you are not "told here" any such thing by anybody, that's just your usual straw man accusation to justify your constant hemorrhage of libertarian phoobah. your shabby little technique of accusing others of things they do not say and then chalking up cheap points by proving them wrong is unacceptable and we are not going to let you get away with it any more. actually, we never did let you get away with it, but you just pretend we don't notice, and that you don't hear us.

but now that you bring it up, a little bit of regulation is always necessary to prevent abuses by business, which would otherwise be inevitable. now that you can quote me on.

protecting the public from the depredations of private interests is the proper role of government, and its primary reason for existence. now did that get your attention? but an exception must be made for the press in order to have an independent source of information totally separate from government propaganda or influence.

you see, i don't claim government to be a paragon of virtue either, although you have never once had the decency or fairness to recognize that point of view from me, or from any liberal. instead, you accuse us in debate of always choosing the state position over the commercial one, so you can then self-righteously denounce us. actually, i have trouble telling them apart, both government and business are run by strutting little careerists in suits who occasionally need a good spanking.

the price we pay for an independent press is a lot of bad media, especially a lot of pro-business media, and an occasional limbaugh or coulter, but the price is worth paying. as long as citizens are ready to support a free press with their dollars, and by patronizing their advertisers, free journalists will have a source of income that will allow them to earn a living while they deliver independent information. the minute the press becomes just a mechanism to generate revenue and nothing else, like your hometown newspaper (in other words, just another business), it is worthless. or worse, it is dangerous. a political ideologue in control of a newspaper can always be countered by an ideologue from the other side. but a press outlet controlled by a commercial agenda will only operate to further its cash flow, without regard to any philosophy or creed or morality. and it will always find collaborators among its own so-called "competitors". it is amoral and unprincipled. and commercial agendas are never countered, libertarians are always ready to rush to their defense and denounce any criticism as sedition or communism.

if you had it your way the private sector would be able to do anything it damn well pleased, with only market forces and the honour of accountants to muzzle its unholy appetites, and government would have no role at all, except to protect private property with force, at public expense. that kind of world scares the hell out of me. it is the world of the banana republic, a feudal world of company towns run by petty oligarchies: the world of 20th century latin america, or 18th century north america.

see, we already differ enough that it is not really necessary for you to make stuff up.