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Glad you came back! It's the October 1996 edition of ESR! Much whining has recently been heard from the liberal elite in this country over the recent announcement that $137 million is to be cut from the publicly funded CBC's budget, leading to the loss of 2 500 jobs. The role of culture arbitrator does not belong to the government, but the free market. For years the CBC has proclaimed itself as the official voice of Canadians -- Witness their new commercials for this fall's schedule "Television to call our own." -- clearly a swipe at foreign television. Interesting is that the CBC's television offerings are consumed by only about 10 per cent of Canadians. The supporters of a publicly funded CBC basically believe that others are obliged to hand over money to support their cultural vision. A vision that has included mediocre knock-offs of American TV shows (Street Legal anyone? Or that show that wasn't inspired by Chicago Hope/E.R.?) and 'entertaining' programming like North of 60. It is high time that the CBC was privatized and forced to prove its worth to Canadians in the free market. If the CBC really is the voice of Canadians, if it really is important to the destiny of this nation, then the CBC will survive and even prosper in private ownership. More importantly, we must remove government from the role of dispenser of ideology. It is immoral for a government to forcibly maintain cultural propaganda at the cost of a human's production. Free markets breed ideas and vision, not the government job program known as the CBC. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This month ESR welcomes Joel Zychik to the list of writers that have graced these pages. Zychik publishes his own daily libertarian journal mainly devoted to American politics. Zychik recently wrote a piece about the welfare state for his journal that he has graciously consented to allow being published here. While I and he would doubtless disagree on a few issues, I find his commitment to freedom refreshing. Visit the Zychik Chronicle today! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't go out of my way to get email from this site, but I've been getting some great response and this month I've published a representative sample of some of the email that has flowed into my mailbox. Find out what other people have been saying about ESR! See you next month! |
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