Family Values and PBS:

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Timmy

A lot of "educational" channels have gone down this road.

Television, in general, is largely a bunch of trash. There are still good and educational programs, but not on the percentage of the ignorant fluff.

[deacon blues]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Deacon, if it goes private... do you really thing PBS Frontline will be able to to produce documentaries as they do? PBS is obviously left leaning, as FOX is right leaning. The minority opinion isn't going to generate the revenue.

News and documentaries will go away and we'll be left with more table squabbling like we see on FOX where a screened liberal gets beat up by the conservative host.

I think it's important to ensure that the opposition, and minority opinion, be heard in a democratic republic. The interesting thing is that most don't know the details to the opposition's opinion. They only know what's said about it. PBS traditionally goes into greater detail.

First of all, SpongeBob is a Nickelodeon program, not FOX. Second, PBS gets the bulk of it's money from "viewers like you". They also get millions from charitable trusts. There's plenty of money out there for PBS. Look at MSNBC. Tey used to be third behind Fox News and CNN. Now they are second. There an audience for liberal and left leaning programs. You don't have to have tax dollars to survive. And if you can't, the government shouldn't be propping it up. Besides talk radio, Fox News, a few newspapers and Internet news sources, the left minority dominates all of the other mainstream news sources.

My point is, we haven to got to stop picking winners and losers. Let the market decide.

[ILG]

I just think the federal government needs to get out of a lot of things. Like funding PBS. I really like PBS though. But the government doesn't fund churches either. And they shouldn't.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

That sounds like a plausible explanation. I wrestled with supporting Johnson, but when I realized that, even on his more liberal social issues, he wants to keep the choices at the state level and stands, solely, on the Constitution. Even with his more liberal social issues, he's a safer candidate than Romney.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

Why should the taxpayers fund a tv network?

Why should a tax payer fund an unnecessary war of choice that costs record amounts of money, not to mention hundreds of thousands of lives?

My point is that one can ask this question about many things.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Television, in general, is largely a bunch of trash. There are still good and educational programs, but not on the percentage of the ignorant fluff.

[deacon blues]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Why should a tax payer fund an unnecessary war of choice that costs record amounts of money, not to mention hundreds of thousands of lives?

My point is that one can ask this question about many things.

Absolutely. And everything needs to be on the table. And cutting superfluous spending has to be job #1. In my opinion that would include PBS, silly studies and art projects, grants for nice to have but not necessary things.

[Sam]

For several years we were "members" of the local PBS station. We sent them a small offering each year. Then a little later we would start getting calls to ask that we increase our donation. I tried to patiently explain that we could not afford to increase our donation but it was like talking to a rock.

There are good things on PBS, but I had a conflict in supporting them even even with a small donation because they have a "humanistic" agenda based on being "non-God" or "anti-God." Specifically this is seen by their slant towards humanism, homosexuality, and evolution.

Several years ago there was an "art" exhibit that was quite controversial. Things were presented as "art" that were considered "obscene" by others. And, our government was supporting and promoting this "art" or "obscenity" by our tax dollars. At that time I received another call from someone representing PBS asking for an increase in my support. The person cited the recent furor over the "art" exhibit and warned me that the government might cut back on their financial support in response to the outcry by enraged citizens that their tax dollars were supporting this stuff. I honestly told the person on the phone that I did not think my tax dollars should be used to support "public" or "educational" television which promoted values which I could not agree. I told him that I thought things like that should be supported by those who shared those values. I still feel that way.