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Debate on again—re Canada’s Iranian-style TV censorship and protectionism

PTBC regulars know that I fought hard personally and through this web site and its previous personification to get what is now the best channel in Canada, Fox News Channel, unbanned and legally available in this country.  The enormous effort mounted by me and many other freedom-lovers succeeded, but as I mentioned at the time and have since, other channels are still banned—for other equally Iranian reasons. 

For example HBO is still banned in this country.  Banned

  See “Ottawa looks at putting HBO, ESPN on cable”.

This kind of protectionism and unfair trade practice is evident in several industries in Canada, as yet another result of liberal-left state meddling in our all aspects of our personal lives —like our own health care, the economy and how we spend our own cash, eating potato chips what with the trans fats, what we watch on TV and listen to on the radio and in what proportion of Celine Dion and other more insidious “Canadian content”, and all manner of our God-given, manifest rights and freedoms. 

As we know, Canadian liberals and the Left generally don’t trust Canadians to think for themselves.  The Left feels our purchasing—and TV-viewing—decisions are best left to them—“progressives” and liberal elites and appointed ideological liberal bureaucrats who of course know better than us.  By way of reminder, think of one of the Liberals’ recently leaked hidden agendas, Beer and Popcorn, um, Gate, wherein they accidentally admitted that Canadians should not be allowed to keep their own money and look after their own children and families, because by golly they’ll blow it on “beer and popcorn” instead of spending it raising their children properly —you know, like Liberal Party and other socialist party elites think we should.  And therefore, their thinking goes, the money must be taxed out of our hands and spent by them on state-run child care (and “early learning” —wink!) centers, where we’d all plug our children in to get proper care and attention (and all the “early learning” —wink!).  Just like in Saudi Arabia and Iran and Iraq (pre-Bush’s saving them) and Afghanistan and in several other such horrible places.

Fox News Channel logo Liberals and other even further leftists in Canada wanted the liberals’ state regulator of what we’re allowed to watch on TV, the Iranian-style CRTC, to continue the Fox News Channel ban, because they wanted to prevent any conservative points of view or ideas from getting into the Canadian consciousness just willy-nillylike in free countries! —so fearful were they (and still are) of the strength and lucidity of principled conservative arguments and ideas, and the obvious weakness of their own being exposed in comparison.  (Read my recent blog entry reminding Canadians of the sad facts about liberals in this country in relation to the Fox News Channel application, where liberals actually wrote the CRTC demanding the ban on Fox News Channel purely on the basis that it presented a conservative point of view —and the CRTC actually considered their concerns.)

They (the liberal-left in Canada) also want HBO to continue to be banned, because liberals fear competition where they are inferior.  And if liberals can’t win, then they find excuses to “protect” us from competition—even if the competitive product or service is clearly better and their choice of “protecting” us through their benevolent state bureaucracies results in our not having the best that life has to offer.  Like in health care and other such mundane issues.  “Protecting” us from competition.  Yay. Go team.

Also, the liberal-left in Canada are anti-American protectionists and want the Canadian state bureaucracy—which is stacked from top to bottom by years of liberal-left government appointments—to use its Soviet-style state powers (through their yummy CRTC tool in this case) to help keep American culture and competition out of Canada.  This helps advance their fabulous theory about supporting inferior junk for our consumption, just like in North Korea and the old Soviet Union, rather than allow superior products and services, which I think is because superior Americas can’t vote for the Liberal Party of Canada. 

Moreover, allowing superior products, services, practices and ideas into the Canadian mindset reveals what the liberal-left in this country has staked so much of its political capital on:  their failed, forced, liberal-left state-mandated and state (rather than free citizen)-invented “Canadian Culture” experiment, as the abject failure that it is.  Thus having “protected” us, they can—through the state—continue to create—for us—that fabulous “Canadian culture”—for us—although even after all these years and countless hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, we’re still utterly bereft of just what the hell “Canadian culture” is, exactly (except—we’re told—it’s “not American” and it is chock full of “Canadian Values” like unlimited abortion, gay ‘marriage’, state-sponsored everything, the multiculturalism “mosaic” cult (apparently meaning being anything but “Canadian” is best), and hating conservatives and capitalism and Christians and freedom and of course George W. Bush that neo-con. 

The liberals-left generally call all of that “unfair” competition, much as they call Fox News Channel “biased” inasmuch as it presents a conservative point of view along with the usual liberal view, which is thus deemed unfair to liberals.  And let’s be frank:  I suppose it is a little unfair for the libs in that way. 

Don’t worry though liberals:  while the ban on HBO continues, al-Jazeera has already been approved in Canada.  And before Fox News Channel was.  And you’ve still got your state-owned, state-run CBC. 

It’s a wonder how the liberals’ CRTC and all of its apologists from the molly-coddled left can, with a straight face, concern itself with so-called “unfair competition” from the Americans, when in fact the Canadian state-owned, state-run CBC is broadcasting (junk) 24/7 in this country, with its BILLION-DOLLAR-PLUS annual taxpayer support, which competes against Canadian citizen-owned businesses like CTV and Global and others, and against projects (like PTBC itself). 

What kind of government competes against its own citizens? 

Where’s my “protections” from my own state competing against me?  That’s the only protection I demand, and we should all demand. 


NOTE RE COMMENTS:
For some inexplicable reason, the full comments form doesn’t show up in this blog entry when trying to write a comment. I’m trying to figure it out. 

UPDATE: I think it’s fixed now.

Joel Johannesen
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