Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case 453
MachineShedFred writes "The Supreme Court of the United States has announced that it will be hearing the FCC's appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that the FCC has changed its policy on fleeting expletives without adequate explanation. It's now on the FCC to explain to the Supreme Court why its policy has changed. This is also the first time the Supreme Court has heard a major 'broadcast indecency' case in 30 years."
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the FCC only regulates over the air broadcasts. The FCC *is* arbitrary, unfair, and evil, but you should learn a bit before criticizing them, or no one will take you seriously.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Self censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
And why are your feelings more important than mine?
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
So in a situation that doesn't even have to be perfect, the whole premise of indecency is moot.
Lot's of people complain about neocons, or corporations, or illegal immigrants, or terrorists, or deviants ruining our country. They are so far off. Unfit and downright harmful parents are far worse.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't have the right to not be offended.
You can, however, criticize them for their impotence in linguistic capabilities. This is the nature of free speech and freedom of expression.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because obviously someone uses a profane word because they lack the eloquence to call someone a bumbling ignorant uncultured swine of a simpleton. And obviously when someone wishes to damn someones soul to eternally burn in the fires of hell, they must say so in such verbage, instead of just simplifying it to "damn you" with the rest understood.
Obviously people use profane words because they lack the vocabulary to use others words, and NOT because certain words have three key features:
1. understood nearly universally within the culture
2. carry a weight to them, especially when said very sparsly
3. convey the point they are intended with little room for misunderstanding
True one could be complex with their insults and verbose with their exclamations, but that would truly render them useless.
What good is it to call someone a hedonistic glutton if they don't understand what you're saying?
You would feel good you've insulted someone who can't understand what you're saying, and that is a worthless act. At least if you call them a lazy fatass they understand that they need to get up and move, in your opinion.
I would argue that a well placed fuck or damn is more important than a good vocabulary. More so when you reserve your usage of them, as people notice when someone who rarely does so, curses.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no objective measure of what language is lower or higher than another. It's all just words.
Re:Crazy society (Score:5, Insightful)
- Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
Re:grown ups still need parents? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called parenting. When I was growing up, there were no technological controls available. We didn't have TVs in our bedrooms, and we were only allowed to watch what we were told we were allowed to watch. You watch something else and you were going to get yourself into trouble.
The bottom line is that if you need technology to control what you're kids are watching -- you are doing something wrong.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
No they don't. Otherwise, the Supreme Court would have nothing to rule upon.
Example: Is the word "nigger" allowed?
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why was certiorari granted? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Appeals Court did not rule that the FCC had abridged speech or press freedoms in these cases, but instead that the FCC's policy was not sufficiently well justified. There are standards for the behavior of regulatory agencies like the FCC that require them to spell out in sufficient detail why they've made a change in the rules. The Appeals Court ruled that the FCC had failed to meet these standards. That Court also advised the FCC it didn't think there was a way the Commission could implement its intended policy consititutionally. Since the Supremes are really ruling on the procedural matter, the question of why they took this case becomes even more cloudy.
I suspect the Bushies are defending other cases where the issue is whether a regulatory agency has provided sufficient justification for changing course. Rules like these restrict the president's ability to change the regulatory regime since opponents of the changes can go to court claiming the agency didn't fulfill its obligations. All those proponents of a strong Executive in the Administration like Dick Cheney would probably love to see the Supremes agree that the FCC had done its job.
I wish we could learn who voted for cert, but those votes are secret.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
And profanity absolutely can be used for powerful artistic effect. Case in point, Alan Ginsberg's "Howl" [tripod.com], ruled not obscene by the Supreme Court 50 years ago.
Re:v-chip (Score:5, Insightful)
Appearently is okay to let your children watch the news reports of school shootings so they get the idea to do it themselves rather be responsible and in touch with your child enough to know that A) watching such thing isn't the brightest of ideas for your unstable goth brat, B) you might actually notice they are an unstable goth brat who has no idea how good their life is compared to someone with real problems.
