The push for the return of the Fairness Doctrine would be funny if it weren’t so genuinely frightening. The above-listed establishment media voices are just a fraction of the rapidly-proliferating outlets in what is perhaps the most dynamic media environment ever—at least since the invention of the printing press. Between the growth of cable, satellite radio, the Internet as a text, audio and video medium, e-mail, smart phones and IM—and considering low cost of entry into this new media world—there are few if any perspectives that don’t have ample opportunity to be voiced and heard. For Senators Durbin and Kerry to complain that their side can’t be heard reveals what Michael Medved has called the “totalitarian temptation at the heart of today’s so-called ‘progressive’ agenda.” It’s not a matter of whether the left has a voice. Leading Democrats want to silence alternative voices.

If we want to be clear about what Durbin, Kerry and friends have a hard time with, it is the First Amendment. Industry analysts have long recognized that the initial Fairness Doctrine had a chilling effect on speech. For fear of sanction, broadcasters tended to steer clear of anything that could be construed as controversial. What was lost? Simply the full and free exercise of the First Amendment. To repeat that loss today would be no small matter.

Defenders of “fairness” like California Senator Diane Feinstein, complain that “talk radio is overwhelmingly one way.” Yet it is no more one-way than the overwhelmingly liberal leanings that you get in mainstream news outlets—whose voices are giving at 9 to 1 ratio to Democrat candidates.

What is different is that the point-of-view from today’s talk radio hosts is not carefully concealed—and a good number of American media consumers finds the candor of “perspective journalism” quite refreshing: you know where the person is coming from and you can take their perspective into consideration as they do their craft. (The blog world is dominated by perspective journalism—both of the right and of the left). Conversely, there is a good portion of the country that has long tired of mainstream media bias. Even where MSM makes an effort at objectivity their coverage reveals the fact that, in many respects, we live in two different worlds. When coverage is given to evangelical Christians, for example, they are treated more like a strange object viewed through the camera lens for a National Geographic documentary than a people with a substantive and longstanding contribution to the American fabric.

Through the defensive work of the Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) and the passage of his Broadcaster Freedom Act, the First Amendment looks like it might prevail over Big Brother’s attempt to revive the Fairness Doctrine—at least for today. Similar defensive legislation is moving through the Senate. If there is something good that has come out of the candid words of Durbin, Kerry and friends, it is that we know what current leaders in the Democratic Party are thinking. They flinched only because they knew that the passage of any legislation would face a certain veto on the desk of the president.

If they are given firm control of both houses of Congress as well as the presidency, Democrats should now be expected to bring their favored doctrine back. Government regulation is almost always a bad idea. When it comes to the regulation of speech, it is downright alarming.

Russell Shubin is Deputy Director of National News and Public Affairs for Salem Communications. Contact him at russells@salem.cc.