Jefferson on funding NPR

I had never heard this quotation from Thomas Jefferson:

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

via Michelle Malkin.

It might be possible to make a case for public broadcasting–or it used to be, when higher-brow programming was not available before the advent of abundant-channel cable TV or digital radio.  (Though it’s still not clear to me why the state should fund high-brow programming with the tax dollars of those with regular brows.)  But isn’t it intrinsically wrong in a free society for the state to fund programming with specific political opinions?  Isn’t that what totalitarian states with their propaganda media do?

So should we de-fund NPR and PBS?  (Notice that “But I like their programs” is NOT an argument why taxpayers as a whole, including many who do not avail themselves of the programming, should pay for them.)