Free speech hysteria need perspective

My call on it
The single, most important issue that Medved failed to address is that the FCC has already tried to ban anything “indecent” from being broadcasted, although it has been fifty years or so since then, and the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the attempt as illegal and required that the FCC establish the Safe Harbor. Nor does he once address the issue of reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions.

but those of us who talk to the public for a living certainly understand that the explosion of indignation after the notorious “wardrobe malfunction” was very real, very broad, and very deep.

I dare say that those of us who study social trends in free speech and censorship would say otherwise. Real? Yes. Broad? Hogwash. Deep? The idea is laughable. Only a very minute segment of watchers were indignant enough to file a complaint. For more about how the incident was statistically misrepresented, see the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statisics section of my commentary on the Janet Jackson Affair.

The FCC responded to demands from below, not dictates from above: popular concern about broadcast indecency suddenly exploded, without any notable encouragement from politicians who merely followed and exploited, rather than initiating, the protests.

Off hand I would say that this is a clear and present misreprestation of the case. Michael Powell was fulminating and showering dung and derision in all directions the next day.

DESPITE THEIR CLAIMS TO THE CONTRARY, EVEN THE MOST STRIDENT BROADCAST CRITICS OF THE FCC DON’T REALLY WANT GOVERNMENT TO STOP REGULATING THE RADIO BUSINESS.

I will grant him that, but again he misrepresented the situation. The reason broadcasters don’t want the government to stop is a matter of dog in the manger business economics. The negative affective connotation here is that the broadcasters are operating on a basis of “freedom for me but not for thee.”

Imagine that a law-abiding citizen feels a powerful need to experience nude lap dancing on a regular basis. He can probably arrange for that service in the privacy of his home, at a private club, or certain public businesses in “adult entertainment” enclaves of most metropolises.

Now, imagine that there are groups of people who are not satisfied with such activity being kept under cover and who want to remove from Joe Citizen his right to participate even in the privacy of his own home. Under the grounds that it is immoral, indecent, obscene, and We Must Protect The Children.

Well, they haven’t gone that far, but adult entertainment businesses have come under attack by ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists. And given the precedent established by the Taliban, I have no doubt that the ultra-conservative would invade the home to enforce morality laws. It was just a such an invasion, after all, that resulted in the striking down of Texas sodomy laws.

Just as you need a government license to drive a car on the public highway, you need a license to broadcast on public airwaves.

Excuse me! — but it is the government that says you need a license? I will be able to drive just as well tomorrow as I do today if my permit should lapse? Having or not having a piece of paper does not mean that I am any more or less capable. This point is an egregious piece of bovine scatology.

. . . we enjoy a popular culture filled with off-color alternatives unimaginable just ten years ago. Much of this material flows to the public through media unregulated by the FCC and as a result the consumer faces far more choices, not fewer choices, than he enjoyed in the past.

I tend to rank this statement up there with the rationale, “We don’t need to allow people to burn the flag, there are a thousand other ways they can express themselves, they don’t need this one.” Actually, yes, they do need that one. However, I’m willing to chalk this one up to a missatement of the case. Here is where the reasonable time, place, or manner restriction argument would have served him very well.

SUCCESSFUL SHOWS DON’T REALLY NEED RACY MATERIAL OR “THE SEVEN DIRTY WORDS” TO SUCCEED IN THE MARKET PLACE.

BINGO!

Finally nailed that photon torpedo right on the detonate button. Still, even this argument can be countered with the ” . . . make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” provision. The Bill of Rights does not guarantee quality, it only quarantees that every person, regardless of who they are or what they like, will have unfettered access to the full marketplace of ideas and that they may, for themselves, and of their own free will and volition, pick and choose among those ideas as to
which to embrace and which to reject.

Somehow, though, that just ain’t good enough for some people.

