FCC Fights To Maintain Indecency Policy 602
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC filed Thursday to appeal a recent court decision that struck down its policy of fining broadcasters for profanity or nudity shown on live television. The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
Fucking backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody wants to see a cock on their TV. But let me fucking blow up a baby. Americans fucking love that.
Re:Fucking backwards (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fucking backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah - I actually find America is backwater in some ways. Nobody gives a rats ass about nudity in Europe, and while people do binge drink, it is nowhere near the problem it is in America (or Russia, but Russia has cultural issues as well - it is considered rude to leave before the vodka bottle is finished, for instance).
Re:Fucking backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
In my experience, it's a vocal minority that oppose nudity. When you look at events like the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction and it's the most replayed event ever on TiVo.
You can go on and on with examples. The amount of porn watched and read. No, most people don't care.
regarding this issue. I don't want to turn on Sponge Bob at 2pm and see Sandy with a strap on fucking Patrick up the Ass while Squidward cums on his face.
Re:Fucking backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually wonder if nudity being such a big deal isn't the primary cause of it being such a re-watched event.
This sort of stuff always reminds me the few weeks I spent lounging around French Beaches. Everyone would ask "did you go to the nude beaches". What "nude" beaches? You go to the city beach and women walk around topless, and men wear nearly transparent speedos.
After a few days though, I realized something. I looked over down the beach and I saw a family, 3 generations of women, toddler, mother, and grandmother, all topless on the beach.... and I realzied, they grew up with this, they have done this all their lives... it was ME who was the strange one for even taking notice!
Then of course I came home, and everyone asked about the "nude beaches" and all I could think was, they just need to go there for themselves and see.
-Steve
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It might be explai
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Nobody wants to see a cock on their TV.
I beg to differ, Fox News has high ratings and that channel has a Lot of Complete Cocks on it.
Then we also have every public Show that has Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson...
It seems that Americans like seeing Cocks on TV.
Re:Fucking backwards (Score:5, Funny)
If Gibson is a cock, then Cruise would be more like a penile sheath; Gibson can be crazy on his own, but Cruise seems to need a supporting crew of loonies.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't know anyone like that... (Score:4, Informative)
Further, during the Second World War the Japanese invaded several US holdings and territories, including but not limited to Alaska, Guam, the Philippines, etc. And they clearly would have invaded Hawaii if they could. So, in reality the US has not been invaded since 1941-44.
Re:I don't know anyone like that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, war is different for children, especially boys. There is a big difference between seeing soldiers fight one another and seeing senseless crime and atrocities. You can claim there isn't, but that doesn't make it so, and for millennia, civilizations have understood the difference between glorifying the warrior ethos and senseless violence. The former, is not inherently harmful to children, and is actually good for a society that wants its boys to grow up to be **men** and not overgrown boys who act like pansies in the face of a violent world.
**checks pants**
Last I checked, I am a man, and I find mindless nationalism and international chest-bumping to be completely, and totally, irrational and idiotic. Especially nationalism, nationalism is one of the dumbest social constructs we can train our children to uphold (outside of, maybe, various flavors of extreme religious dogma). Training our young men to go kill other young men because their flag is different, and they might speak a different language, is stupid, not "manly". As history shows, having a glut of young men glorifying war leads to war. If all you have is a war hammer, everything starts looking like a war nail, etc... I, personally, would rather we have a glut of young men (and women) glorifying something interesting, like reason.
I read your comment in the voice of R. Lee Ermey, by the way, it didn't help make your point.
War should be seen as a terrible necessity of last resort, not as some glorious brojuajua. We like war too much, in my opinion, hence our two largely unjustified and wasteful (both in money and human life) wars of the moment. How much glory is there in Iraq or Afghanistan? Everyone I know who has been involved in either didn't find it very glorious. Same with all the Vietnam and WWII veterans I know. My grandfather was one of the first US troops to hit Auschwitz, and he never talked about it, ever. I very much doubt he found any glory in that experience. Or at least he found as much glory in war as all of the hordes of suicidal and PTSD suffering current "glorious warriors".
