Feds are here to protect our First Amendment rights, huh?

In this crazy world of constant bombardment by stuff on the Internet, practically every morning features a John McEnroe moment: You’ve got to be kidding me!!!

Thus it was with this press release headline: “Extra! Extra! FTC Announces Workshop: ‘Can News Media Survive the Internet Age? Competition, Consumer Protection, and First Amendment Perspectives’”

That’s right, your tax-funded Federal Trade Commission (motto: “Protecting America’s Consumers,” despite the fact the Constitution never gives the federal government the power to protect consumers) plans to conduct workshops, whatever good that will do, on the problems confronting the nation’s newspaper industry.

This flies directly into the face of “Congress shall make no law …”

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz pontificates about how various businesses transition in the face of competition, but then offers this self-contradictory, self-absorbed concept: “But the news business may be different because of the First Amendment values at stake. Whether we get our news from ink on paper, TV, radio, laptops, or mobile devices, we need a strong news industry for our democracy to thrive. Bringing together competition, consumer protection, and First Amendment perspectives can help all of us understand how best to serve Americans’ interests given the new realities affecting news organizations.”

Here’s an idea: Get government out of the way.

Except. Maybe our lawmakers could do like Washington state did, and cut the taxes on newspapers by 40 percent after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went out of business. Better yet, cut all taxes on all businesses by 40 percent. Nah, then who’d get paid to protect us poor, pitiful consumers.