Over the weekend I caught one of those begging episodes on a government (public) broadcasting station.  This time it was WGCU-TV, the government broadcasting arm of Florida Gulf Coast University. I forget what program they were showing … but the time came for the inevitable pitch for subscribers and donations.  So … here come these two guys to tell us all of the fabulous benefits that will flow your way if you’ll just become a member of the wonderful WGCU-TV government broadcasting family.  Why, you’ll get a nifty magazine every once in a while telling you all about the incredible programs they’ll be broadcasting over the coming year … all of which, of course, will be continuously interrupted with begging for even more money.

Ok … let’s get to this ugly, undesirable profits stuff.  During their pitch for your money – money that was probably earned in the private sector working for a private for-profit business – one of these clowns actually said that if you would just donate some money to WGCU-TV …

… “you can be proud of being a member of an organization that isn’t interested in making a profit.”

Say what?  That’s why you should give to government TV?  So you can feel all fuzzy about being a member of an organization that isn’t interested in making a profit?  Yeah … those damned for-profit businesses out there.  It’s just inexcusable that so many businesses are trying to sell stuff they’ve made for more than it costs to make it so that they can make a profit.  How dare they?  Haven’t they been paying attention to the useful idiots of the occupy movement?  Profits are symbols of greed.  Everybody knows it’s all about people, not profits!  You should be out there making stuff just people need those things, not so that you can make money identifying and meeting a consumer need. 

Really, though.  I shouldn’t be surprised here.   We have a president of the United States who clearly despises free enterprise.  He’s even gone so far as to suggest that it is up to the government to tell a business when it can and when it cannot be allowed to earn a profit.  Oh … you don’t remember that?  It was the last week of January, 2009.  Obama had just been sworn in.  He’s holding court in the Oval Office --- you remember, the office he had to “step down into” according to ABC’s Terry Moran.  There’s his tax-evading Treasury Secretary Geitner and Joe Biden sitting there … and Obama is beginning his years-long campaign to convince the American people that the rough economy is all the private sector’s fault.  Here’s what Obama said of those evil bankers: 

“There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses.  Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect Secretary Geithner to send to them.” 

How do you like that?  A president telling businesses operating in a free market economy that it is really up to him to tell businesses when they can and when they cannot make a profit.  If you’re really comfortable with that – and if you’re comfortable with America’s continued slide on the index of economic liberty – then be sure to support this anti-capitalist in his reelection efforts. 

Oh .. and as for WGCU-TV ... do you really think that painting the profit motive as something that is evil – something that is to be avoided – is the way to get dollars out of viewers who work for for-profit businesses? 

About this “government television” thing.  I don’t use the “public” word when it comes to schools, unions, broadcasting or other things government.  Identify these entities for what they are … they are government institutions.  In the case of government broadcasting, they are government institutions in direct competition with private businesses.  The “public” word is a tool used to hide the extent of government intrusion into our lives.