. . . going back thirty full years, “PG” and “PG-13” releases always drew bigger average grosses than “R,” and Hollywood has finally caught up to the reality.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. A part of that, at least, and perhaps a large part of it, is that the MPAA ratings system has turned into a powerful chilling effect. Hollyweird is not necessarily producing higher quality films or even films with lower ratings, but certain material is being expurgated on occasion so as to meet the better rating so the film can buy a wider range of advertising. This has no effect on the quality of the director, however, so his G-rated crap is not going to be
any better than his R-rated crap.

As for Shrek, I have no doubt that the fundamentlists who attacked The Little Mermaid as obscene pornography because an early draft for the cover of the video case had vaguely phallus-like castle towers on it, or Toy Story dolls because they couldn’t understand what the doll was saying, would not cavil at attacking Shrek for all that Farqhuar sexual
innuendo.

For every Stern or Leykiss or Mancow who managed to establish a successful career, there have been dozens of failed imitators in every corner of the country.

I would imagine that is pretty much true for every field of endeavour, and that it cuts both ways. That for every successful family-oriented type such as Mr. Rogers, there is an equal proportion of failed wannabes.

This line of argument shows a dangerous ignorance as to the true history and purpose of the First Amendment.

Yeah, well, so does the Democratic and Republican National parties, the Bush administration, an overwhelming majority of fundamentalist religionists, and about 96 percent of the general population that’s left.

The Canadian crack-down on controversial political speech didn’t follow some assault on obscenity; . . .

Yes, well, I’d like very much to say that it’s because our president isn’t a moron. Unfortunately, Adolph Hitler himself, no less, once said of Canada, “Even an idiot could run that country.” And the dozy bastards keep proving him right.

After all, nearly all Americans support some minimal restrictions on the use of public airwaves.

One more time: “REE-SUN-AH-BULL”. They must be reasaonable restrictions, and your FCC is in no wise capable of crafting such a restriction. It is yet another lackey of the neo-fascist Bush administration.

We would agree, for instance, that licensed stations have no constitutional right to encourage or glamorize kiddie porn, or to openly urge listeners to engage in rape, or violent assaults of any kind.

Kiddie porn, real kiddie porn, not the kind some reactionary just says is kiddie porn because he is afraid of nudity, and openly encouraging someone to commit a crime are not forms of protected speech. This is a spurious argument.

I remain convinced that an unsupportable assertion of an absolute, constitutional right to any form of broadcast expression (live sex acts, any one?) only makes it more likely that we will face real attempts […] to stifle our right to express political opinions

Looks to me as if he’s overstating his case, here. Actually, one can broadcast X rated films during the Safe Harbor. Us sicko, but not so sexually repressed Quebecois perverts actually do that on three channels that I know of. Nude people having fun together in a full contact sport, but without genitals or gential contact being shown. Although that’s over cable, not broadcast. the two triple X channels aren’t active any more; not even scrambled.

(à la Canada)

Jeezus! Don’t you American dumbasses every get tired of blaming us for your stupidity?

Let’s all hear it for the new ‘Murcan International Anthem:

Blame it on Canada! Blame it on Canada! With their beady little eyes, and their tuques all full of lies!

This is just as asinine as Bushites saying it’s all Clinton’s fault.

. . .then perhaps I can join my fellow hosts in leaving behind false, unnecessary worries about a constitutional crisis . . .

And here’s where he really blows the mission. The problem with the old saw, “Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty,” is that it is a truism. Even taking into account that the interplay between free speech and censorship is the interplay between manifest and latent functions, and such interplays are necessary to a vigorous and dynamic society, that does not mean that one can become
complacent and simply stop opposing the forces of oppression and slavery. The pendulum is not going to stop swinging so easily as that. Better to keep at it and keep things at a rolling boil. A stagnant society is like a pond of stagnant water. It stinks.

Pity, cause the dude’s thought processes aren’t entirely shabby. It looks very much as if he’s reaching for understanding. His problem might be that he is only an interdisciplinary thinker instead of a multidisciplinary thinker.