Slightly in line with this rant
Drat this darn old friggin' profanity shite (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC has pending before it "hundreds of thousands of complaints" regarding the broadcast of expletives, Clement said. He argued that the appeals court decision has left the agency "accountable for the coarsening of the airwaves while simultaneously denying it effective tools to address the problem."
I think "hundreds of thousands" is hyperbole -- I can imagine MAYBE a few tens of thousands at most. And it has been shown in the past that the vast majority of these are usually automated "copy, sign, and send" complaints coming from a very tiny group of people associated with some of the right-wing Christian watchdog groups. I seem to recall that of the complaints that came in about the infamous "wardrobe malfunction," all but a tiny handful came from ONE group's members.
I guess I'm someone who just never understood the whole concept of certain words arbitrarily being designated as "naughty." Profanity serves a purpose in language -- it can be overdone, but there are also times when it is entirely appropriate. I cringe every time I watch "Law and Order" or other crime shows and hear some gang member or drug dealer use the contrived euphemism "friggin'" -- it rings SO false and destroys the credibility of the character.
And I guess I don't understand people who are offended to the point of pathology by words. Just words. Not even necessarily the idea behind the words (which can be offensive, for much better reasons) but the words themselves. It's like hearing or using those words is some sort of magical incantation that will corrupt their children, compromise their salvation, and spell the doom of Western civilization.
The best of the bunch are the folks who condescendingly say, "The English language is so rich, there are plenty of words and synonyms -- why so you have to use THOSE words?" And my response is: if you truly appreciate the breadth and variety of the language, why are you trying to LIMIT the number of words that can be used?
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it bothered me, I'd watch something else. If enough people watched something else, broadcasters would stop saying things that drove away their viewers.
There are many other things I could fit in instead of the n-word. Isn't preventing certain kinds of... let's call it deviant pornography... from being shown on TV censorship? Are you arguing against that as well?
Yes, of course. Let the viewers decide.
Which is more likely to be harmful: no cursing, or tons of it?
Censorship is immeasurably more harmful. We cannot let the government get in the habit of prohibiting speech it doesn't like.
"And why are your feelings more important than mine?"
Think about it this way, people who advocate censorship believe they have a right not to be offended. That right should apply equally to me and my offense at censorship. It's an inherently contradictory position. As for me, I don't think I have a right not to be offended, but we do have rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from religion, etc, that should be sufficient to prevent the government from censoring.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree with that mindset -- incidental exposure isn't too damaging -- but the FCC regulations aren't entirely intended simply to prevent children from viewing objectionable content while removing the need from parental supervision.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know where this originated, but the Bellamy Brothers have a very similar song that Google can't seem to find the lyrics to.
I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.
I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me. I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profane four letter word. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs
out of dad's fields.
I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline or chop some fire wood. And if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the wood shed.
Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin, and if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America might be a better place today.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? What is it about certain words constitutes "vandalism of the language"?
"I/we/they deserve a common communications over the free and public airwaves that's free of obscenity."
Why?
"If you want to color your world with such muck, it is your choice to lower yourself to this standard. Instead, lift to one that's free of it."
Why is such a thing lowering a standard? The standard is arbitrary. Avoiding it is not lifting either. Your arguments are predicated on the correctness of your point of view. Try saying something compelling.
" On private media, do what you will-- including this one. If you feel compelled to spew, do it in a place where your choices don't sully the common good."
An arbitrary definition of "common good". Free expression of thought is for the common good yet restriction of vocabulary inhibits that.
"Your feelings, scatalogical or obscene, have merit, but not with in the context of a public place."
Obscene yes, but only because "obscene" is defined in precisely that way. You are simply circular language here. It's good to know you consider scatological topics to have merit, but that's not surprising considering your point of view. Eat it up, baby.
"Do I use any of these? Occasionally, within private context, and not on the public airwaves-- which is the context of the post."
