Posted on 12/25/2003 6:52:31 PM PST by Holly_P
The truth is we're becoming a foul-mouthed nation. And Rep. Doug Ose, a Republican congressman from California, has set out to, if not exactly reverse the trend, at least keep dirty words off the airwaves. He has been joined in that lonely crusade only by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
Earlier this month, he introduced H.R. 3687, the Clean Airwaves Act, which would ban the broadcast of eight common obscenities. We are not going to print them although no one familiar with modern cinema, hip-hop or the transcripts of the late President Nixon would find them surprising.
What outraged Ose was that the Federal Communications Commission declined to rap anyone's knuckles for rock group U2 singer Bono's use, during the broadcast of last year's Golden Globe Awards, of a common expletive in participle form. (Covering the grammatical spectrum, Ose's bill would ban the offending eight in their "verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms.")
While we have some sympathy for Ose's view, we are against censorship in principle and as a practical matter. Government regulation of speech is an endless descent into red tape. The only effective discipline of speech is strong social norms and the refusal of the broad public to listen to or watch material it finds offensive.
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