Most war is nothing but senseless violence. America hasn't been in a justifiable war since WWII, the rest has been nothing but moronic slaughter for political ends. How glorious! How manly! How idiotic. Being there is no glory in being a disposable tool for your government.
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I agree, it's insane. They show The Terminator on TV and they show Arnold ripping someone's heart out by its bare hands but excise the "fuck you, asshole" and the entire sex scene.
Stupidly insane.
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I found this quote by the FCC particularly humorous:
The piece about empowering parents. Surely they do realize that they empower parents by
Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
I still can't believe that you can show autopsies, murder, drug deals, and all the horrible things shown on the news...but if you show a titty, you face a big fine. ::head shake::
It's freakin' stupid.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that many people thought it dirty to breast feed in public, and that a woman should do it in private, shamefully. And some still think that way and STILL lobby to make it illegal. We Americans are entirely too focused on nudity being "bad", which I chalk up to too many people who can't separate their religion and their politics.
This is the same reason pot is illegal, prostitution is illegal, gambling is illegal (unless the states is sponsoring it, then it is ok) in most parts of the US. Self righteous politicians and those who support them that want to tell others how to live and think.
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But boxing, on the other hand, is eagerly shown on 172" big screen HD TVs in sports bars around the country. Not to mention on ESPN.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Pot is illegal because blacks and Mexicans smoked it, and hemp was threatening the cotton and (wood) paper industries.
Re:Le sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Pot is illegal because blacks and Mexicans smoked it, and hemp was threatening the cotton and (wood) paper industries.
You're close; that's why it was made illegal. It continues to be illegal because drug users are an easy group to demonize (in spite of the fact that nearly all of us are one) and therefore they can be milked for profit. If you want to profit from privatized prizons, you need to have someone to put into them. The mechanism of its continued illegality is partly marketing, and partly the disenfranchisement of felons; once you've received a felony drug conviction, you can no longer vote to legalize drugs.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
You are right, it doesn't make much sense. Here is a part that does...
Imagine you are a major chemical company owned by an old money family with payed political lackeys at every level of government. Lets make up a name for them and call them Dupont.
Now imagine that you invent an amazing new product with tough weather resistant fibers that are suitable for use in any kind of rope. This is patented and you have the exclusive right to create this material. Lets make up a name for this and call it nylon.
There is a problem though, there is a cheap widespread naturally occurring fiber that is just as good as your artificial fiber. This means that breaking into the market will be virtually impossible. lets make up a name for this and call it hemp.
Fortunately there is already racially motivated and puritan dislike of the natural materials source. All you have to do is produce some propaganda to sway the opinions of moderates and maybe buy a few more votes and you can remove the competition completely.
This not only lets you move into the market, but to completely replace the market for durable weather resistant rope (because hemp was the only affordable alternative with those qualities).
Dupont is not solely responsible, but they sure as hell were instrumental in the final push that got it banned.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone is forgetting the oil industry backing as well. You see people always think of oil in cars. What they forget is all the oil that goes into the production of plastics.
Plastics can be made from plant oils, unfortunately they aren't very strong. Ford demonstrated the solution in the body of an old automobile prototype. If you reinforce the plant plastics with the strong fibers from the hemp plant you have a dirt cheap and very strong versatile plastic... patent free.
That's the problem with the hemp plant it is extremely versatile and yes there is money to be made with it, but there are no patents. Why make lots of money on a product when any farmer can compete with a patch of dirt when you can outlaw the cheap and freely available competition and flood the market with patented solutions? Its the same reason the drug industry hates marijuana and continues to release minor modifications of their drugs with new names and fresh new patents.
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Religion is politics, a means of controlling the distribution of wealth and authority within a population. Religion carries a bigger stick because it can promise you a joyous afterlife or damn you to eternal hell in addition to the more mundane rewards/punishments that normal governance can offer.
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Does that include your words?
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OH SHIT!!!
wait....