What constitutes obscenity changes with time and regulations barring it are arbitrary. Back when communications resources were limited, the government could justify regulating usage of precious public property. Now, such justifications are hard to sustain. If you want to save yourself from challenging language, then choose your sources accordingly. You have no right and are not "deserving" of forcing your morality or your definition of "obscenity" on everyone else. We aren't limited to a few channels anymore and obscenity regulations need to disappear.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the world is full of 2-year-olds who see tits all the time, yet show those same tits to an 8-year-old and suddenly they've been scarred for life.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fact is, that's how lots of people talk, so banning it accomplished nothing but censorship.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Most reality programming for example is deliberately set up to exploit the participants as the producers torture the participants for ratings.
Dramas that portray the criminal justice system through fictional stories. In pretty much all the cases I know of they use deliberately unrealistic portrayals of both the pretty much everything involved in order to make it catchy to the sort of people that thoroughly enjoy schadenfreude.
Reality programs which cover real crimes or real accidents.
Realistically if you're going to try and suggest that "incidental exposure" is harmful you're going to have to demonstrate that it is more harmful than the slew of demeaning, degrading, perverse shows that the FCC thinks are A-OK for viewing.
And I find it hard to believe that a couple of seconds of breasts on TV or a few expletives that slip through are going to cause more harm than the other programing which is already on the air.
Really the only way for parents to deal with this is either to sit in the same room and monitor the programming, cut off anything but approved DVDs or just remove the TV and internet completely from places that kids can access.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not true. You have a certain right to not be forced to be subjected to objectionable material (the corollary to the right to free speech is the right to walk away), but this doesn't extend to any claim that public resources must be restricted to conform to some mutually-agreed-upon idea of "acceptable". If the option to turn off the television is reasonable, then your right to not listen/view is satisfied.
Don't tack the word "absolute" onto a discussion of rights just because you happen to think that right is particularly important.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
It absolutely is the consumer's responsibility to manage their own familial censorship/monitoring, including paying for whatever they need to pay for to feel effective doing it. It's the consumer's responsibility because the government cannot and should not be trusted with censoring media. Regarding some of the other responses, I'm not sure how my pointing out the V-Chip translated into a lack of respect for proactive parenting. It's a tool for proactive parenting, just like the guy's DVR logs are a tool. Downplaying the presence of such a tool by saying "people haven't adopted it yet" and then encouraging people not to adopt it seems self-serving to me.
Regarding the ratings, they're voluntary, like every other ratings system on media in the US. If they weren't, they'd be before the Supreme Court on 1st Amendment issues in no time flat. Take them for what they're worth. It doesn't replace the need to screen what your kid watches, but it's a guideline.
Regarding the statistics, I agree it's a damned shame that parents won't take a proactive step like buying a TV with new technology to help them parent their children effectively. That doesn't make it the government's job to step in--it just makes it a damned shame. The government isn't there to fix all your problems.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
For every group you can define that would find offense to the word fuck used in public - I can find a larger one who is not offended created using the criteria used to define yours. And by the time you create a definition that disallows a comparison group worthy of notice, you will have so over defined your social standard that it will be nothing more than a minority.
Common civility is defined by common action. If the action is becoming so common that it cannot be enforced against, your whole argument is meaningless. Civility is perfunctory or formal politeness, by its definition. Politeness is a culturally defined thing, by its definition, not an absolutely defined thing. It's not the speed of light in a vacuum, or Pi.
Acting as if the definition of civility you want to be the standard is the standard, and then dismissing everyone else who opposes as "enflamed" is passive aggressive and not conducive to free thought or discussion.
Your assumption that certain words are only used for provocation instead of the most efficient method of communicating a concept within context is plain ignorant. You want to remove context and intent from the equation altogether in order to make your socially programmed response to certain aural stimuli easier to socially disonate into your narrow world view.
What a joke.
Re:Crazy society (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I doubt that would be covered by how most of these 'obscenities' are classified. Nor do I think it should.
After all, what part of that would be 'obscene'?
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
What is wrong with nudity?
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet what if I feel that the extreme degree of my displeasure can only properly be expressed by utilizing very specific words.
