Because I Can

In a free society, you are never compelled to say "yes sir" to this statement if acting on your own. If working for a corporation, you are to follow certain guidelines - those guidelines being "yes" in general, but "no" in specific cases. But to be fair, you are for all practical purposes usually compelled to say "yes sir" because you want that person's money.

NBC Rejected some rather harmless ads, claiming that the invitation to the group's website was far to politically charged and controversial. A strange guideline, considering that I have yet to see an NBC ban on political ads. Now if this were a public university, then this would be a bigger issue, since public universities are institutions which rely on the state for their funding. But for a private television network, that's within their rights.

The article also mentions the following with Fox News:

Earlier this week, the Fox News Channel rejected a television commercial from a liberal group that featured actor Danny Glover denouncing what he said were U.S. acts of rendition, torture and detention. The spot, created for the Center for Constitutional Rights, showed pages being shredded while Glover says: "The Bush administration is destroying the Constitution."

Fox senior vice president for advertising Paul Rittenberg said the network asked the group to provide backup information _ from news accounts or legal scholars _ supporting Glover's claim that acts by the Bush administration threatened the Constitution.

"In this case, saying the president is destroying the Constitution frankly sounds like a claim that is fairly extreme," Rittenberg said. "Who else thinks this? Of course Dann Glover can say that, but does anyone else say that?"

Again, this is well within Fox's rights. It just happens to be very weird, and one has to wonder if they hold their other advertisers to task on that. Remember that if you ever see an ad for weight loss drugs or exercise equipment on Fox News.

Now, had NBC taken FreedomsWatch's money, they should air the ads, but that's not what's in question. It just seems like a questionable move that cost them some money.

But it doesn't end there. Newt Gingrich wants to boycott NBC (for a more favorable and enjoyable clip of Newt, see his appearance on Da Ali G Show here). Seems a bit extreme, but maybe the message is that freedom isn't free. For what it's worth, I'd like to see who would boycott Fox News, given its viewers are mostly conservatives anyway. I also wonder how many people would follow Newt's advice, and then change their mind when new episodes of The Office are on.

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