The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Apparently, the Supreme Court may take up the issue of what constitutes an "indecent broadcast" again, since it's been about 30 years since they last considered it. What the Court is being asked to address now is the "problem" of "fleeting expletives" - when Bono and Cher curse on live TV when they're accepting awards, for example. In the cases of both Bono and Cher, the FCC was inundated with calls from viewers and organizations who felt very offended that they, or perhaps their children, were subjected to expletives.

Who are these people? Problem one: they watch award shows. Don't they have anything better to do with their time? Problem two: they call and complain to the FCC. Who does that? Problem three: have they, or their children, never heard anyone say "fuck" before? Or do they just feel that if it's on The Sopranos or on their kid's video game it's fine, but on regular TV it's a problem? It perplexes me.

I feel the same way about the Superbowl halftime show that was a big deal a few years ago- the one with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. If I understand correctly, it's ok for their kids to be up till 10 or 11 watching guys hit eachother, and it's ok for them to watch the two performers grind against eachother in a very sexual way... but it's not ok to see a nipple plate and part of a breast? It's puzzling. I don't agree with Europeans about much, but you wouldn't see people getting (hypocritically) bent out of shape about something so ridiculous over there.

And now, because people don't feel like facing reality and/or because they want TV to raise their kids for them, we're asking the government to erode our First Amendment rights some more. After all, we can't have our precious children hearing expletives while they watch their four unsupervised hours of TV a day. How wonderful. It's always enlightening to see how much our freedoms are worth to these people.

Here's the link to the article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/03/03/court_may_consider_broadcast_decency_rules/
The title of today's post is a quote by H.L. Mencken.