Sumner smacks up the FCC bee-atches

Though his company is one of the mega-media company pressuring the FCC to loosen its rules about how huge media companies can get, my hat’s off to Viacom/CBS boss Sumner Redstone for telling the same FCC what a bunch of cultural fascists they really are.  In this Hollywood Reporter story, he lets ‘em have it with both barrels. “If the public is not happy with a particular program, then they won’t watch it, and it will go off air.  Government censorship—and by this I mean imposing any kind of burden or penalty on those who publish protected speech—circumvents this process… Give the government the tools to punish those it doesn’t like or silence what it doesn’t want to hear, and you undermine democracy. Give people the tools to choose what they see and hear, and you enhance democracy.”  Granted that part of this grumbling comes from the increased fines that the Congress/Prez just signed into law but the sentiment’s still the right one.