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Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

I like the British media, because they don't pretend to be impartial. Impartiality is impossible, so it's better to be honest about that fact than to pretend to be impartial as the American media does.

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On the other hand the state sponsored one forces you to pay an involuntary fee and it is not all that balanced a source.

I'll pay a fee all day to have some fraction of the population getting less of their news from the Daily Mail etc.

Let's triple the fee and get some state newspapers and advertising.

What if the BBC's politics (ie where it advertises all its jobs) were aligned with the Mail rather than the Graun? Would you still be so keen, or would you be among those calling for it to be abolished?

Abolished but it's never going to get close to being that gross.

They'll have plenty of spin and perspective that I disagree with but the rest of our media is absolutely festering. Anything that isn't owned by an 80 year old billionaire is welcome to me. They simply can't be any worse.

It's hardly involuntary. No one's holding a gun to your head to own a TV receiver.

So you buy a receiver will never watch the channel, yet you must pay whether or not you even agree with their programming and somehow that is voluntary excise? It's strongarming.

There are plenty of things my government does (like invade Iraq or charge zero dollars for mineral rights) that I am forced to pay for. Cry me a river.

Presumably, at least, you can vote your gov out, PM, MPs --can you vote away that tax?

I am not quite familiar with the UK's parliamentary system but, I would assume you can lobby your representatives to eliminate the tax. So, yes, you can vote the tax away. I would be greatly surprised if folks can vote on Brexit but not a simple tax.

It rides on a Comms act of 2003? So it would be more difficult to have overturned than voting out your MP or Party (PM).

You don't need to pay if it isn't configured. My TV is not set up to watch live broadcasts as I only use it for gaming and I've never had to pay for the TV License.

If you are going to be incensed about something get your facts straight.

What percent of your income was the TV tax? Be honest.

Does it matter? It's still money taken by force.

That's how all taxes work??

Yes, and that's what taxes are: money taken by force.

This position is not indefensible but it is hard to defend: it implies that you could not possibly construct a state of comparable complexity to modern governance if the topmost layer were a libertarian paradise. But that position is very implausible. If you can construct a model of a state then you can easily analogize to whatever that is, instead of theft.

What about the BBC is openly impartial?

The rest of this thread is a sad excuse of analysis of the problems with the Koch family, but I just want to say it's not worth pretending the BBC isn't just as bad as the equivalent here, which would be NPR, (so don't go trying to compare it to fox or MSNBC) and I've heard plenty of criticism of British media doing exactly what you say they don't, from one of my favorite and one of the best journalists, Robert Fisk.

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