The Fairness Doctrine was created more than half-a-century ago under the notion that it would encourage policy discussion on the airwaves, but instead it stifled it and granted government officials in Washington, D.C. unprecedented power to regulate free speech.

When the Fairness Doctrine took effect in 1949, broadcasters responded by avoiding controversial issues completely, unwilling to jump through the logistical hoops and shoulder the financial burden of complying with such burdensome regulations. Talk radio was bland, monolithic and drew a meager following. Indeed, this was precisely the opposite of what a healthy democracy should want or expect from its radio press.

When the Reagan Administration finally repealed the Fairness Doctrine in the summer of 1987, no one could have predicted what would happen next.

Finally free from what Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal called "the East Germany of liberal media domination," broadcasters found near-equal footing in the First Amendment with other press mediums. The doors to an unencumbered exchange of ideas on the airwaves of America were flung wide open.

Now, instead of having to heed onerous dictates of a bureaucracy that could levy stiff fines or revoke a station’s license for not airing the views regulators determined should be heard, producers of the talk radio industry needed only to comply with the desires and demands of the free market — control was wrested from the federal government and placed squarely in the hands of the American consumer.

It didn’t take long for radio personalities to take advantage.

As we approach the two-decade mark of Mr. Limbaugh’s dominant run in the post-Fairness Doctrine radio era, it’s worth noting just how many lawmakers want to shut down him and his colleagues — on the right and the left.

The unambiguous reality is that some of the most powerful elected officials in Congress, including the Democrat leadership in both the House and the Senate, want to re-regulate the airwaves by restoring this Orwellian mandate of government control over what’s said on the public’s airwaves.