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a matter of the milk being expelled from the woman's body. The breastfeeding issue is that some people think that breasts are solely sexual objects and a woman taking one out is being indecent. Nevermind if she's just taking a small portion of it out to feed her child, not to gain some sort of sexual satisfaction, and nevermind that the view of the part of her breast that is out is obscured by the feeding child. No, these people insist that women should remain covered up at all times and should feed their child in the bathroom. (Like any of them would consent to taking their food to a public restroom to eat it.)
People also sometimes claim "mental harm" for being "forced" to watch, but unless you've been chained up with your eyeballs propped open, you have the option of looking elsewhere. I've had women breastfeed in front of me and I tend to look the other way because it's a private moment between mother and child (even if it takes place in a public setting) and it is rude to stare. If I was talking to the woman, I would focus my eyes on her eyes and not on her feeding child.
Women should be able to feed their child wherever they want so long as stopping to nurse doesn't cause a public safety hazard, of course. (e.g. Not stopping in the middle of the highway to nurse her baby.)
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at the hospital ER a while back and it was the middle of the night. The waiting room had a mother with her two kids (one a baby, the other ~ 2) and me with my daughter. Our SOs were the ones there for treatment.
Her baby was hungry and she asked me if it was OK if she fed her child.
I told her I didn't see how it was my choice, but since she asked I was fine with it.
One of the nurses (WTF? shouldn't they be the most understanding?) came out from behind their counter and told her not to feed her child there and suggested the rest room. I kindly replied to the nurse that this woman and I were the only two in the waiting room, that I didn't mind at all, and how would she like her next meal to be served while she was on the can? I think she considered kicking me out then thought better of it and let the poor embarrassed woman be.
I mean, had they offered an exam room that might have been fine, I'd see it as the nurse offering up some privacy, rather than shunning this person. Later the mom thanked me, and I told her about all the fun my wife and I had along those same lines. It really bugs me. Thing is, this woman even had some nifty shawl thing that covers everything up (wish we had that when my kids were that young).
-nB
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One of the nurses (WTF? shouldn't they be the most understanding?)
The only thing that separates a nurse from anyone else is the material they chose to memorize during school. They are the same people, with the same virtues and faults as any of us.
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I might not have been so understanding, I'm generally not so ok with the public breastfeeding, but I too get pissed off when breastfeeding mothers are shooed into the bathroom. Bathrooms are dirty, and are no place to be feeding a child. My response in your place would have been to excuse myself to offer her some privacy.
An offer of a private place would have been the right course there, especially from a nurse. Obviously that woman did not bring her two small children to the ER just to find something to
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Nonsense. I despise religion as much as you do, but thinking that removing it will eleminate terrorism is a pipedream.
Terrorism is simply a form of warfare, and in situations where one is outnumbered by one's enemies on the scale of 1 to 10000 effectively the *only* form of warfare available.
So unless we run completely out of other excuses to bash one another's brains in...terrorism is here to stay.
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Can you name one act of terror in the past 20 years that had nothing to do with religion? I know I can't.
Explain Justin Beiber.
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I can't, but only because religion is so often used as an excuse for doing things that we wanna do anyway. I'm no kind of seriously religious, so I'm not offended by the idea that religion is the cause of terrorism, but no more do I believe it. I spent a year in Iraq. One of the things that the Army learned early is that a happy young man with a food on his table, a safe place to send his kids or younger siblings, and prospects for the future is almost never a terrorist. (Note the "almost". It does hap
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be ridiculous. Pol Pot and Stalin were atheist and they were right cunts too. People do bad things because we're stupid animals, not because some people believe in deities.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither of which killed people in the name of atheism.
It's a false comparison.
People murder in the name of their god, still do. Billy Graham sponsered and creted 10,000 church along the 10th parallel.
Church where the parishioners will circle Muslim towns and kill every man, woman and child in the town.
Muslims are doing the same thing to Christian towns. This is happening right the fuck now.
In BOTH CASES it's because of their belief in God. The do it in the name of their God.
The belief in a power that takes them above the law of man. by it's very nature, means people will feel anything they do in their gods name is good and morally correct thing to do.
