THE CENSORSHIP MOOD

Today's show will come to you from The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. I'm here in this frightening place (DC, not The Heritage Foundation) to attend the annual Radio & Records Talk Radio convention.

This year's convention buzz? Government ... the FCC ... censorship .... fines ..... fired disk jockeys.

The mood in Washington is ugly. It's an election year. The full House and one-third of the Senate are up for reelection ... as is the president. These politicians want to get themselves on record for "protecting family values" and a making sure that your precious children never, ever get to see Janet Jackson's breast again as long as they draw breath. The FCC, obviously feeling heat from somewhere, levying three-quarters of a million dollar fines against radio stations for material that was broadcast two years ago. Jocks with number-one ratings in their markets are being offered up as sacrificial lambs to the DC censorship mood.

This situation reached its boiling point, of course, with that now-notorious Super Bowl halftime show. Yes, the show was tacky. But what in the hell did you expect when the entire production was turned over to MTV? Barry Manilow? So ... Nelly grabbed his crotch. We all have them. And Janet Jackson's right breast made it's TV debut ... seen two, you seen them all. That was on a Sunday. The first day of the week. By Saturday night of that same week Americans (and that includes children) had the opportunity to watch hundreds of murders, beatings, rapes and hints at gratuitous sex on television. The news, though, continued to be about Janet's jug.

This has to be said here. Americans are prudes. We are probably the only industrialized country in the world that goes into a national state of shock when a breast appears on broadcast television. Spend a bit of time in Europe. There you're as likely to see a breast on a television commercial as you are to see the word "sale." As a result European children grow up with a much more healthy view vis-à-vis the human body. Why, some Europeans might actually think that there is something more discomforting about seeing one person murder another on television than watching one person loved by another.

Back, though, to Washington. What we're seeing in those congressional hearings, and in the moods of our august legislators, is nothing short than a burgeoning censorship movement. Today it's breasts, vague descriptions of sexual situations, and the fearsome "F" word. Tomorrow?

Let me make my position clear here from the beginning. I'm against government censorship of the airwaves. The FCC should have only one role ... and that is to protect a broadcaster's property right in their broadcast frequency. Nothing more. The FCC should not be the national censorship arm of the Imperial Federal Government.

There is no doubt in my mind that if broadcasting had been around when Hamilton, Madison, Jay and the rest of our founding fathers (PC="Framers") wrote our Constitution, broadcasting would have been included in the First Amendment. The purpose of that little "freedom of the press" bit in our Constitution was to make sure that the government could exercise no control over the means of the dissemination of information in America. Information was to flow freely .. and that included information about the comings and goings and various shenanigans of politicians.

Today the vast majority of Americans get their daily dose of news and information from the broadcast media. In the mornings we listen to radio for news, weather and traffic. In the midday period Americans turn to talk radio to keep up. In the evenings we go to the television news programs. A minority of Americans read daily newspapers. A smaller number read news magazines. We are now, my friends, in a situation where the majority of Americans get their news and information about what is going on with their government from entities that are licensed by and subject to punishment at the hands of that very government. Nobody can truly believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind.

Now don't even try to tell me that the government would never try to regulate the political and news content of the broadcast media. Michael Medved tried that stunt with me last night as we went chin-to-chin on MSNBC. Yes, my friends, the government will try to control the political content of broadcast media. The government has tried it. And the government succeeded. Have you heard of the Campaign Finance Reform Act? Did you know that our illustrious Supreme Court has just ruled that the government can, indeed, control what can and cannot be said about politicians on radio and TV stations in the final days of a political campaign? Not newspapers. Not news magazines. Oh no! They have First Amendment protections. Broadcasting? Different story.

When broadcasting came into its own in this country politicians became eager to exercise control. They couldn't do a thing about what newspapers printed ... but they were determined not to make the same mistake with the new wonderful world of broadcast media. So ... they came up with this idiotic little fiction that "the public owns the airwaves." That became their excuse for government licensing and regulation.

