Because you allege that NPR has some sort of obligation to provide an interview with, or reports on, Nader.

The common people are more capable than you give them credit for. They certainly don’t need NPR or any other major media outlets to understand the positions of ALL the candidates.

Oh, nonsense!

I believe in higher taxes on the rich and more government regulation. Objectivists don’t believe in that stuff.

The only area I agree with libertarians and objectivists is, as I was explaining to gabor, above, that I am an anti-elitist.

Elitists believe that “the masses” are too simple-minded and easily manipulated to think or make decisions for themselves. So elitists believe “the media” lead the masses around like sheep. Liberals blame this on the “corporate media”; conservatives blame it on “the liberal media”. In both cases they (liberals/conservatives) think that they alone are somehow immune to this manipulation so they can see clearly what’s going on and it’s their job to “protect” the masses from themselves.

You take the liberal side of this, believing that the corporate media have made the masses too dumb to be aware of alternative candidates such as Nader or Ron Paul.

I, on the other hand, think the masses are just as capable as you or I am of becoming aware of their political options. They don’t need some kind of self-appointed political elite to explain these things to them or present the views of alternative candidates.

gabor, as the phrase goes, “on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”

I would be very careful to make up my mind about some issue simply based on what an anonymous person wrote on the internet, or her/his attitude. For all you know, it could be a Republican trying to make Democrats look like cynical elitists, knowing very well how people like you would react.

Of course, I’m assuming that your comment was written in good faith.

Ah, an objectivist! I should have known that from reading some of your other comments and others’ response to them.

I’ll have to pass discussing this with you as your world-view is quite different from mine, and there’s no way to reconcile those two.

And I wrote “as good as censorship” which is not the same as “censorship.”

NPR is not obligated to have Nader or Ron Paul or other fringe-party candidates on their shows and your statement that “NPR has done its best” to avoid having them sounds like conspiracy-theory thinking. You have no evidence that anyone is trying to keep them off the show so your comments are pure speculation.

It’s also not censorship – censorship is when certain content is banned. Nader and Paul are not banned – they have the same First-Amendment rights to free speech, free assembly, and free press as you or I or John McCain have. But the Constitution does not oblige anyone to provide us with a printing press or soapbox.

Everyone here is capable of finding Paul’s or Nader’s websites if we’re curious where they stand on the issues.

If I’m so brainless then you should be able to show where I am factually wrong. Anyway, I’m not a Democrat.

WRT “egoistic”, anyone who posts here must think their comments are worth seeing by others, worldwide, which is an essentially egoistic position. Ego-free people don’t post to worldwide internet forums.

And I’m certainly not “elitist”! Elitists think that they are members of some special, more priveleged or tasteful or intelligent or highly-evolved category of people. Whereas my position is that everyone is equally capable of being well-informed, managing their finances, and understanding complex policy issues. Certain individuals may CHOOSE to get their news from Fox or CNN, but it’s not because they’re incapable of reading The Economist. Certain people may CHOOSE to give more weight to Palin’s ability to field-dress a moose than answer a reporter’s policy questions, but that’s their choice. Obviously I think I’m right and they’re wrong, but you think YOU’RE right, too! Thinking you’re right is not the same as being “elitist”.

WRT “cynical”, you’re wrong again. I’m realistic – I don’t make statements I can’t back up with appropriate data. It’s not cynical to point out that only 1 person in 1000 in a recent poll could cite all 5 rights protected in the First Amendment, but 23% of respondents to the same poll could name all 5 Simpson’s TV show characters.

“I watched the debate, and my first issue would be why was the debate not opened to other Presidential candidates who are officially on the ballot – Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader and Bob Barr, among others”

The problem is that this so-called Capitalist Nation is really an oligarcy, a nation ruled by the ultra rich. My candidate of choice was Dennis Kucinich, but he was barred from earlier debates because the government supported media decided he had not raised enough money to participate in the debate.

I have not voted in years because of the corruption in the election process, but I decided to register and vote because, as a nation, we are in such deep %$&&** that if I don’t vote, it would be negligent on my part.

When Bush Sr. ran agains Ducacus, I said I would not vote for the lesser of two evils and didn’t, but today, I feel we have no choice. McCain/Palin would be disastrous for the nation and if I wrote in Kucinich, Gore or Ron Paul ….. the chances are McCain would win. It sucks, but this is the reality of our democracy. What choice do we have?

By “well-informed” do you mean arrogant?

But anyone who has been paying attention to his career and record already KNOWS that about McCain. Seeing it on TV wouldn’t have added anything.

And that’s been my point in many of these discussions – well-informed people don’t need to waste time watching TV.

I love Jack Beatty, and do agree with him, unfortunately that Obama’s support of ukraine and georgia joining NATA is really dumb and needs rethinking; ditto, expanding the war in afghanistan without a great deal more thought. any chance of Jack Beatty being a daily fixture on your show? thanks for listening.