Posted on 06/02/2005 1:17:06 PM PDT by freepatriot32
The Danger.
No bill has been introduced yet, but Senator Stevens has promised one, and when it arrives it is likely to come straight out of the Commerce Committee he chairs and move directly to a vote with little time for public comment. The time to act is now.
You can read more about this at...
Center for American Progress: Think Again: The New Content Commissars
Jammed.com: Transcript of Sen. Stevens' remarks on Internet "indecency" laws
DownsizeDC.org commentary
This bill would deny you the right to watch mature programming on cable TV for the sake of parents who are too lazy and irresponsible to bear the burden of doing their jobs as parents. Those parents who object to cable TV programming already have several ways to deal with this problem:
They can buy a reduced set of cable programming (this is the approach used by DownsizeDC.org President Jim Babka who has three children under 10).
They can no have cable at all, but rely on broadcast TV only (which is now heavily censored).
They can restrict cable to only one part of their house and not allow their children to watch TV there.
They can block cable channels they consider inappropriate for their children. But some parents, rather than take any of these responsible steps, want Congress to do their parenting for them, at the expense of everyone else who wants to be able to watch mature programming.
And, we might add, Congress has no constitutional authority for such censorship, something that should concern every American who still cares about constitutional legality.
Many Americans have excused broadcast censorship because the government supposedly owns the broadcast spectrum, but no such excuse exists here. Congress can make no claim to own cable networks, local cable providers, or even the TV sets in your home. They simply don't have the authority.
Why Take Action?
Please help us stop the growth of the nanny state.
Please help us stop the Congressional urge to turn the entire country into Disneyland.
Please help us preserve the benefits of adulthood. Please help us preserve the First Amendment.
Please don't reward the busy-bodies who think they know what's best for you and your family.
Please stop the political habit of using children as an excuse for extinguishing American freedom.
Please don't let Congress reward the whining of irresponsible parents who want others to do their job for them. To send your message to Congress opposing this censorship click here.
I like your tagline. I'm so tired of totally illiberal socialists/communists being called "Liberal". It completely misrepresents what they truly are, and it lets them off the hook.
using the word "family" doesn't give you free reign to knock people around for their political leaning. being a democrat or anywhere on the left doesn't make you a bad parent automatically.
There is no pornography on public tv. To say this demonstrates how extreme your position is.
Turn off your tv, don't buy cable, leave the rest of us alone. What is so hard about that?
I can't believe you would base someone's ability to raise a child on their political views.. and cable t.v. is not "public obscenity".
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"being a democrat or anywhere on the left doesn't make you a bad parent automatically."
"I disagree with that."
LOL
I wouldn't mind seeing cable tv cleaned up, especially when I channel surf and come across Howard Stern on the E channel having girls take off their clothes.
If you don't know how to program your TV, that's YOUR fault.
"first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry"
Wait a minute--you don't think women should have jobs either?
Sweet monkey on a stick. I can't believe what I'm seeing here.
"public airwaves"
Cable ain't public. Cable ain't public. Cable ain't public.
Define please.
Very little.
So don't tune to the E channel.
Sheesh.
As another poster pointed out, even Amish children know who Madonna is. And as a society we've almost reached the point where you do have to become as isolated as the Amish in order to raise your children with good morals.
Let me try to speak libertarian to you. The shared morals of a society are an externality. If those shared morals are negative then the statist solution is for government to regulate them. The libertarian solution to externalities is private ownership. The person who lives downstream from a factory sues them for the cost to clean up the river in his property. The Howard Stern libertarians in this thread are like the factory lawyers. They feel entitled to pollute their own private property as much as they want and they don't care that doing so imposes extra costs on people who have children that may swim in that water downstream.
When someone says "The government ought to" what they mean is "We shouldn't have to" and that, Sir, is socialism.
When the government controls TV, how long will it be before "separation of church and state" (meaning the right to separate your children from religion) will claim that religion shouldn't be fouling the airwaves? I mean, atheists won't be able to keep their children from seeing that!
Whatever you let the government touch becomes the property of the government.
Is there any way of doing this on the state level; I'm guessing with FCC regulation, there's not?
Federal indecency laws do have kind of an odd ring to them but I prefer that to doing nothing.
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