@#$%@*$&

18 April 2005



Decency Brigade Targets Cable TV

President George Bush made an appearance at the American Society of Newspaper Editors on Friday. The president is always what the people who book such things call a great "get" (although more traditional users of the British variety of English may also believe Mr. Bush is a great get for other reasons). Yet it is odd that this president chose to attend, since he is proud of the fact that he doesn't read newspapers. Odder still, he chose this forum to associate himself with the efforts of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) to regulate the content of cable and satellite TV. While it does play to Mr. Bush's core constituency, it's hard to see why he chose such a small forum on a Friday to sign up.

Now, Ted Stevens is one of those long-serving Senators whose main purpose is to fleece Washington out of as much money as possible to spend in his home state to ensure re-election. From time to time, such politicians find it useful to engage in a certain degree of grandstanding to keep the media focus on their work. And an appearance or two on Sunday morning talk shows is always good for one's personal political ratings. So, he has taken to complaining about the naughty words and uncovered nipples on cable and satellite TV.

After Janet Jackson's much overblown appearance at the Super Bowl in 2004, the "Decency Brigade," a self-appointed group of do-gooders who believe that the abolition of bad words will eliminate bad thoughts and who also think the human body is something other people shouldn't see, went into a fund-raising tizzy. Fines on broadcasters were hiked and Michael Powell, former head of the FCC and a legacy appointment since dad is Colin Powell, actually had to choose between the anti-naughtiness crowd and the money grubbers -- both part of the Bush coalition. Mr. Powell appeared to back the Decency Brigade, but he has resigned, so there's no way of telling for sure.

And so when asked by a newspaper editor type if he backed Senator Steven's call for limitations on cable and satellite TV, Mr. Bush said, "Yes, I'm for that. I think there ought to be a standard. On the other hand, I fully understand that . . . the final decision is a parent turning off the TV set. I have no problems with standards being set to help parents make good decisions." Woolly thinking is a hallmark of the administration, and here the president has missed the distinction between broadcast and subscription TV.

Open broadcast transmissions are much different from encoded ones. In order to receive the latter, one has to opt-in; for the former, one merely has to turn on the TV (which, one might say, along with the actually purchase of a TV set is in itself opting-in). Nonetheless, the cable industry does rate its programming, it provides subscribers with the ability to lock out certain channels, and the V-chip installed in some TV sets makes it easier still. But that is not what the Alaskan Senator has demanded. He wants to prevent the transmission of what he believes is obscene or vulgar -- that's censorship.

Protecting the innocence of America's children is probably harder now than ever before, and it is a mercy that children grow up into adults so they needn't be protected. But it is the freedom that those children will enjoy if allowed to grow into responsible adults that is at stake here. There is such a thing as redeeming social value to nudity, profanity and the rest of the hit list of the Decency Brigade -- not always, but often enough to make one err on the side of freedom. And if Mom and Dad would just turn the TV off every now and then, no one would be offended when Clark Gable tells Vivien Leigh, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More