• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

De-fund NPR and PBS

Defund NPR and PBS!

  • I agree!

    Votes: 41 47.7%
  • I disagree.

    Votes: 45 52.3%

  • Total voters
    86
It's EXACTLY a good representation of ALL liberals - dumb whiny children! The story wasn't about Juan Williams being fired. The story was about THE WAY he was fired - by that whiny childish liberal head of NPR.

So remind me, where exactly in the head of NPR's comments was there a seething hatred of conservatives? Quotes please.
 
I was watching a West Wing episode from 1999 yesterday and it was pretty amazing because it was dealing with lots of budget cut issues. The Republicans' main focus in the episode was the funding of PBS and the NEA. Obviously Sorkin is somewhat biased on this point, but the response was pretty good. Paraphrase: "The NEA costs taxpayers 39c per year and is the size of Sweden's. And you all complain constantly about the amount of sex and violence in video games, and yet you want to cut Sesame Street?"

Gee, somehow Mayor Snorkum's children don't have any violent video games, because those are paid for with the Mayor's money, and since both of my children hated Big Bird, which they could have watched if they'd wanted to, there wasn't any reason why Mayor Snorkum should be taxed to finance a turkey with hundreds of millions of dollars of realized marketing potential that is not transferred to the United States treasury.

Big Bird is rich, he can fund his own nest.
 
Well, we could argue about what the Constitution allows, as far as latitude beyond the numerated responsibilities. But at least you named specific programs, many large enough to make a difference in the budget. Of course, your representatives won't tackle them anytime soon.

No.

They have to win the small battles before fighting the big ones. Killing taxpayer funding to NPR is a small skirmish and yet the Hive is stirring and it's pre-programmed robots are out defending a minor contribution to the problem in the hopes that successful defense there will stave off later attacks on the core programs that are so beneficial to leftist politicians and so harmful to the nation.
 
No.

They have to win the small battles before fighting the big ones. Killing taxpayer funding to NPR is a small skirmish and yet the Hive is stirring and it's pre-programmed robots are out defending a minor contribution to the problem in the hopes that successful defense there will stave off later attacks on the core programs that are so beneficial to leftist politicians and so harmful to the nation.

No.

Because the small battles, like NPR, are meaningless financially.

You know about picking battles, right? It's best to pick the important ones, and let some of the minor ones go. You can't win them all, so try to get the big ones.

NPR and PBS are political issues, they are not even slightly important budget issues, and never will be.
 
No.

Because the small battles, like NPR, are meaningless financially.

You know about picking battles, right? It's best to pick the important ones, and let some of the minor ones go. You can't win them all, so try to get the big ones.

NPR and PBS are political issues, they are not even slightly important budget issues, and never will be.

Except the important ones are where most of the gridlock occurs. Until one has enough pull, it is the smaller issues that are easier to deal with than the larger ones. Tackling the important issues is, well, important, but it is also usually filled with defeat...especially when the country has a difficulty in identifying what needs to be reduced and what needs to be saved from cuts. Then figuring out how much, or if you are to reform one issue, how to do so, can cause a party split, and there goes the political capital. Recall 2004-2005 for another instance. The other party can stand to gain, and in this case, the other party is much in favor of the past few years status-quo.

If you are looking for massive change, I envy you. I strictly believe we haven't in us yet to agree in terms of massive budget reductions and reform of major programs. In short, the smaller issues may be most of what you are looking at what political capital can accomplish, and perhaps they can add up decently.
 
Last edited:
Do you agree or disagree that we need to stop giving federal $$ to NPR and PBS? I'd like someone who disagree with the defunding, to give some good reasons why the taxpayers should be forced to give money to a radio and TV station.

Thank you.

They should not be funded by the government (our tax dollars). NPR sickens me. They are this far left crap-fest that I am helping to pay for. Sesame Street was great, but they should get on a private channel like everybody else.
 
I know what got him fired. That has literally NOTHING to do with conservatives. Juan Williams is a liberal. Voicing concerns about men in Islamic garb on a plane is neither a "liberal" nor "conservative" position. And for the record many liberals (including those on this forum) are not in favor of intervention in Libya. You don't know most liberals, you don't know if the head of NPR supported Libyan intervention, and you definitely don't know if the video is a "good representation of all liberals." To make such an assumption is moronic.

