Disagreeing with Dems - Fairness Takeover

Lest anyone - gods forbid - think I am a left wing mouthpiece, allow me to hit on two things that have been mentioned in the media in the past couple days.

Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.

Holy box of fuck, NO! Stop! I'm the furthest thing from right wing, jizz-clappy, Reagan-idol-worship, but this is not right. Ever. Even if all the money drains from every 401(k): wrong.

You see, when you take the initiative to invest in a retirement plan, you are given all the tools you need to make your choices. If you choose to NOT study up or take more risk than you should, then you're at a loss. If you invest in a low-yield, low risk funds that will weather this storm, you're in luck (honestly, if you're not retiring in the next 10 years, leave everything alone - you'll be back on your feet before you know it, or lose everything when the world ends in 2012).

But the Government does not have the right to take private funds and control them. Does anyone else have any other information on this? I'd like to hear it because the story scares the hell out of me.

The Fairness Doctrine

The right's chattering, the left has mentioned bringing it back. Stop. For the love of the hairy balls of Jesus H. Christ, stop this madness.

The fairness doctrine, for those who do not know, was abolished in 1987 as a way to present controversial issues in a "balanced" manner for anyone who has a broadcast license. After it was gone? Hundreds - nay, thousands - of political talk radio shows have been spawned, most of them polarized.

Right now, the right wingnutters hold the scepter of broadcast talk radio. And that's fine. Why? Two reasons:

1. Would you prefer that political douchebags like Limbaugh and Hannity mask their abject disgust towards democrats and gays and, occasionally, colored folk or allow them to dump their bigotry for all to see?
2. Liberals, for the most part, already own the internet. Why? I'm not sure, but it appears that the ingenuity and learning required to become tech-savvy beyond logging onto your AOL email or typing "www.google.com" into MSN's search box eludes these folks. TV is going to go digital and lose millions of viewers to confusion in about 2 months. If that ever happened to radio, goodbye Rush.

So note to democrats: Stop. During this election cycle, the Nazi right pulled a lot of shit to make us sound like government-takeover nutjobs.

Don't prove them right.