Do Americans Have the Right to TV?
– May 5, 2008
Do Americans have the right to TV? Popular Mechanics gives some disturbing figures on how much the US government has spent on publicizing the switch from analog to digital TV.
About the Author
Alan Noble (Co-Founder/Editor) is a graduate student at Baylor University pursuing his Ph.D. in Contemporary American Literature. To feed himself and his wife, he teaches Freshman Composition at the university. In 2006, he graduated from Cal. State Bakersfield with a Master’s degree in English. In addition to studying, teaching, and writing, Alan enjoys watching college basketball (Go Bears!) and NBA games with his wife and daughter, and loves Star Wars. While not particularly good at making art of any kind, Alan has an intense interest in the arts and culture and how believers ought to interact with them to the glory of God and edification of others. Alan lives in Waco, Texas with his Math-loving wife, owl-loving daughter, and their no-longer-able-to-skateboard-because-of-an-injury English Bulldog, Gertrude.
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Speaking as a Brit who lives under the regime of the TVL where all are guilty until they write a letter to declare non-viewer status and get a repreive for 6 months, I’ve grown up in a climate that has treated TV as a privelege.
However, I’ve always believed that TV ownership should be a Right along with any form of communication. After all, the television has been the best and main form of communication to the people for the last 70 years.
How else would we have known our leaders were taking us to war, new laws were enacted and other major events that affect us all?
Of course this inevitably leads to the question of whether internet access should be a Right, since this is the way news and communication is going.
We can hardly expect the government to go back to transmitting news announcements over radio, scouts or carrier pidgeons. Therefore if the government is to use these mediums to communicate to the people and offers no alternative medium, then these mediums should be free (as in operation- not purchase) and everyone should have a Right to own one.
In America, the government does provide costless internet access to everyone. Simultaneously, people pay not inconsequential amounts for more convenient internet access. So it seems that our government either views the internet as a right or, at the least, as something worthwhile.
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