Belief in a higher power is bad, horrible and destructive. Whether the higher power is a God, or an unquestioning faith in the government.
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If you want to argue
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Ehem... Stalin had millions of Christians killed because they refused to convert to Atheism.
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union#Anti-religious_campaign_1921-1928
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it must be the fault of ordinary Americans, who are always wrong about EVERYTHING.
Some ordinary Americans, perhaps even the majority, don't care about what they can't see. This was a nation founded more or less on the principle of being able to beat your own dog and children, but we've come a long way since. But doing things to people and making information available are not remotely the same thing.
Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are all social ills with well-documented effects. Progressives campaigned tirelessly against them back in the 20s and 30s.
Yes, campaigned against them, when making them illegal makes them more harmful. Excellent logic, there.
Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are both symptoms and causes. Barring evolving out of them they will always likely all exist. The trick is to integrate them into society in a way that is least harmful, not to engage in futile attempts to eliminate them. Each of these things is also a matter of degree and even opinion. In (or near) the words of one female comic, if you're married, you're just a whore for a washer and dryer. Flip a coin to make a decision as to who will do or get something and you're a gambler. Sugar is a drug by every definition of the word. Caffeine and nicotine are powerful drugs which are readily available in nearly every society on the planet. Governments run lotteries.
Drugs, prostitution, and gambling are here to stay. We only have to decide how we will handle this fact.
Please don't make me draw the parallels to "decency", or I will do it in crayon for your sake.
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I agree with most of the thing you said, but some are weird:
>Flip a coin to make a decision as to who will do or get something and you're a gambler.
So? Being a gambler is not *in itself* bad, only being addicted to gambling is an issue..
>Sugar is a drug by every definition of the word.
No! When you don't eat sugar you don't suffer from withdrawal syndroms (or very mild one), same for caffeine, but you can't say this for cigarettes.
This is a very important difference..
>Governments run lotteries.
So? T
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Yes, it's about risk mitigation. Just say No is a horrid philosophy that hurts people and society.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't you take a shit in public?
It's unhygenic and smells bad. Both are objectively legitimate reasons that have nothing to do with morality or values. Citation on the well documented effects of pot and marijuana? Because last I checked Amsterdam was doing alright.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Both are bodily functions that involve the excretion of fluids.
Yeah, so's spitting, but any idiot knows that comparing spitting to shitting in public is, well, idiotic.
Or, to put it another way: If there's anything shitty around here, it's your penchant for false equivalences.
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>social diseases for prostitution,
That's not a good reason. Neither is the one that you give for gambling - this isn't too different from other forms of entertainment, except that here you can win money. And there are plenty of other ways to launder money, almost anything retail would do.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
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As I said, no legal obstacle. Really. I live in Oregon. Mostly public nudity here is used as an attention driver for some sort of political demonstration. No cop problems. Not even any public outrage problems. There are some odd circumstances where people feel obliged to criminalize public nudity in particular locations in particular cities, but really, we just do not seem to be inclined to get around to making a big thing out of this.
It happens that if you are severely depressed, for some reason, an
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
If two seconds of Janet Jackson nipple leads to depravity, our vile custom of allowing mere innocent babies to freely gratify their sickening bodily desires on bare breasts must be the reason that we can't build prisons fast enough to contain the criminal element.
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Anybody who files an indecency complaint with the FCC should be required to swear
But then won't they get fined themselves?
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In short, I want the religious right to leave me alone, and be respectful of my desire to watch what I want to watch. But I think there's a flipside to that coin. I think it's also reasonable for us to accomodate
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In short, I want the religious right to leave me alone, and be respectful of my desire to watch what I want to watch. But I think there's a flipside to that coin. I think it's also reasonable for us to accomodate people who don't want their kids (or themselves) exposed to such things. They have a resonable (if prudish) expectation that Janet's nipple not be shown during what is considered a gathering event for all of America. You respect my rights to what I want, and I'll respect your rights to what you wan
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If two seconds of Janet Jackson nipple
Her nipple wasn't even exposed. I believe she was wearing a pasty.
