Then again having allowed 60+ years of the FCC censoring discource and media it’s obvious that even if they did know, nobody cares about it.

When you make a nation of laws you make a nation of criminals. Anybody can be punished for anything at any time.

This is how the government is able to control and manipulate large businesses like Google or whatever. They have so many laws… thousands and thousands of laws. Hundreds of new ones every year and many of them are conflicting. So when you obey one law your probably going to end up breaking another. A executive of a large corporation probably commits several felonies a year just by trying to do business. Breaks several laws a month that can get his company sanctioned and fined.

So then the decision to prosecute is largely political one. The law becomes a tool, a weapon, to use as the wielder seems fit. Since laws conflict, are vague, and to numerous to even number (this is very literally the truth. Nobody knows, not even the most devout scholarly lawyer, just how many laws we have. Very valid estimates can vary widely.)

A high level bureaucrat picks and chooses which laws which should be followed and what other ones are not relevant and also interprets the laws.

This is no joke, it’s not hyperbole, and it’s not a exaggeration. This is very literally the truth on how our government is ran.

The Congress regularly passes laws on hot-button topics. Whatever is in the media, whatever is bothering people that week, they will campaign about and attempt to ‘solve’. Many of these ‘solutions’ are ill advised and the Congress knows it. The laws are not well designed and are rushed, full of all sorts of potential for abuse.

So when they establish something like a new financial regulation or bureau they counter it by only providing funding for a few years. Then if in a few years if it’s still a hot button issue then they can update the laws or provide a few more years of funding. If it’s not a big deal in a few years they just leave the funding approval out of any bills they pass and the regulation/regulatory body effective dies with nobody to pursue it.

This works out ‘ok’ and is how we have been running the government for the past 50 years. Each new crisis that is created gets dozens of new laws. When the crisis is forgotten by the public, so does the funding, so does the laws. If some bureaucrat uses some law in a politically incorrect way then Congress can swoop in and prove the system works by punishing the tyrant.

The side effect, however, is that it gives influential individuals in the state god-like powers. Since there are so many laws and so many of them are conflicting and illogical we can be ‘made a example of’ at any moment if we piss of the wrong guy or end up with a bunch of negative publicity in a news paper or something.

This sort of thing reminds me of a old favorite song of mine:

We don’t run Washington and no one really does
Ask not what you can do for your country
Ask what your country did to you
The only reason you’re still alive is because someone
Has decided to let you live
We owe so much money we’re not broke we’re broken
We’re so poor we can’t even pay attention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGEQT48Ghzs

Quit whining you haven’t done anything wrong because frankly
You haven’t done much of anything
Someone’s writing down your mistakes
Someone’s documenting your downfall

Any serving or former police officer here should read the above, take a deep breath, and read it again. Got a funny feeling?

This is what happens when we have the news outlets, television industry, movie industry, and music industry all ran by the same groups of people. We have campaign finance reform which effectively removes the ability to distribute political speech before a election over traditional media unless your a news outlet. Politicians control who gets access to what with things like the FCC and media ownership rules. So then to get good advertising the politicians cater to the needs of those same media outlets. “Big Media” helps get politicians get elected and politicians helps to protect their markets.

The one big thing that throws a wrench in it is the internet. Free speech and ‘wild west’ style freedom has broken down barriers between peoples. It is increasingly impossible to filter information filtering in and out of the country. People can expose politician’s corruption and follies instantly and world-wide without expensive publishing industry backing them up.

It’s breaking down the governmental media complex. To maintain control it must be stopped.

This is the big first step.

Next thing is more campaign finance reform.

The final nail in the coffin will be government-mandated monitoring and filtering systems installed in the ISP level to monitor and control information going in and out of each household and business.