The First Amendment helps Americans identify the idiots among them, but it doesn’t justify forcing taxpayers to fund media organizations – especially when they insult half the nation’s citizens – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in a Senate speech calling for the defunding of PBS, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
After displaying examples of egregious liberal bias exhibited by public media, Sen. Kennedy stressed his belief in the importance of the First Amendment:
“I want to say it again: the people who wrote these articles and the people who published these article have every right to do that. I mean, I am a firm believer in the First Amendment.
“Without the First Amendment, how are we supposed to know who the idiots are?”
Still, the right to free speech doesn’t include the right to force other people to pay for it, Kennedy said, noting that a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money goes to public media every year:
“I support the First Amendment. And these folks have the right to publish that. But, they do not have the right to publish it with taxpayer money – $500 million a year.”
No media organization should be subsidized with taxpayers’ money, Kennedy said, calling for Congress to completely defund public media in the budget legislation currently working its way through Congress:
“I hope the United States Congress in our reconciliation package abolishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and no one gives them or any media organization in this country a single, solitary dime of taxpayer money. That’s not the role of the federal government.”
“And, given these kind of articles, to do so incites the anger of at least half of our country. And that’s not right.”
Watch Sen. Kennedy provide examples of public media bias in his full remarks below.