Federal Prosecutor. Designated by the Executive power and supposed to be neutral, declared herself against the newspaper group facing the biggest loss. According to her, this group grew violating human rights, acting as an oligopoly of the written press during the time of the State sponsored terrorism. She also added that over time this group obtained judicial exceptions against current laws due to the lobbying power exercised through its concentration of news media. She believes that today the media are paralyzing the power of democratic governments.
Translation: It is time to pay for my appointment so I’ll oppose this group. As I don’t have anything solid to say, I’ll just throw into the mix a bag of sound-bites that scare and horrify people. For a good measure I’ll accuse the media of stopping the good deeds that the government is trying to implement at all costs.
Comments: such a blatant political spin is not even worth commenting because it makes no sense.
Arguments in favor of a monopoly-restricting law:
- Protection for the minorities against corporate power
- Protection of the freedom of speech from governmental manipulations and corporate interests
- Bring down structural barriers preventing minorities from exercising their right to expression
- Regulation will prevent monopolies
- We must punish corporations from surviving the dictatorship and at the same time collecting populist votes
Arguments against a monopoly-restricting law:
- The law is redundant
- The idea of limiting the market is stupid
- It is not constitutional and will limit other corporations from owning media
- It will create a number of state-new repeaters instead of true journalistic media
Conclusion
It is obvious from all the arguments that the concept of freedom of speech is subjective, confusing, complex and, ultimately, intangible. As it stands it is not possible to determine neither what it is, how far can it go or even if it should exist. Neither Political Theories from the Left or Right provide any practical guidance. Politicians can’t and won’t help. The judiciary is lost in a sea of arguments and confronted with a constitution that does not help. The executive branch is even less reliable with all those political back room deals, if not direct under-the-table corruption. Who is left then? Nobody.
Finally, how do you feel about all those arguments. Do you feel informed? Would you like to be part of the discussion? No? Then why are you fighting for your right to be disinformed?
Luckily enough, not many people do. If you need a quick validation of this fact, think how stupid the government of Argentina must have felt when they called for a massive public demonstration of support and all they got were a few hundredth measly people!
Then, what’s the answer?
The Absolute Austro-Libertarian System, which stands alone providing a precise answer.
In an Absolute Austro-Libertarian system property ownership dictates who has the rights to what. In short, your freedom of speech is enabled or limited by your ownership or privilege to use a property. It’s that simple. If you own your house, you can protest in your house all you want. If you rent a street for the purposes of protesting, you can protest all you want. If you rent add space in a newspaper, you can protest in that space all you want.
In an Absolute Austro-Libertarian system freedom of speech is only limited by other peoples’ property. There is no need for laws or decrees, by-laws, edicts, ordinances or any other kind of artificial regulations.
Yes, it’s that simple. And no, this is not the end. Look forward to a specific Lesson on this very important topic.
Meanwhile consider this. In an AL system there is very little to complaint about. It’s much easier to vote either with your feet or your wallet! And this being the case, why would you even bother with freedom of speech?
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
