FCC Indecency Ruling Struck Down

arbitraryaardvark writes "Reuters reports that the 2nd circuit has struck down the FCC's recent ruling on indecency, in a case brought by Fox. The court said the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was 'arbitrary and capricious' in setting a new standard for defining indecency. 'Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin angrily retorted that he found it "hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 'sh*t' and 'f@ck' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience ... If we can't restrict the use (of the two obscenities) during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want," Martin said in a statement.' No word yet on whether the agency will appeal.

Comments

The short version

[dkleinsc]

Supreme Court to FCC: "Fuck off"

Actually, one of the most amusing parts of the ruling was the court citing the fact that the words can't be that bad if George W Bush and Dick Cheney use them (to Tony Blair and Patrick Leahy respectively).

The Republican party isn't conservative.

[Kadin2048]

The problem is that the Republican party, as of the last decade or so, isn't precisely conservative at all. The Republicans have abandoned just about every "conservative" value or position, including small government (or at least opposing its increase), states' rights, individual freedoms, etc. (About the only thing an actual 'conservative' and a modern Republican would agree on is their stance on gun control.)

They are no longer, and haven't been for some time, "conservative." In fact they seem to want to change quite a lot. They're probably best described as 'authoritarian,' particularly on the social side. And IMO, "social conservatives" aren't conservatives at all; the title is a complete misnomer. They're not trying to prevent some sort of drastic change to the social fabric, they're trying to induce a drastic change. They are, by many objective definitions, actually quite radical. (Of course, they tend not to think so -- they prefer to think of themselves as trying to take the country back to some 1950s idyll that never existed outside their own imaginations.)

The actual conservative wing of the Republican party died with Barry Goldwater; what remains has nothing to do with conservatism and everything to do with pushing a transformative agenda. It's just a different transformative agenda than what the more far-left elements of the Democratic party want.

Re:But Wait...

[iluvcapra]

Simpsons, Family Guy and even South Park may be full of dirty jokes, but their "moral of the story" is almost always in favour of the conversative American Way, often injecting principles in such a straightforward manner as could only be applied to stereotypical idealised lives.

That's not necessarily so; though they often have such a moral, the character giving voice is usually compromised at the end of the episode and made to appear unreliable.

The real problem with this quasi-subversive dreck is that it tears everything you consider sane apart by the end of the episode, subverting not just government and morality, but the idea of that people can be governed, can be loved, and can embody right action. The real losers at the end of a Family Guy or Simpsons episode are the characters that try to adjust this status quo. The message to the viewer is: The world is unjust and insane, and the worst thing you could possibly do is try to fix it.