My wife and I were watching the event live, in HD, and when the "malfunction" occurred we just looked at each other, said "huh!" and went back to what we were doing.
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My wife and I need to report ourselves for indecency. Not only did my wife breastfeed our two sons, but the older son has seen the younger son breastfeed. Who knows what damage his (then) five year old mind sustained by seeing his mother feeding his (then) infant brother!
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm saying that if you're willing to show people being killed, you should be willing to show people being fucked. Personally, I don't care what they do because we don't watch TV (we don't even have TV service...Netflix is all we need), but my own opinion is that sex is much less harmful to show than violence. Besides, look at most commercials and/or music videos...or reality shows...or just about everywhere else. Sex is EVERWHERE...it's just nudity that stays hidden. That's stupid.
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Re:Le sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it odd that most of the people in power came from the generation of "free love" and are so obsessed with preventing sex. In the mean time, I have more hardcore porn channels available on my cable PPV than there were porn theaters in the late seventies. WTF?
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy. The hippie/me generations had kids, and they've memories vivid enough to remember the hedonistic excesses they were able to partake in under their parents' noses.
Can't have any of THAT, after all, due to a lovely combination of "precious-little-snowflake" and "think-of-the-children."
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Our society would be a much, much better place if "kill" had the same vulgar and obscene connotations as "fuck".
I think our society would be a much better place if "fuck" didn't have such vulgar and obscene connotations. I'd rather see a cock or two on my TV than another graphic murder show. If acknowledging the existence of all the bad things that happen in the world is a good thing, why isn't it a good thing to acknowledge the existence of the good things too?
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sex is EVERWHERE...it's just nudity that stays hidden. That's stupid.
Reminds me of Doctorow's Ragtime, where Father is on an expedition to the North Pole and sees the Eskimos having sex through slits in their fur suits.
Re:Le sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
You are trying to convince a fanatical puritan that normal human behavior is good, and violence is bad. This goes against all they believe in.
Puritans love violence. History shows they used it at the drop of the hat against anyone that disagreed with them.
Sex and nudity is a good thing.
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So does that mean you're equiparating full frontal nudity to porn?
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The thing that gets me is the word "shit". Everyone says this word including fairly young children.
It's just goofy to ban it. It's a bodily function.
Think about the roots of our 'curse' words. They share a common denominator (for the most part), Germanic origins.
There has been a huge push by the 'enlightened' to view the latin (and tangentially, French) origins as 'pure' and the german origins as 'impure'. It's the same reason that a taboo was created with regard to ending sentences with prepositions, it
FTS: (Score:5, Insightful)
"The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
And this is bad how?
Re:FTS: (Score:4, Insightful)
"The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
It returns them to arbitrating the technical aspects of spectrum licensing instead of being an unregulated police agency. They are accustomed to being the gatekeepers of content distribution in American society. Losing that kind of power really undercuts a fiefdom...can't blame them for sulking about it.
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Judge: "You have no authority to issue fines if you think a certain broadcast is indecent."
FTC: "But how will we then be able to issue a fine if we think a certain broadcast is indecent??!"
Re:FTS: (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the whole purpose of the V-chip and the TV-[X] ratings was so that content didn't have to be restricted. Parents could just set their TVs to not show anything above, say, TV-PG. And yet we still have this insane push to censor broadcast TV.
Only in America can a show about investigating grisly murders run for 20 years but a couple seconds of titty is worth millions in fines.
(But I love Law & Order.)
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You expect parents to exert effort and initiative and use any kind of their own judgment in raising their children? That is unAmerican!
In this country, parenting means just being present until your children reach an arbitrary chronological age in a completely sterilized society.
Forget the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever happened to parents being ultimately responsible for what their children are watching?
Re:Forget the FCC (Score:5, Informative)
We're living in the era of no responsibility in this country. At work everything is the fault of the corporation you're working for (convenient since a paper entity can't go to jail). At home it's the media's fault, the teacher's fault, the government's fault depending on the day of the week. No one is at fault for anything right now in the U.S.
