The latest drama surrounding the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! has once again exposed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for what it really is.

The Communications Act of 1934, the legal foundation of the FCC, claims that their mission is serving “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” What it really does is give government the power to decide what speech is acceptable—and what speech must be silenced. The fact that the FCC chair publicly threatened regulatory consequences against broadcasters unless action was taken demonstrates plainly that this agency is being used as am authoritarian tool.

Whether one likes Jimmy Kimmel or not is irrelevant. When a government agency can lean on networks to suppress commentary it finds disagreeable, every American should be alarmed.

By controlling broadcast licenses and holding the threat of revocation or penalty over the heads of networks, the Commission does not simply enforce technical standards—it polices ideas. Its very existence is an invitation to tyranny. No matter who runs it, it will always possess the power to manipulate speech by regulation or intimidation.

The FCC’s entire power structure rests on a false premise: that government owns the airwaves and merely leases them to the people. But this is backwards. Just as land, labor, and capital belong to the individuals who homestead, invest, improve, and use them, so too do broadcast frequencies. They are not “public property” for bureaucrats to ration out.

By claiming ownership of the spectrum, the state sets itself above the people and gives to itself the right to dictate who may speak and on what terms. A free society means that those who establish and develop stations own them outright—without the threat of government confiscation cloaked as “licensing.”

Libertarians have long held that a free society cannot coexist with institutions like the FCC. Free expression and criticism must be judged in the open marketplace of ideas. The proper response is not reform, but abolition.

The FCC should be dismantled, its powers dissolved, and the airwaves opened fully. Americans do not need a board of political appointees to decide what we may hear, say, or broadcast. If we truly believe in liberty, then this moment must be seized to demand the end of the FCC once and for all.

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