If this were over private airwaves, I could understand censorship. But these are public, and the purpose of the government is to ensure that the broadcasters don't go beyond the spectrum which is allocated to them, and to provide certain services to the government such as the emergency broadcast systems.
I find it insulting that the government seems to find the female nipple obscene while the male nipple is wholesome. The government should manage the spectrum, not the content.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed - but when and where? A 4-year-old child is not an 8-year old child, and no two children of the same age are equally mature, nor equally intelligent enough to comprehend what they just saw or heard. No two sets of parents would easily agree on when and where kids should be allowed to come across such topics and subjects. Also, what happens when there's more than one kid in the house, and their ages differ greatly?
I already know the argument: "you still control the remote, so..." Sure, a parent can shut off the TV and/or change the channel. But conversely, you can just as easily subscribe to the cable/sat channels where you can get your fill w/o having even more of it to peruse through. IOW, that argument is a wash.
Personally, in such a situation I'd simply have a series of channels that were kid-safe and wide-open, then lock the rest out, slowly unlocking them as the kid(s) got older (and with a differential that opens after the younger kid(s) go to bed).
It's a complex subject, with no easy answers... even one that says 'the world sucks anyway - better prepare your kid for it'.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me (and my wife) crazy, but we've got this totally out-there idea that we'll raise our child by watching what she does, correcting her when she does wrong, and (this is the truly insane part) instilling our generally peace-loving, non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic values. I know, I know, just totally bonkers, but we've got a hunch that, this way, we might be able to raise a child that doesn't graduate high school as a morally bankrupt illiterate with an insatiable appetite for celebrity news, "reality" tv, and fast food. Probably we got this crazy idea from our parents, who apparently missed the part of the mandatory pre-1980 parenting classes that said they had to turn us into KKK members.
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, a lot of things which are allowed on TV are designed to bypass the rational mind and evoke emotional responses in other people against their will. They're called ads.
Re:In other news (Score:2, Insightful)
I mentioned this in a comment a couple weeks ago when someone made the generalization that parents over react by not discussing or letting their kids see nudity. Nudity isn't necessarily the problem but porn is. I believe that the issue isn't that American society (read: the media, in all forms) can't distinguish between the two but rather they don't want to. American society is obsessed with sex in magazines, TV, movies, etc. It sells supposedly. The problem is that profit is made from exploiting the human body and because of that there is little reason to make a distinction. Regular nudity is boring and wouldn't make money. It has to be provocative. If it wasn't then teenagers would be hording anatomy text books instead of Playboy. Of course, the defenders would say if the demand is there then there should be a supply. I'd say just because you can doesn't mean you should but again it's all about the money. Morals cost too much.
More on topic, just because I can use a v-chip enabled TV or utilize TV ratings doesn't mean a show should be aired that has filth in it. I definitely wouldn't want my kids (if I had any) to hear it but *I* don't want to hear it either even as a 29 year old male. I don't need to have filth as part of my entertainment and it says something for people who do. I don't like watching shows that are rated MA because the story may be good and compelling but I don't need to see naked men or hear dialog that reminds me of high school. Sure I can turn the channel but how long before we have live murders being broadcasted? How long before we see homosexual sex on TV (for all I know this has already been done but I don't think it has)? That won't be too far behind considering the content that Nip/Tuck considers entertainment.
If we don't complain about the content there is nothing stopping that from happening because the standards will gradually decline to the point where watching live murders or varying levels of sodomy will be acceptable. The defenders will simply say to turn the channel. Fine, I turn the channel but the show is still on the air and it shouldn't be, at least not with some of the scenes inserted (maybe for shock value). Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Those who consider that entertainment and *want* to be entertained that way have bigger issues. With what is on network television these days we aren't far from being able to drop Cinemax.
It isn't all about the children; Many adults don't consider gross violence, nudity, etc. as entertainment and frankly it degrades the entertainment value to the point where those people find something else to watch. Are rating that important where media producers would rather bring in a fraction of their potential viewers by peppering their content with obscenities (both visual and audible)?
