Charley Reese Says "Clean Up Airwaves"

Years ago, a guy who ran a pornography shop came to see me. He had been busted by the cops. He wanted me to write a story defending his free-speech rights.

"If they can arrest me, they can arrest somebody for selling Shakespeare," he said, dragging out the old slippery-slope argument.

"Well, if you start selling Shakespeare and somebody arrests you for selling Shakespeare, come see me," I said. "In the meantime, get out of my office."

The First Amendment was not written, designed or intended to protect obscenity, vulgarity, pornography and indecency — or dancing nude and burning the flag, for that matter. Its purpose is to protect the free verbal expression of ideas, both political and religious. The fact that the political hacks appointed to the federal courts in recent decades have been especially muddle-headed has obscured that fact.

The Federal Communications Commission, after years of being in a moral coma, seems on the verge of cleaning up the airwaves. It should. Under our theory of government, the airwaves belong to the public, and those private corporations that rent the frequencies have an obligation to the public — an obligation they have woefully neglected in recent years.

Congress ought to pass a law that greatly increases the fines for indecency and allows the FCC to yank a license for a second offense. Congress ought also to include cable and satellite broadcasts under the FCC jurisdiction. They both use the public facilities — in one case, the public right of ways, and in the other, the airwaves. Cable is the entertainment cesspool, and it is the fear of losing audiences to cable that has caused the networks to dip their hands in the feces and smear a little bit on their shows.

Don't buy the argument that the fact that vulgarity, pornography and obscenity have an audience is justification for allowing them on the public airwaves. In a large country, there is always an audience for anything — murder, gladiatorial contests, watching people urinate, etc. There are, in our population, a number of low-class, low-IQ yahoos and boors, psychos and psychopaths whose taste in humor is infantile or cruel. Public policy should not be geared to the sludge at the bottom of society.

True humor requires keen observation, perception and intelligence, all of which are woefully lacking among most of the so-called shock jocks. They are a bunch of immature morons who haven't figured out that once people get past kindergarten, hearing naughty words is neither funny nor shocking. Nor is rudeness funny. There is a common malady in the radio industry — people who have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.

American culture is decadent and starting to stink of serious decay. We should, for the sake of our children, become actively intolerant of vulgarity, indecency and profanity and of those who produce and promote it.

Charlton Heston will always be a hero to me. He had the guts to gain the floor at a Time Warner stockholders meeting and read aloud the vile lyrics of some of the rap music Time Warner was producing and promoting. It was a risky thing for an actor to embarrass the moguls of such a giant in the entertainment industry, but he did it. Oh, yes, it's the suits at the top who are responsible for the sludge at the bottom.

Political equality is one thing, but to believe that one opinion or one taste or one judgment is just as good as another is wrong. Some people are decadent, stupid and ignorant, and their pitiful tastes should not be the standard by which any of the arts, even pop art, is judged.

So, while we take back America, to use a favorite political phrase, let's not forget the public airwaves and right of ways. Let's stop allowing others to use our living rooms as sewer outlets.

Its purpose is to protect the free verbal expression of ideas, both political and religious.

So movies and photographs are not protected by the First Amendment?

Under our theory of government, the airwaves belong to the public

Which is liberal bunk; "the airwaves" is an abstraction, not an ownable entity.

In THIS case Reese is 1000% correct!

The First Amendment was written to protect Religious and Political speech - not porn.

Thr 1st Amendment was written in the days where nobody could dream of the scum we have (lawyers & politicians) responsible for spouting filth and degenerate actions to our children.

To those who whine and cry about we should NOT be legislating 'morality' - Hey stupid! What do you think ANY law is if it isn't a MORAL limit?

So movies and photographs are not protected by the First Amendment?

The First Amendment was written to protect Religious and Political speech - not porn.

That doesn't answer my question. Does the First Amendment protect movies, including The Passion of the Christ, or does it not?

What do you think ANY law is if it isn't a MORAL limit?

The proper role of laws is to enforce that subset of morality that says "don't infringe on the individual freedoms of others." The government has no authority over personal moral failings, e.g., gluttony or sloth.

The government has no authority over personal moral failings, e.g., gluttony or sloth.

Agreed - the govt has NO RIGHT to tell me I can't do anything inside nor on my own property. But then, by extension of extremism (scum lawyer tactic) - I can KILL someone in my home for fun and the govt has no businees saying about it?

So it really comes down to this --- the govt does NOT have the authority to say anything about what I do - to myself - that effects nobody else (that garbage about health costs etc is simple lawyercrap). If I want to smoke some 'weed' in my home - GREAT! If I get in my car high, I should be arrested.

I tell you what - you tell the govt to stay out of this totally - and if I see some filthy lawyer peddling porn out by an elementzary school - it will be perfectly ok for me to blow his head off. right?

That is how it used to be in this country - we rid ourselves of scum without the govt's help - only when the pansy lawyers began to intervene, did we start losing our morality...and our country.

I tell you what - you tell the govt to stay out of this totally - and if I see some filthy lawyer peddling porn out by an elementzary school - it will be perfectly ok for me to blow his head off. right?

No, it will be your right to turn him in for violating the rights of those kids' parents to raise their children.

That is how it used to be in this country - we rid ourselves of scum without the govt's help

This used to be a nation of lawless vigilantism? Only in the Wild West---and even then I believe it was seen as an improvement when the rule of law was brought to bear.

This sounds suspiciously like the argument used by those who want to restrict commercial speech, i.e. that corporations don't fall under the umbrella of first amendment protections because they aren't individuals.
Whether your right to freedom of speech is being abridged by an act of Congress or by the fiat of a quasi-legitimate government regulatory agency, it is still being abridged.
While I have sympathy for Reese's argument; I'm not one of those who equate the works of D.H. Lawrence with Tampa Tushy-fest, both equally valid forms of expression, I do have to insist that an arm of the federal government have some respect for the rights of people who they are putatively working on behalf of and stop censoring perfectly acceptable forms of speech.
How can an un-elected group of seven political appointees- in other words, a bunch of political hacks who've never worked in the broadcast industry and thus have no insight into how decisions are made-decide for an entire country what is proper viewing material?
By the way, how is this attack on the United States Constitution any different from the similar ones exercised so frequently by the U.S. Supreme Court, other than the fact that it is one retroactively endorsed by Congress?

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