The King is Dead

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 3/12/04 | Sterling Rome

[AppyPappy]

I am ashamed to admit that I watched about 5 minutes of 'Faces of Death' before I was overcome with the feeling that the tape was the nadir of existence in our culture and shut it off.

My brother knew the producer. It was a "work". A fabrication.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Hey, maybe Stern can move over to the Liberal network and do their morning show.

Bet this will happen.

[Salo]

Being a conservative, I say"Let the free market take care of Stern." It will do so far more effectively than Federal Government bureaucrats.

While it would be a joy to see his show taken off the air, it would be a shame to allow him the luxury of validating his suggestion that he is a victim of censorship. It would be better if he remained on the air until his tired, pathetic, and vapid program disappeared without mention.

[In_25_words_or_less]

Being a conservative, I say"Let the free market take care of Stern." It will do so far more effectively than Federal Government bureaucrats.

The free market didn't take care of aggressive and offensive saloon owners, who refused to police themselves, and Prohibition was the result.

[Solamente]

Stern took up drinking since his divorce. His thinking has become convoluted and irrational.

[muir_redwoods]

At a later date, when the democrats have congress and the white house and a leftist supreme court together with an activist FCC rules that Rush and Sean Hannity are offensive it will be too late for anything but regrets. Every radio and TV I ever owned had provisions for changing the show or shutting the damned thing off.

The premise is that free people get to make their own decisions.

[Mr. Thorne]

I agree.

I've seen Mancow on Fox and Friends railing about this, and I tend to agree with a previous poster that we SHOULD let the free market take care of this, but...

But...

Shock jocks, consider; you've achieved your purpose! For years we in flyover country have heard that things HAD to be ramped up, due to the coarsening of the culture. Well, Howard, Bubba, Opie and Anthony, Mancow, Larry Flynt, give yourselves kudos: you did it. You kept trying to out-vulgar each other, wrapping yourself in the first amendment as you 'gave the market what it wanted.'

Ribald pornography, hey it's free speech. Discussing the sex habits of prostitutes with 'em on the air? Free speech again. Meanwhile, I can't say a rosary within what, fifty yards of an abortion clinic? 'Cause that's harrassing.

Well, shockers, you've spent years outdoing one another. The other end of the moral (for lack of a better word) spectrum pretty much got shut down. Pat Robertson and Chuck Colson are kooks, Larry Flynt is a publisher.

Well, you got a reaction. It's not what you'd like, and believe it or not, it's definitely NOT what I'd like (I forsee issues with people like Rush Limbaugh, especially if/when Dems have political control again). But it's not unexpected.

Prohibition is actually a good example. I'd imagine we'll see the same kind of thing, probably compressed a bit in this day and age, with 'obscenity' becoming a major offense. And the police-ers will take THEIR end too far, just like the offenders have now, and the pendulum will swing back.

IMHO, of course.

[2banana]

Howard Stern - In his own words "The defender and martyr of the 1st Amendment" but has attacked the 2nd Amendment for years. He is a fool who does not see that all the arguments he has used against the 2nd Amendment can be used against the the 1st...

[Wolfie]

The most disturbing thing about the whole affair is that Stuttering John has turned out to be a genius.

[GungaLaGunga]

His show has become:

1. Political as hell - First 2-3 hours are nothing but railing against Bush, Christians, etc., blah blah blah....
2. BORING - His bits now seem forced and without the undelining wit and sarcasm they used to carry.
3. Defacto comedy for the new LIBERAL Network.
4. Recitive - Stern now quotes for minutes at a time from Al Franken, Ellen DeGeneres, TNR, The Nation.

In short, Howrd has become one of his bits - "JUMP THE SHARK"

[arasina]

Great post, Mr. Thorne.

[2banana]

Mr. Stern:

You rant and rave about protecting the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. You call yourself a defender of the Constitution and are being sacrificed for defending it.

Yet you have continually and incessantly attacked the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution for years.

You have failed to realize that the same arguments that you have personally used to attack one Amendment of the Bill of Rights could be used to attack any part of the Bill of Rights.

You just can't pick or choose that parts you want to defend. It is an all or nothing kind of thing.

Sadly, you are now learning that lesson.

Regards,

2banana


"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
--Alan Dershowitz

[GigaDittos]

Howard Stern is a pathetic piece of crap. He's a liberal bigot who makes money on the most vile material imaginable. He has joked about his own wife, and about the misfortunes of others.

[apillar]

I think Stern is a victim of his own sucess. He got his fame and fortune by shocking his audience and pushing the edge. The problem is after he has had on his 10,000th lesbian or drunken midget or whatever it simple isn't shocking anymore and his audience just sort of yawns and moves on. Its actually a rather sad statement about morals in this country that not many are shocked by his antics anymore, but I beleive thats whats to blame for his declining popularity rather than some cooked up conspiracy between President Bush and the Christian Coalition.

[Maceman]

The free market didn't take care of aggressive and offensive saloon owners, who refused to police themselves, and Prohibition was the result.

What's your point? Prohibition was a colossal failure, wasn't it? That's why it was repealed. (But not before it built the Kennedy fortune).

[In_25_words_or_less]

Prohibition was a colossal failure, wasn't it?

In all ways except one -- saloons, beer and liquor companies have minded their manners ever since.

[Maceman]

In all ways except one -- saloons, beer and liquor companies have minded their manners ever since.

What do you mean, minding their manners. Prohibition wasn't about manners -- it was a manifestation of the PRogressive era impulse to improve society by changing people's behavior -- an explicit rejection of our nation's original founding values.

[In_25_words_or_less]

You're not familiar with the saloon practices of the time which galvanized the public into supporting teetotaler crusaders? It's interesting history.

[bassmaner]

But Prohibition never really ended. Think War on Drugs, which has turned our inner cities into free-fire zones and given us the highest incarceration rate in the world, yet drugs are still widely available.