The battle involves American society defined as the media and American society defined by the regular people who have a higher set of standards and morals than what the media have. The question is whether the FCC will uphold the standards and morals defined by everyday American society or the standards/morals defined by the society that includes Hollywood (1 supplier of filth), guys who still think they are in high school (1 source of demand for filth), et al.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is the point. YOU don't like it, so YOU wish to enforce YOUR MORALS on SOMEONE ELSE.
You are free to think it is filth. You are free to keep it out of your house. You are even free to bitch about it in public. But the moment you try to dictate what I can watch, you've stepped over the line. If you don't like it, or don't want your kid seeing it, you know what to do. But keep the hell out of MY living room.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to break this to you, your honor, but we are all naked under our clothes. Your example of a woman saving herself for marriage is completely absurd. Are you seriously arguing that a woman should be able to not know what a male body looks like until she is married? Should we cut out anatomical diagrams from textbooks? You not arguing for for freedom of choice... you are arguing that all of society should tiptoe around in case some individual wants to remain completely ignorant of basic human knowledge.
Simple nudity is not pornography.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh oh, there goes breast feeding, and showering with mom and dad.
Sarcasm aside, you're full of bs. Exposing a child to an unclothed adult is not horrible parenting and is in no way psychogically (sic) damaging.
Re:In other news (Score:1, Insightful)
If I was a parent, I would let the kid absorb any information they wanted to so long as it didn't physically hurt them. I would just provide them with context. Yes a four year old isn't going to do very well with that, but its a process. Of course if they took something to the extreme, I might have to stop them - rarely does one solution work all the time - but I think openness and sunshine should be the default, not control.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
Right. And how long before we see heterosexual sex on TV? Is homosexual sex somehow more damaging? Or are you just scared that seeing other options might let your children, and others, be able to choose something different? Cults tend to tell their members to avoid differing viewpoints, or, more to the point, prevent them from seeing differing viewpoints. I'm sure that you would hate it if someone decided to screen all propaganda (sorry, "advertisements") produced by people with a different viewpoint (republicans blocking democratic advertisements, car companies blocking each other, and so forth. Perhaps you would just enjoy having fewer ads - I know I would - but why would they stop at advertisements? What if programs that discussed or promoted topics that you were interested in, but which were objectionable to some other people, were blocked?)
Hmmm
Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, you speak as if you think the 'burden of proof' is on people to convince you that they should be allowed to watch what they want. That is totally backwards. You should be trying to prove why you have any right whatsoever to dictate the rules about what other people can watch, with your only justification thus far being that you wouldn't want to watch it so they shouldn't either. So far your arguments have not been very compelling.
On a related note, I lived in the USA all my life but moved to New Zealand a bit over a year ago. I was really surprised to see that they have almost no "broadcast standards" here. They do keep the racy stuff off the air until 8 or 9 pm but after that it seems anything goes. I have seen full frontal nudity (male and female), simulated sex, gore, every swear word there is and just about any tasteless joke you can think of (actually all of this was accomplished in pretty much one movie shown in the late evening time slot - Scary Movie 3 (or was it 4?)), all broadcast over the free airwaves that anyone at all can pick up just by turning on their TV.
I find it completely and entirely refreshing after having grown up in the USA where I wouldn't even bother watching movies on TV because they are so edited and bleeped out that it's not even like watching the original. I wholeheartedly support New Zealand's much less fascist (when compared to the USA) broadcasting standards. It is Yet Another Thing to love about this great country of New Zealand, that you will not find in the stone age culture of the USA.
I have young children and I don't fret the fact that these R rated movies (and R rated TV shows - you should see some of the stuff that comes out of the U.K.!) are shown on TV. When I need to exercise parental control to ensure that my kids don't see it, I will. I don't need the government to do it for me, I am a perfectly capable parent.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Insightful)
How are you able to read "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech/B" and still think that the FCC, which is granted authority by Congress, isn't violating it?