Re:Forget the FCC (Score:4, Insightful)
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> They want tools to help. Namely, I would like to know
> more about the violence level of a program and to care
> less about sex. My kids will be punished more by going
> into the first than in the second.
The only tool they need is their own eyeballs.
They whine about the nanny state and then think they can use the FCC as one.
You gotta watch this stuff for yourself. You can't trust the
busybodies to not lie to you. They've been pretty blatant
about it in the past. The same goes for the likes of the
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Funny thing being that the republican portion of the politicians who are in favor of these FCC indecency rules are the very same ones who complain that Obama is turning the US into a nanny state.
Can you get any more "nanny" than this?
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Re:Forget the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)
And the correct response, if you happened to think that was so awful, was to have a talk with your children about how Janet's exposed nipple was wrong and what she should have done instead. If you want to pass your values to your kids (as is your right), talk with them when "wrong" situations come up. Most kids would have listened to their parents and learned not to flash their body parts in public. (Yes, we've had to have this talk with our son about other body parts and, yes, he listened to us.)
Re:Forget the FCC (Score:5, Informative)
Did you really *see* Janet's nipple? Really? I was watching, I saw a sudden movement from Justin Timberlake, some clothing pull away, and what may or make not have been a flash of jewelry. The actual nipple was on screen for less than 3 seconds, on a pulled away shot, and covered in a very large piece of jewelry. So far as I remember it took an hour or more for there to be verification that there actually *was* a nipple in the shot, after someone isolated the 30-40 frames where it was visible and zoomed in on it.
So essentially you're saying that kids can be mentally damaged but a second or two of viewing something that may or may not from the actual visual evidence on screen have been partial nudity. Regardless, the network (who got fined for indecency) had nothing to do with the plan that Justin and Janet came up with to get themselves some publicity. So even the most stringent fining system in the world would not have prevented the occurrence, because the people who were fined were not the people who planned and executed the stunt (and Justin and Janet couldn't have ever been fined because they're under no obligation to the TV station or the public to act a certain way just because cameras happen to be on them. Their contract is with the NFL).
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Indecency, yes. Whiny 'Family Values', no (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there do need to be standards for what's shown at least on broadcast TV but I think the pants-wetting hysteria from the Family Research Council and their ilk isn't the answer.
These airwaves are for the public use. Want to drop the f-/n-/q-bomb? Start up your own pay channel and go nuts.
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When people say America is a "christian nation", I believe this is what they're referring to...
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Well, if you remove the 'god' part it would also apply to Slashdot.
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I don't get it... (Score:2)
do you know what happens if a kid sees a boob? (Score:3, Funny)
their minds are scarred and they are ruined for life, they enter a death spiral of drug use and prostitution. all it takes is one glance of a boob, and the fate of your child's life will change on the spot to one of apathy, laziness, fatalism, and moribund lack of emotional affect
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lol, that's hilarious
yes i'm kidding
it's unnatural, that's what that is (Score:2, Funny)
the idea of bringing a boob to an innocent baby's mouth is obviously a severe injection of immorality into the family structure by people who have no consideration for a child's decency and psychological health. some people are just perverts, but why they can't do their perversions amongst themselves, why they have to drag an innocent darling child into their sleazy use of the human body by making a helpless infant suck on a boob... it really makes my blood boil at these decadent slime
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I think you just found the answer to why all mankind is evil ... wait, you should patent it!
Great news everyone.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. The FCC has no business regulating the content of what gets broadcast, only the means of broadcasting it, ie: making sure everyone stays in their licensed frequencies and doesn't stomp on each others transmissions.
We're now living in a time where it's trivially easy to block potentially offensive channels, or restrict their use with a code to keep them out of children's reach if their parents don't want them watching. If you don't like that channel X broadcasts unedited showings of "Porkey's", don't watch channel X. You, as a viewer, have no right to expect a government agency to protect you from being offended, and the government has no right to prevent a broadcaster from showing what they choose, or me from watching it if I like.