A question: If the public owns the airwaves, why doesn't the public also own all the real estate? We get this song and dance about the public owning the airwaves because there are only a limited number of broadcast frequencies available, and they need to be allocated and controlled "in the public interest." Well, the last time I checked there was only a limited amount of real estate around. Why, then, aren't politicians preaching about the "public ownership of the land" and taking measures to make sure that all real estate is used "in the public interest?" Instead of owning the land upon which our homes sit, why aren't we leasing that land from some government entity called the FREC ... the Federal Real Estate Commission. Hey! Maybe that would be a good idea! Every five years or so we could submit an application to the FREC explaining how we're using our particular piece of real estate in the public interest. Neighbors and community activists could submit filings to the FREC stating that we are not, in fact, using our real estate in the public interest and demanding that the FREC revoke our licenses!

Let's say that we have an unmarried couple living in a house down the street. You're upset because you are teaching your children that a man and a woman should get married before they move in together and start to raise a family. You want that unmarried couple out of the neighborhood. So, the next time they apply to the FREC for a renewal of their license to occupy that particular piece of "publicly owned" real estate you file to have their license revoked. Gay couple down the street? Same thing.

Or let's say that there's a convenience store in town that actually sells (gasp!) copies of Playboy. You have it on good authority that someone can actually open the pages of one of those magazines and see parts of the female anatomy. You get a little group together and prepare to oppose their license renewal when it comes up next year.

Just yesterday you were walking down the street in your neighborhood and you heard sounds representative of domestic intranquility coming from that house on the corner. The words were unmistakable. "F___ you! I'll mow the f___ing law when game is over." Why, you're not going to allow that language to be used in your neighborhood, are you? After all, your child could have been walking by that house and heard those words. You go to the FREC and ask for a heavy fine to be assessed against the neighborhood sports fan for his indecency.

Now there's a dangerous little term. Community standards. First ... you do realize that the very phrase has an anti-individualistic tone, don't you? Shouldn't we be talking here about "individual" standards? Individuals have moral standards. As long as a community is made of of individuals with individual likes, dislikes, wants and needs you cannot truly say that there is one standard that fits and applies to the whole community.

There is, though, a way that people can express their individual standards in such a way that something approximating a "community standard" can be arrived at. The most common way is voting. Now there's more than one type of voting out there. Individuals can vote with ballots to chose a politician to serve the community. You might say that this politicians is representing a "community standard" because he came away from the election with more individual votes than anyone else.

Individuals can also vote with dollars. In the free market every dollar is a vote. Each dollar spent is a vote cast for a particular product or merchant. The products or merchants with the most votes win. The products or merchants with few votes eventually fade away. Individuals, voting with dollars, eventually establish a "community standard" in products, services and merchants. Imagine the chaos if there was some sort of a government agency that was assigned the task of trying to figure out just what the "community standard" in flower shops or restaurants was. Would that government agency then try to force all flower shops and restaurants to adhere to that standard, or face fines? Maybe license revocation?

And as for broadcasting? There, again, individuals vote. There are two knows on your radio. Cast your vote by turning either one. As individuals across the community cast their votes over a period of time, a community standard is established. Those who meet the standard survive. Those who don't fail. When you allow the individuals to create that standard through the exercise of their free choice with one of those two knobs ... freedom and the free market prevail. Politicians, though, want to establish that standard through highly-publicized hearings and government rules. Freedom plays no role.

One last thing. Today it's sexually explicit material the politicians are getting all lathered-up about. What is it going to be tomorrow?

Think about this. What phrase do many leftist politicians use to describe the expression of conservative ideas and concepts. You've heard them. It's "hate speech." On many college campuses around the nation there are active movements to have the expression of conservative ideas branded as "hate speech" and banned on campus. Expressing opposition to that government-enforced program of systematic racial discrimination known as "affirmative action" is condemned as "racism." A whacko Hispanic activist in Atlanta is pushing the idea that using the phrase "illegal alien" is comparable to using the "N" word. How long before pressure is brought to bear on the FCC to have these elements included in the definition of "community standards" that the FCC tries to enforce through fines and license revocation?