I think your point is that there are some liberals out there who are not in favor of political correctness in a great majority of areas in public life and that NPR represents those who do favor political correctness. Thus, liberals, like Juan, can be in agreement with conservatives and do not appreciate being lumped in with the rest of the bad apples.
 
Last edited:
No.

Because the small battles, like NPR, are meaningless financially.

You know about picking battles, right? It's best to pick the important ones, and let some of the minor ones go. You can't win them all, so try to get the big ones.

NPR and PBS are political issues, they are not even slightly important budget issues, and never will be.

After stopping the bleeding, we have to clean the edges of the wound prior to dealing with the wound. Deal with the smaller things first and the larger ones are easier to see, and consequently, to handle effectively.
 
I think your point is that there are some liberals out there who are not in favor of political correctness in a great majority of areas in public life and that NPR represents those who do favor political correctness. Thus, liberals, like Juan, can be in agreement with conservatives and do not appreciate being lumped in with the rest of the bad apples.

Right, I'm personally not in favor of political correctness at all. I do think Juan Williams' firing was an indicator of PC gone a bit too far. I personally believe his comments were stupid but that he should not have been fired.

However, my original comments were directed at sazerac, who made a comment saying that NPR President Vivian Schiller's comments represented a seething hatred of conservatives. I don't believe Juan Williams' firing had anything to do with hatred of conservatives, and nowhere in Schiller's quotes did I find comments of any such nature. I was asking sazerac to back up his accusations with some evidence, which he as thus far failed to do.
 
Last edited:
Right, the world view of political correctness taking precedent over standard conservative vs. liberal fare. I am with you there. I would say, however, that much of it also highlighted the left-wing approach of NPR in comparison with any sort of doctrinaire that the center or political right would have. Perhaps not some sort of "seething hatred", but vastly different world view.
 
Right, the world view of political correctness taking precedent over standard conservative vs. liberal fare. I am with you there. I would say, however, that much of it also highlighted the left-wing approach of NPR in comparison with any sort of doctrinaire that the center or political right would have. Perhaps not some sort of "seething hatred", but vastly different world view.

I can see why recent incidents (specifically the Williams firing and the Schiller video from O'Keefe) could perhaps be viewed as an indictment of the culture of NPR execs. However, I think the fairest way to judge is to look at NPR's content itself, rather than focusing on what management is up to. Given statistics such as Dem-Rep approval-disapproval differentials, it's apparent to me that NPR is pretty much as unbiased as it is possible for any major media outlet to be. I don't deny that a slight liberal bias exists.

1341-3.gif
 
Last edited:
Except the important ones are where most of the gridlock occurs. Until one has enough pull, it is the smaller issues that are easier to deal with than the larger ones. Tackling the important issues is, well, important, but it is also usually filled with defeat...especially when the country has a difficulty in identifying what needs to be reduced and what needs to be saved from cuts. Then figuring out how much, or if you are to reform one issue, how to do so, can cause a party split, and there goes the political capital. Recall 2004-2005 for another instance. The other party can stand to gain, and in this case, the other party is much in favor of the past few years status-quo.

If you are looking for massive change, I envy you. I strictly believe we haven't in us yet to agree in terms of massive budget reductions and reform of major programs. In short, the smaller issues may be most of what you are looking at what political capital can accomplish, and perhaps they can add up decently.

I am looking for massive change, but in the long term. Privatization of some things, direct investment on behalf of each citizen instead of Social Security, etc. Things that will put us back into the non-debtor nation category in the reasonably near future.
 
I can see why recent incidents (specifically the Williams firing and the Schiller video from O'Keefe) could perhaps be viewed as an indictment of the culture of NPR execs. However, I think the fairest way to judge is to look at NPR's content itself, rather than focusing on what management is up to. Given statistics such as Dem-Rep approval-disapproval differentials, it's apparent to me that NPR is pretty much as unbiased as it is possible for any major media outlet to be. I don't deny that a slight liberal bias exists.