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of ways in the U.S. for a parent to decide what they want their kid to see without taking choices away from me as an adult. Again... it takes effort. Every device out there has parental controls... the finest grain parental controls we ever have had... so use them. And if you don't want your kid to see certain things then it's YOUR responsibility to keep him/her off of my computer that has parental controls turned off, not the other way around.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So you like the TV and computer to babysit your children. Instead of letting technology or the government raise and watch over your kids why don't you try it for a change?
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google with Safe Search disabled doesn't even have anything like that.
For _you_. The owner of that computer must have different Google habits than you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a father I like the idea of being able to leave my kids at a computer or TV without having to continually monitor their activities.
As an adult, I don't really give a shit about your children. They are your responsibility. What you feel is appropriate for your children should never affect what is on my TV. If you feel something on TV is inappropriate for your children, you can censor it yourself by turning off the TV. If I feel that something on TV has been ruined by censorship, I can't undo the censo
More "business ventures" (Score:2, Insightful)
It always surprises me how stupid American law has gotten.
Restaurants put "hot coffee" on cups for fear of being sued.
People get worse sentences for stealing a song then if they would steal a whole business' inventory + more..
God forbid a vagina or penis shows up on tv and it becomes a crazy national topic for a month.
The fcc would love that kind of attention and be there to feed the parents with "we're doing it for the children" and also burp them afterwards...
These kids will probably know more about sex t
No harm (Score:3, Insightful)
America... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no country that is more simultaneously obsessed with and embarrassed by sex than the United States.
America seriously needs to grow the fuck up.
Good. (Score:3, Informative)
The government has no business restricting speech, even if it weren't written into our consitution. To all those who cry "think of the children", let's just list a few glaring problems with that argument, any one of which would invalidate it:
I recently watched the "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" episode on sex/virginity and it's really obvious but needs to be restated: ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. Get a clue and get a grip: sex is not bad, and people (including children) should not be punished for being curious or having sexual impulses. Factual, scientific, rational education is the answer.
American dichotomy. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with nudity or profanity. I'd argue nudity and profanity is much less harmful than glorified violence. On the other hand, American culture suffers from this odd dichotomy of prudishness taking things way too far. A lot of people seem incapable of anything other than shocking and offensive entertainment. Americans seem to be the source of some of the most depraved content in the world when it comes to mainstream entertainment. It's like Americans have this desperate, immature need to prove they're "adults" by enjoying excessively violent, shocking and offensive and overly sexualized entertainment. It's like writers, directors and producers are comprised of wannabee iconoclasts. I'm not saying I can't enjoy this sort of thing, but simply that I don't need to be bombarded with it constantly. It's nice to experience entertainment with a bit more maturity.
For parents with children, like myself, the solution is simple: don't let them watch television or don't let them watch broadcast television. That way you're in total control of what they're watching. And better yet, they're not being bombarded with constant advertising, which I think is a far larger problem for society compared to any tv show which can easily be dismissed as fantasy. It's not like there's much of substance on television anyway. Kids should be occupying their time with other activities anyway. The last thing we need is to perpetuate this dependency on television for entertainment.
Re:Hey FCC, the cold war is over (Score:5, Insightful)
You've hit on one of the primary contradictions in thinking in the U.S. of today. Most people are for the free market making decisions... that is until it makes a decision they don't like for some reason. Then they go to the government to "protect their interests" or to protect themselves through legislation. So many of the stories on Slashdot, especially the governmental and corporate stories, come down to that... a corporation or other group of people who were so gung-ho about the free market when things were going THEIR way now want governmental protection now that the market has changed. See also: FCC. See also: RIAA. See also: MPAA.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if people didn't have sex, we wouldn't have had the current crop of corrupt bankers and politicians, now, would we?
You gotta remember that the pilgrims didn't come to the US to "practice religious freedom". They got kicked out of Europe for being too puritanical. From the beginning the US has been at war with sex and "indecency".
It amazed me that you could show the most awful slasher flick and at most get an R rating but typically get a PG-13. But if you so much as showed a few seconds of a tit tha
Re: (Score:2)
it would involve effort on the parent's part. FAIL.