The upside of abandonment

Some actual sense being spewed over at FightingBob.com:

The Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee has voted to cut public broadcasting's federal appropriation by 25 percent during its next annual funding cycle. What's more, they want to end this subsidy entirely the following year.

Let's hope this effort succeeds.

That's right! A liberal wants us to cut funding to public TV and radio!

Not out of any sense of fiscal restraint, of course. No: he's tired of the Eeeeevil Republicans holding sway over the program.

If so, it will spell the end to more than three decades of public TV and radio's groveling every time the GOP has attempted to silence PBS and NPR with threats of financial penalties for daring to carry anything that questions its reactionary agenda.

(Snipped: extremely long history of public broadcasting)

As long as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives government funding, it will be open to political criticism and influence. Thus, if public broadcasting is to retain any independence nationally or locally, it will have to give up the federal contribution of 15 percent (or $460 million) of the total $2.3 billion in revenues it received last year.

But that amount can be raised from other sources.

...

A temporarily tight budget for the next few years is a small price for public broadcasting to pay to finally become a truly independent media force.

I often wonder why more people don't understand this: if you rely on tax dollars, you also rely on a government that is often plagued by inefficiency and/or incompetence, not to mention the fickle swayings of partisan politics and politicians. Better to rely on oneself.