1341-3.gif


Wherever you got that from is totally wrong....NPR is all liberal all the time and theres no way that it should be taxpayer funded in anyform...the lionshare of its revenue is from ultra liberal sources...let them pick up the taxpayer portion and be as liberal as they want but not on the dime of people that totally disagree with them.
It would be like the govt giving YOUR money to foxnews...you would love that right
 
After stopping the bleeding, we have to clean the edges of the wound prior to dealing with the wound. Deal with the smaller things first and the larger ones are easier to see, and consequently, to handle effectively.

Okay, I agree we should stop the bleeding first, but right now we're a long way from that.
 
Wherever you got that from is totally wrong.

Can you back up your assertions with any proof? Pew Research is one of the more respected institutions out there. You're going to have to do better than making claims without backing them up with some evidence. Saying "you're wrong, I'm right" doesn't really mean anything now, does it?

NPR is all liberal all the time and theres no way that it should be taxpayer funded in anyform

Wonder why three times more Republicans have a favorable view of it than unfavorable then.

It would be like the govt giving YOUR money to foxnews...you would love that right

Except Fox News is evidently MUCH more biased than NPR, given the numbers I just cited. They are actively promoting a certain narrative and an agenda, and their journalistic standards are in the gutter like MSNBC. I wouldn't mind having taxpayer money funding a paper like the Wall Street Journal, which leans conservative but is still professional in how it conducts its journalism.
 
Last edited:
I can see why recent incidents (specifically the Williams firing and the Schiller video from O'Keefe) could perhaps be viewed as an indictment of the culture of NPR execs. However, I think the fairest way to judge is to look at NPR's content itself, rather than focusing on what management is up to. Given statistics such as Dem-Rep approval-disapproval differentials, it's apparent to me that NPR is pretty much as unbiased as it is possible for any major media outlet to be. I don't deny that a slight liberal bias exists.

Why bother with discussing the merits of content when the merits of taxpayer financing are independent of content, and the Constitution doesn't support taxpayer funding?
 
No.

Because the small battles, like NPR, are meaningless financially.

No.

Every dime helps.

And the ideological issues are the same regardless of the dollar amount involved, and the Left MUST LOSE this ideological battle, one budget line at a time if that's what's necessary, if the United States is going to gain fiscal solvency and constitutionality.

As for picking battles, the Battle of the Greedy Leftist RAdio Barons is incredibly important. The Left has NO ammunition here, no valid justification for the continued existence of taxpayer funding for NPR when the vast bulk of the nation doesn't listen to it, when it caters to the wealthy, when the taxpayers are either unemployed or facing doubled gasoline prices. The people want this debate ended, along with NPR, so the Congress can focus on other issues, such as drilling on the US Continental Shelves, wondering why the hell we've got three wars on the stove now, and if President Obama's golf score is improving what with all the practice he's getting on the taxpayer dollar.

Finally, Mayor Snorkum could list 100 programs with budgets of a size with NPR's that can be axed with only special interest groups to whine about their loss. When Obama and the Democrats can't find but 4 gigabucks to cut out of a 4 terabuck budget, they need all the help real Americans can give them in pointing out what's not necessary, what's not wanted, and most importantly of all, what's not Constitutional and hence illegal in the US budget.
 
Last edited:
Why bother with discussing the merits of content when the merits of taxpayer financing are independent of content, and the Constitution doesn't support taxpayer funding?

I don't think I made any mention in my post about funding. That's a completely separate issue from what I was talking about.
 
Except Fox News is evidently MUCH more biased than NPR, given the numbers I just cited. They are actively promoting a certain narrative and an agenda, and their journalistic standards are in the gutter like MSNBC. I wouldn't mind having taxpayer money funding a paper like the Wall Street Journal, which leans conservative but is still professional in how it conducts its journalism.


Then you should be demanding that the federal government cease all financial aid to Fox News, if you're going to be consistent.

Oh, wait, Fox News doesn't get subsidies....
 
Perhaps your time could be well spent by learning the topics of the threads you post on?

I was talking about a separate but related issue, which is that of NPR's bias. The issue of their funding is another matter, but I voted "disagree" in the poll.
 
Then you should be demanding that the federal government cease all financial aid to Fox News, if you're going to be consistent.

Oh, wait, Fox News doesn't get subsidies....

Actually my consistency has nothing to do with Fox News.
 
I actually like PBS. It's a great network, and I have learned a lot from watching it... My gran sends them money all the time too.
 
Back
Top Bottom