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June 23, 2004
It's Official: Women's Breasts are Evil
And we can blame it on Janet Jackson.
On Wednesday the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved S.2056, a bill to increase the penalties for violations by television and radio broadcasters of the prohibitions against transmission of obscene, indecent, and profane language. The bill would provide for fines ranging from $275,000 for a single incident up to a staggering $3,000,000 for repeat offenders. The bill was rushed through without debate, with the only dissenting vote coming from Senator John Breaux, D-La.
We here at i cant think find ourselves wondering "When did freedom in America become a lowest-common-denominator proposition?" And how long must we endure a government that steadily chips away at basic freedoms in the name of special-interest constituencies in order to ensure re-election? We certainly do not long for a return to the "golden years" of the fifties, with McCarthyism and communist witch hunts and the spectre of J. Edgar Hoover looming large over all.
We already have a content filter on our radios and television sets. It's called an "off" button. And it's been there all along. My television set currently receives over 700 channels; surely there are several wholesome, family-oriented channels in there somewhere. There's The Disney Channel, the PAX network, The Family Channel, Discovery Channel. No, scratch that last one. It sometimes has a tendency to show animals mating.
According to the text of the Senate bill:
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act) included a provision requiring all television sets manufactured after January 1, 2000, to contain a `V-Chip,' a feature that provides parents with the ability to block the display of certain programming based on a program's rating. An April 2000 survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that only 9 percent of parents of children ages 2-17 had a television with a V-Chip, only 3 percent of all parents had ever used the V-Chip to block programming, and 39 percent of parents surveyed had never heard of the V- Chip.
We are not convinced that we as a nation are virulently appalled at the nature of television programming when only 3 percent of all parents have ever used the V-Chip to block programming.
And we also do not agree with all that is said and shown in our broadcast media. I am not a Howard Stern fan. And I doubt that I ever will be. But we do vehemently support the right of others to voice their opinions, however crude and tasteless they may be. And we support the right of all Americans to agree or disagree. That is one of the great principles on which this nation was founded, and we hope to see that principle remain intact for as long as this nation stands.
We are, however, hiding our copies of "Ulysses" and all of our Snoop Dogg CD's. After all, they may be worth something 10 years from now.
Posted by bcoffee at June 23, 2004 10:35 PM
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Comments
I think it is a very good idea. The media or the entertainment industry just has not realized when to stop. and for a long time has been filling young minds with dirty vocab and visuals. Its hight time that someone said enough and took a stand.
People want the next generation to be of good standing. People who will continue to live the name of this nation. How will they be men and women of honor when they fed by trash from the entertainment industry.
It may be regarded as very intellectual to think theologically on Christ's sexuality as did "The Last Temptations of Christ" but does the entertainment industry ever stop to think the repurcussions or havoc it might cause in the young minds of the next generation?
No, they dont think so all they are concerned is to make bucks.
How can any generation do good when the generation before them sets such a horribly bad exaple
Posted by: Sanjeev at April 16, 2005 04:22 PM
