moyers called conservative Americans "the right-wing Taliban" and conservative legislators "the ayatollahs in Congress"; Moyers was not fired. In 1995, NPR's Nina Totenberg commented that if there was "retributive justice," conservative former Sen. Jesse Helms would "get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it"; Totenberg was not fired. Also in 1995, NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu declared about fundamentalist Christians, "The evaporation of 4 million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place"; Codrescu was not fired.

NPR, PBS, and CPB must be de-funded, but not because they fired Juan Williams. If NPR was privately-funded their editorial and staffing decisions wouldn't be any of my business. Instead, I would simply be a consumer, free to listen, or not listen to NPR. But, thanks to the busy-body know-it-all politicians in Congress, everything NPR does is my business, because I'm taxed to subsidize NPR. I don't appreciate being forced to pay for other people's "viewpoints," "journalism," or "art" (Don't get me started on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) which uses taxpayer money to pay "artists" with little or no talent to produce garbage and even profane insults on our sensibilities.).

Of course, any private business should have the right to fire its employees. But NPR, PBS, and CPB (and their many public broadcasting stations) aren't any private business -- they get millions of taxpayer dollars every year! In other words: every taxpayer is paying for leftist talk radio and censorship of non-politically cleansed (AKA politically correct) speech -- content which has been a proven failure in the free market of ideas!

I have written Congress several times over the years insisting that these organizations no longer receive funding from the taxpayer. Where is the Constitutional authority for this spending and for this competition against private enterprise?

I cannot tolerate a government-funded entity competing against private enterprise. And, I certainly cannot tolerate and form of government influence over any source of news or commentary.

These programs
- Violate the First Amendment by forcing me to subsidize other people's speech
- Violate the Ninth Amendment by attacking my freedom of conscience
- Violate the Tenth Amendment because these subsidies aren't authorized by the Constitution.

All federal funding of speech and the arts should be terminated immediately! The must be required to compete in a free market like any other broadcaster!