More Than Seven Dirty Words

July 25, 2003 | Marjorie Heins

[KCmark]

While I see your point, kiddy porn doesn't make it to censership. It is illegal to create. (Although there are always gray areas, like America's Funniest Home Videos showing topless kids running around in a sprinkler.) Drawing the line at the nose/fist point is something we can all agree on, I would hope. Where the nose is, i.e. the age of consent, can be argued, but once established, ...

Kiddy porn is a straw man almost everytime it is used. But I'll give it to you. Yes we all censure, but it should be the last refuge, not the first line of defense.

[Dan from Michigan]

It's a parent's job to parent. It's an individual's job to use the clicker to protect themselves from being offended.

It is not the job of a bunch of unelected jack booted bureaucrats.

[al_c]

Cable is optional, not mandatory.

You're right. But how long until it filters down in the the big 3? TV show producers just keep pushing the envelope because no one will stop them. And it's not just TV ... look around you at checkout stands in grocery stores, on the magazine rack at your local convenience store, the clothes that companies market to kids/teens. Decency is fast becoming a thing of the past. As a father of two young girls, this bothers me.

[al_c]

My fave is still Junkyard Wars, I just like watching people weld.

Good show! That and American Chopper are two of my favs!

[al_c]

You were suprised "Nip/ Tuck" was offensive?

Nothing TV has to offer surprises me anymore. There's not much I watch except for news and a few other things.

[TankerKC]

From the FCC site:

A ``Tony Danza's'' when you grab her by the hair, throw her down on the bed, smack her around a little bit and tell her who's the boss.

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

While I see your point, kiddy porn doesn't make it to censership. It is illegal to create.

OK, you're technically right, but the common meaning of "censorship" has evolved to include prior restraint.

In any case, prior restraint is even "worse" than censorship.

Kiddy porn is a straw man almost everytime it is used. But I'll give it to you. Yes we all censure, but it should be the last refuge, not the first line of defense.

OK. That's all I was going for, was the idea that we should be debating what should be censored, not whether censorship should exist.

[Between the Lines]

If you don't like something, don't listen/watch it, and keep your children away from it.

Overseer. What about all the nearly pornographic billboards? How do you keep them from that? The more ways I find to protect my children the more ways others find to corrupt them. Billboards, bumper stickers, tee shirts, TV, radio, video games, and email to name a few.

There are two problems with ultimate free speech. The first is directly targeting children with subject matter not appropriate for children, this should be a crime. The other is with the "in your face" free speechers who think that just because they have the right to say something that everyone else including children has to listen and see, or that they should be forced into hearing and seeing it. You have a right to say it, but I should also have the right for my children not be subjected to your free speech profanities. In today’s world your solution of "keep your children away from it" means locking them up incommunicado and it shouldn't be that way.

There should be some decency in this country. But we have become instead of a united people a nation of individuals who care for only me, me, me. Do not be so zealous or so callous in exercising your rights that you hurt someone along the way. Freedom of speech should be a good thing not an abuse of others.

[subterfuge]

"It's a parent's job to parent. It's an individual's job to use the clicker to protect themselves from being offended. It is not the job of a bunch of unelected jack booted bureaucrats"

Must be another FReeper without children. As I've said here before, you really don't know anything about life and world until you have kids, imo. I didn't always think that way. It wasn't until I had offspring to protect that I did. Flame away!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Looks like Carlin's list has been shortened.

Actually, go rent the video "Carlin at Carnegie".

The last 5 minutes is a monologue on how "The List" has expanded not shrunk. It is hysterically funny.

[Dan from Michigan]

I don't have kids, but I know a ton about unelected bureaucrats and internal politics and powergrabs firsthand.

[discostu]

They spend too much time yelling at each other on American Chopper, gets boring. The bikes sure look cool though.

[E Rocc]

The Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Pacifica upheld the FCC's power to censor broadcasting under the broad, vague "patently offensive" definition. The primary justification, said Justice John Paul Stevens for the Court's 5-4 majority, was to protect children who, he assumed, would be harmed by Carlin's bawdy language. In any case, said Stevens, the government wasn't really banning vulgar speech; it was only requiring that it be aired late at night, when children are unlikely to be listening.

The Pacifica decision was indefensible as a matter of constitutional law, but its practical effect at the time was insignificant. Television was already steering clear of the risque so as not to offend any part of its national audience, while radio, which was sometimes more daring, could nevertheless be reasonably safe from FCC sanction if it simply avoided the "seven dirty words" and a few others of similar ilk.

All this changed in 1987, when the FCC, under pressure from the religious right, abandoned the "bright line" dirty-words test and announced that henceforth it would prohibit any broadcast it considered "patently offensive," regardless of specific language or redeeming social value. Again, a progressive, counter-cultural Pacifica station was among the targets of the FCC's displeasure. (It had broadcast a program about gay rights.)

When Reagan first took office he began appointing libertarians to the FCC instead of culture crusaders. These appointees believed in minimal government interference with business, whether the business was a grocery store, machine shop, or radio station.

This consistent view was a critical part of the increasing popularity of conservatism among younger people....prudishness was no longer an integral part of same.

-Eric

[Dan from Michigan]

I do my best to watch my language around kids.

Unfortunatly, there is a case of two evils. You got the inyerfacers that use the gay lobby tactics, and you got the govt thugs.

Now, at least the in yer facers can't put a gun to my head with the force of law over speech content. The govt thugs can.

Also, what is indecent? Who decides it? I certainly don't want Janet Reno or someone like that deciding. AOL calls guns porn. Another internet filter censores pro-gun sites too.

There's always the law of unintended consequences.

[al_c]

The last 5 minutes is a monologue on how "The List" has expanded not shrunk. It is hysterically funny.

Saw it years ago. Where do you think I got the comment? ;o)

[chriservative]

Censorship has to do with legal ______ (insert expressions, dramatizations, depictions, words, etc.) which some but not others may view as offensive. Kiddie porn, snuff films, etc. are illegal. They should not be in existance to begin with. Which part of this don't you understand? Your analogy is completely incorrect.

[Between the Lines]

I do my best to watch my language around kids.

While saying you in my post, I did not intentionally mean yourself or anyone else posting here. My appologies for any offence.

Also, what is indecent? Who decides it?

Most people know what is indecent. I believe that you could even get a majority to agree to what is indecent.

There's always the law of unintended consequences.

A good example of the law of unintended consequences would be this same vulgarity that is written about in this article. I don't think the founding fathers ever meant for free speech to be pornigraphic.

[Dan from Michigan]

My appologies for any offence.

Wasn't offended. I just wanted to make sure we are clear.

Most people know what is indecent. I believe that you could even get a majority to agree to what is indecent.

After what I saw from AOL, Symtanec(sp), and who knows what else, I have to disagree. I think you and I are probably close to agreement on what is in certain circumstances, but when bureaucrats get involved, only God knows what will happen.

I don't think the founding fathers ever meant for free speech to be pornigraphic.

True, but I also think the Founding Fathers also know about governmental restraint.

[DJ MacWoW]

My biggest problem with this is the twisting of the first amendment. The first amendment only gives us the right to speak against our government without being harmed for doing so. When it was written, if you spoke out against the king, you were imprisoned or dead. Over the decades, it's been used to cover a great many things it wasn't written for.

[Between the Lines]

So your main opposition is to bureaucrats and the federal government’s potential abuse of power in this case, and not to decency on the airwaves? If so, I would have to agree. But since moral decency is being passed down to children less and less, and everyone wants their perversion to be legal and out there. Where do we go from here?