Spokesmen at the National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System are forever asking people to donate money to support themselves and their programs. “Viewers just like you” do so, we are told, and we are exhorted to follow in their footsteps.
What are we who love our country to say about such goings on? From a superficial perspective, this seems unproblematic. After all, they are asking for voluntary contributions, and voluntarism is practically the middle name of our political philosophy.
Recommended Stories
But a moment’s reflection can give pause to this conclusion. For one thing, we must be cautious about just how far voluntarism can go in justifying this pitch for funds. If A asks B to murder C, all might be thought to be alright in this regard between A and B, no coercion there, but certainly not between either A or B on the one hand, and C on the other. So, voluntarism takes us only so far in the case of PBS and NPR.
WIKIPEDIA AND LEGACY MEDIA COMPETE TO OUT-BIAS EACH OTHER
There are several reasons to look askance at the behavior of these two organizations. Both are part and parcel of the fourth estate. Which are the first three categories in this regard? First is the executive. Second comes the legislative. Third, the judiciary. In our system of checks and balances, each of the three is tasked with keeping a wary eye on the other two. And what of the fourth estate, the media, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, nowadays, blogs too? This group of journalists, reporters, pundits, editors, etc., is supposed to cast a baleful eye on the other three. This role stems from the injustice of “being a judge” in your own case.
But PBS and NPR are divisions of government. Thus, they necessarily fail in their elemental role. How can they possibly ride herd on the government, when they are part of it? The Canadian Broadcasting System to the north of us plays a similar illicit role. Apart from these two countries, most nations with government-owned media are totalitarian dictatorships.
For example: North Korea: Rodong Sinmun, KCNA, Korean Central Television (KCTV); China: People’s Daily, CCTV-China Central Television, CGTN; Iran: Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), IRIB, TV/radio; Turkmenistan: Altyn Asyr; Eritrea: Haddas Eritrea, Eri-TV.; Russia: Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, Channel One Russia, Russia-1, and Rossiya 24; Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan newspaper, AzTV; Rwanda: The New Times, Rwanda TV / Rwanda Broadcasting; Vietnam: Nhân Dân, the Communist Party newspaper VTV; Zimbabwe: The Herald newspaper, ZBC Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation; Afghanistan: RTA.
The extent to which PBS and NPR have influence in the United States is thus the extent to which this nation, too, is totalitarian. The leftists and socialists in the US are forever holding “mostly peaceful” marches claiming that Donald Trump is a “king.” The very opposite is the case. In trying to clip the wings of the NPR and the PBS, he is acting so as to further democracy, not dictatorship. (Were he really a king, those marchers would be clapped into prison, or worse.)
There is yet another good reason for privatizing these two members of the media, thus severing all connection of theirs with the government, including tax exemption.
Both have been almost completely taken over by woke, DEI socialists. They are virtually fully owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. Yes, yes, every once in a while, they include a token conservative (never a libertarian) in their conversations. But for all intents and purposes, they are continually and incessantly promulgating the views of Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zohran Mamdani, and their ilk. This alone would be a sufficient reason to kick PBS and NPR out of taxpayers’ pockets. It is entirely unjust to compel roughly half of the U.S. population to subsidize a viewpoint they find abhorrent.
NPR AND PBS BROUGHT DEFUNDING ON THEMSELVES
Last but not least, there are limited resources to support the provision of news, information, entertainment, and opinion. In the limited government or classical liberal vision, the state has three main functions: armies to defend us against foreign marauders, police to do so insofar as domestic criminals are concerned, and courts to determine innocence or criminality.
There is no earthly reason why PBS and NPR should continue to provide misinformation, disinformation, and falsity. Many of these transgressions rise (or, rather, fall) to the level of fraud, which would be a further reason for termination.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chairman and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans.
