From personal experience, I can say that the current staff at the FCC Private Radio Bureau (which regulates ham radio) is surprisingly enlightened. In recent years they've worked hard to remove obsolete
This particular spoof is best appreciated by a radio ham -- it was clearly a parody of the FCC licensing system for ham radio. It also points out the substantial cultural similarities between the Internet and (traditional) ham radio. Unfortunately, one year's joke often has a nasty habit of turning into next year's reality. licensing requirements like morse code for VHF/UHF and many (but not all, unfortunately) of the more onerous restrictions on "acceptable use" of the ham bands. In these proceedings it became clear that the hams themselves are the real problem. Some hams still want a big benevolent FCC to protect them from people who personally offend them, and many of these people have a following. Although this phenomenon is by no means qualitatively unique to ham radio, it does seem to have grown quantitatively beyond anything seen elsewhere. It really gives one pause. Is government really the enemy of personal freedoms, or does it merely reflect an intolerant and unenlightened general population? It's easy to make a government that responds to the will and whim of the majority, but how can one create a government that rises above the petty illiberalism of the people it governs to protect the rights of the individual? Phil