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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.
How exactly did the guy pronounce "f@ck"?
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
"Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want,"
If I'm not mistaken, thats the whole idea of freedom of speech right?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
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).
I am officially gone from
What he's leaving out is that the case was over the "fleeting" use of such words, such as during live events when something accidentally slips through. If a pre-recorded show has the words in there and it is deliberately broadcasted, the indecency rules still apply.
The problem is that currently, the FCC sometimes enforces the standard of "fleeting use," and sometimes it doesn't. The courts are just saying that it needs to be standardized and rationally applied.
I think it would sound something like F at chik or.. fatchick?
s/©//g
You remember that little warning at the beginning of the show? This show contains coarse language, sexual content, and violence? Yeah, that means don't let your kids watch it. That wasn't too difficult I hope!
They are only words. Banning words is what gives the words power. My wife and I allow have told our kids that they are allowed to "cuss" around their friends and we don't have a problem with it. We'd like them to not cuss around us, but it is not "banned." We have asked that they not cuss around other adults, but it is not "banned." It is their own choice.
Our kids understand that the use of those words simply is a sign to people of how dumb and inarticulate you are. I don't have a problem with using those words, but I choose not to (except when one-on-one with my wife... go figure). I am 100% sure that my kids have never heard me use profanity, but I am 100% sure that they hear it every day in other places. I have no problem with others using profanity at all. Sometimes it is funny, mostly it says an awful lot about the person using it. It is just words.
Anyway, we have never heard any cussing from our kids and have never heard any comments from other parents/teachers.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Look how he describes it not as a federal court, but as a "New York court" in order to exploit the biases of the rest of the country.
God forbid that our poor children's virgin ears should hear from their TV the same words that they hear every day at school. Or that they should ever see a *gasp* boobie. Oh no, that's horrible and will surely corrupt our youth.
Now, showing live video from the Virginia Tech massacre (you know, the camera phone that recorded the shootings from outside) or showing massive explosions and horrific, gory deaths, that's fine. Totally fine. We want to breed killers so we can send them to fight our wars... er... defend Freedom(TM)
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Neitzsche
Today's starting off pretty well--first the RIAA gets a small smackdown, and now this. It would be nice to live in a country where parents are actually expected to make decisions for themselves about what their kids watch. As a previous poster stated, we already have the annoying warnings about the content of upcoming programs--that means that if you don't want your kids absorbing and regurgitating TV filth, then don't let them watch it.
u-bend
No, no, no. You're forgetting that the fleeting use of "obscenities" actually physically harms children under 12. Too much exposure and their eardrums will literally melt. And while their eardrums will eventually grow back, the buildup of melted eardrum material will cause long-term hearing loss if left untreated.
I've never understood why you can watch someone get shot in a drama in prime time, someone could say something like "I'd like to put a fork into your eyeball" in prime time, yet a single word like the F-Bomb can't be said?
What is the actual purpose of "bad" words? Why not just consider that bad words don't exist and everyone can say any word they want and we just not "have a cow" over it?
Seems to me we're taught to take exception to the words. It's a learned behavior. How about just not learning it in the 1st place?
Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want
And the problem with this lies where? We do too much to shelter our children, it's a disservice to them from us who are supposed to be raising adults. Let them hear the words, learn their intent and meaning, with a parent to teach them when it is and isn't appropriate to use them.
*WE* are the parents, not the FCC. How dare they be so arrogant as to take the roll of parenting my children for me.
( 7, 5 and 3 year old girls )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Hey Kevin Martin! It's not that the FCC can't stop swear words from primetime TV, it's that the FCC has to define what constitutes a swear word (here's the hard part) BEFORE they can slap a fine on a TV station. You can't be intentionally vague with the definition of indecency and then come down hard (to the tune of millions of $$$) on the TV stations who have no idea where the line is drawn.
Kevin buddy, write down what indecency is, and everyone will comply. It's a neat idea...give it a try.
Xesdeeni
Or is it the other way around; the Republicans are Fox's bitch. Either way, you're trying to be logical about politics, you yourself are being illogical.
Republicans are supposed to be political conservatives. Political conservatives are supposed to be against government interference in private lives. Terri Schaivo, abortion rights, gay marriage, etc. show that they care more about their 'base', the social conservatives, than they care about political philosophy.
And the fact that Fox has been leading the charge when it comes to smutty, sensationalist television, which you think would offend the religious right, and they they get a free ride from the Republican Party because they're such whores about supporting the NeoCons is just another example of the hypocritical politics we have these days. Another reason why religion and politics are a bad, but historical, combination.
I'd love to support the Republicans (fiscal conservatives, political conservatives), but I don't dare support the whores and hypocrites in power right now.
Best regards.
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6063897
So he thinks that every form of the versatile word "fuck" is inherently sexual. I keep wondering, is he fucking serious? That's a fucking ridiculous stance to take! If he is in charge of censoring our airwaves, things have gotten pretty fucked up.
That idea works GREAT with a 4 year old.
If your kid isn't old enough to ignore stupid stuff they see on TV, they should not be watching it without your active supervision PERIOD. You people are fixating on lame stuff like adults swearing and ignoring the more insidious things that MORONS like Valenti wouldn't even catch. The gross stuff is actually easy to deal with. It's the subtle stuff and trivialized misbehaivor of minors (often considered cute rather than dangerosu) that you have to watch out for.
Fuck is not a problem. Disney Children's movies with the main character casually committing felonies with no apparent consequences are a problem.
This isn't about children. This is about uptight old crones that will have a conniption fit if you violate their sheltered puritanical outlook on life.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Gay tolerance, making fun of Christianity, making fun of immigration laws - yup, that has "GOP" written all over it.
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.
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