EDITORIAL - Last I checked, a free society is one that respects individual liberties and freedoms for everyone. It lets people decide on the kinds of cars they drive, where they work, the hobbies they enjoy and the entertainment that they watch or listen to. It is a nation void of unnecessary government control over every facet of their lives.

The Fairness Doctrine destroys the very notion of a free society. A country where its government controls the content of ratio stations is a government that abhors the free market and cannot stand the thought that people, you and me, possess the intellectual capability to make up our own minds on the issues of the day. It is a nation of control and a country of shear and utter dependence on the nanny-state.

The prevailing argument in favor of government control of the airwaves is “public ownership”. If the airwaves are public, then the government has the right to control it. If that were the case, why stop there? Is the air public? Why doesn't the government regulate how often we breath - as to limit carbon dioxide emissions - or the kinds of cars we drive, or when we drive them and the distance that we can drive in a given month? Why doesn't the government create a schedule for every American, detailing when the government will allow us the use of public “things”?

Because the air can't indoctrinate. Cars can't persuade a person into blindly accepting the principles of socialism. Those things can't prop up the government as a benign and compassionate entity that truly cares about your best interest.

The media can. Questioning big government is unacceptable on talk radio. Pay no attention to the fact that big government already has a firm hold on print and television media. Talk radio has stood as the one entity that has broken through the forest of socialism. It questions social programs. It exposes government corruption. It opposes illegal amnesty. It hates oppressive taxation.

It is a threat to big government.

The first amendment of the Constitution was designed to protect all speech. It forbids the government from doing what it finds natural – that is, creating laws that restrict the freedoms of speech and religion, and of the press. It was constructed to serve as a barrier between big government and the people, to allow people to say what they wish, believe what they like and enjoy living in one of the freest nations on the face of the earth.

Can you hear the explosions? Can you feel the vibrations? Listen to the plotting. It is big government, assembling on the other side of that barrier, ready and willing to destroy it and infect the American people with big government propaganda and an immoral love and embrace of government dependence.

This issue is not about liberal or conservative, or Democrat or Republican. This is about the free market and individual liberties. This is about leaving the barrier between complete and utter control, and our free society, very well intact. It is about the difference between a society built under the principles of capitalism and one fraught with communism.

I enjoy living in a free society. Do you?