I understand, my friends. There are many things that both you and I hear on radio shows and see on television shows that offend our sensibilities. Once, though, you start using the government as an agent of censorship it's hard to stop. One group wants sexually explicit material banned. Then another wants "hate speech" banned. With the demands of each group ...and those that follow ... the noose of government censorship on the our number one method of sharing information is tightened.

Let's recognize and accept our individual responsibility for what we watch and what we listen to, and let's tell our politicians to stop using the heavy hand of government regulation as a method of pandering for votes.

Neal makes a great case. But so long as sex terrifies the right (something horrible, even though it might lead to something good), and "unwanted" displays of affection terrify the left (something good that might lead to something horrible!), we will continue to sneak around, denying the 'nasty,' and passing this pestulence on to our unsuspecting offspring, assuming we can remain long enough in the institution of marriage, the institution we breech 58% of the time yet hold high on a pedestal as being a wonderful thing unless gay couples want it, then it is a useless excuse for more (uggh) sex. But that'a another pickle.

Geeeee, I dunno folks. We got by for a good 200 years with those evil "community standards", and I don't think life was all that freaking miserable or totalitarian at that time. If it made TV a little more boring, well, ya know what? It made people get off their ass and doing stuff with their family or friends or whatever.

It's gonna be a real hard sell to tell me that, even if we went back to the over-the-top standards of the days when I was a kid (and I'm all of freakin' 34 here) where if a man and woman were in bed the man had to have one foot on the floor, this will somehow harken totalitarianism, theocracy and the end of all that is freedom and individualism.

Frankly, I felt and was a whole HELL of a lot more secure in my freedoms in 1976, when all those horrific community standards were in place.

So, while the guy makes his case well, there's absolutely nothing he can say that's going to change that one basic fact that I have derived from my own existence - I remember a time when we -had- those horribly restrictive community standards, and society was a damn sight better for it.

I mean, for God's sake, tell me one good thing that the crassification and destruction of our community standards since the 70's/80's has done for us, other than offer us more tittilating (and vacuous) entertainment. Just one. Now let's add up the -costs-.

Qwinn

If that was a reply to me, buddy, you've got it backwards. No one would even -think- back in the '70's of "busting" someone for an offensive comment that wasn't on the air. You could walk up and down the street screaming one racial epithet after another, and while you would certainly lose friends and influence people negatively, it's doubtful you'd lose your job. Or get sued. Or get arrested.

Only today do you have to watch every single word that comes out of your mouth before the Gestapo PC crowd comes and stamps you out of existence.

Qwinn

... I don't think life was all that freaking miserable or totalitarian at that time.

Ummm...

...It made people get off their ass

Errrr...

I'm all of freakin' 34 here

Ahhh...

I felt and was a whole HELL of a lot more secure in my freedoms in 1976

Ummm...

I mean, for God's sake...

In 1976 your post would not be suitable for public broadcast. You want that?

Yup. No problem. You know why? Cause the odds of me being on a public broadcast any time over the next year is virtually nil. On the other hand, there wasn't -anything- I couldn't say in public back then that would get me anything worse than dirty looks and, if I pushed it too far, a well deserved punch in the jaw.

I'd rather have the bozos on the TV have their rights squelched, than me. You're content to have your rights to say what you want restricted, and give the guy on TV license to say whatever he wants.

I like my way better.

Qwinn

Oh, and incidentally, I noted in my first post that I thought the restrictions in 1976 were over the top. I don't have any particular desire to go back to levels that strict either. But there's a WHOLE HELL of a lot of middle ground between where we were then and where we are now, and we're definetly way way way past the point where loosening things up made things better and started to definitively make things worse.

Qwinn

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