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FCC Fights To Maintain Indecency Policy
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC filed Thursday to appeal a recent court decision that struck down its policy of fining broadcasters for profanity or nudity shown on live television. The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
Nobody wants to see a cock on their TV. But let me fucking blow up a baby. Americans fucking love that.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I still can't believe that you can show autopsies, murder, drug deals, and all the horrible things shown on the news...but if you show a titty, you face a big fine. ::head shake::
It's freakin' stupid.
Living With a Nerd
"The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
And this is bad how?
Whatever happened to parents being ultimately responsible for what their children are watching?
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I think there do need to be standards for what's shown at least on broadcast TV but I think the pants-wetting hysteria from the Family Research Council and their ilk isn't the answer.
These airwaves are for the public use. Want to drop the f-/n-/q-bomb? Start up your own pay channel and go nuts.
Good. The FCC has no business regulating the content of what gets broadcast, only the means of broadcasting it, ie: making sure everyone stays in their licensed frequencies and doesn't stomp on each others transmissions.
We're now living in a time where it's trivially easy to block potentially offensive channels, or restrict their use with a code to keep them out of children's reach if their parents don't want them watching. If you don't like that channel X broadcasts unedited showings of "Porkey's", don't watch channel X. You, as a viewer, have no right to expect a government agency to protect you from being offended, and the government has no right to prevent a broadcaster from showing what they choose, or me from watching it if I like.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
You've hit on one of the primary contradictions in thinking in the U.S. of today. Most people are for the free market making decisions... that is until it makes a decision they don't like for some reason. Then they go to the government to "protect their interests" or to protect themselves through legislation. So many of the stories on Slashdot, especially the governmental and corporate stories, come down to that... a corporation or other group of people who were so gung-ho about the free market when things were going THEIR way now want governmental protection now that the market has changed. See also: FCC. See also: RIAA. See also: MPAA.
Well, if people didn't have sex, we wouldn't have had the current crop of corrupt bankers and politicians, now, would we?
You gotta remember that the pilgrims didn't come to the US to "practice religious freedom". They got kicked out of Europe for being too puritanical. From the beginning the US has been at war with sex and "indecency".
It amazed me that you could show the most awful slasher flick and at most get an R rating but typically get a PG-13. But if you so much as showed a few seconds of a tit that was R for sure. And male frontal nudity was an X.
There are plenty of ways in the U.S. for a parent to decide what they want their kid to see without taking choices away from me as an adult. Again... it takes effort. Every device out there has parental controls... the finest grain parental controls we ever have had... so use them. And if you don't want your kid to see certain things then it's YOUR responsibility to keep him/her off of my computer that has parental controls turned off, not the other way around.
It always surprises me how stupid American law has gotten.
Restaurants put "hot coffee" on cups for fear of being sued.
People get worse sentences for stealing a song then if they would steal a whole business' inventory + more..
God forbid a vagina or penis shows up on tv and it becomes a crazy national topic for a month.
The fcc would love that kind of attention and be there to feed the parents with "we're doing it for the children" and also burp them afterwards...
These kids will probably know more about sex then the collective minds of the fcc. The kids don't need censorship, the fcc needs censorship.
- Yours truly, guy who thinks fcc needs to censor their own penises first before moving onto bigger fish.
So your saying that a government agency (or a private company) should monitor what your kids do, instead of you, the actual parent? Why should a government agency be concerned with what I'm watching on TV, or doing on the internet (oh wait...)? Take responsibility for your kids and what they watch/do on the TV and internet. Its people like you that pass and support laws that strip everyone else's rights by saying "but think of the children!" You know what? Fuck the children. I grew up just fine without some politician screaming that the children are in danger, and that we need to lose rights and pass ridiculous laws so that 'children can be safe.' Fuck that. I used to be out with my friends, and was told to come home when the street lights came on. I used to be forced outside (god forbid), and forced to do something on my own. And because of that, I consider myself a much better person than the generation thats coming up behind me, and guess what? I'm not alone in how I feel either. So do this: grow some balls, and be an active father figure in your kids life. If your kid finds a site on the internet where a horse fucks a person, than make sure your kids know that they can talk to you about it. Than you can be the active father figure and tell them what you feel about the subject, and let them come to their own conclusions on how they feel. The key word is 'active' - be active in their life. Numerous studies have shown that kids do a fuck load better in life if they have an active father figure - not some pussy who hides their kids behind a net filter.
What's wrong with kids seeing the odd tit on TV? It's just a part of the human body, and let's not forget we all came out of a vagina. All this bitching probably comes from a bunch of super-religious nuts who are trying to make people feel bad about their bodies, so they can keep telling them god will save them.
As a father I like the idea of being able to leave my kids at a computer or TV without having to continually monitor their activities.
As an adult, I don't really give a shit about your children. They are your responsibility. What you feel is appropriate for your children should never affect what is on my TV. If you feel something on TV is inappropriate for your children, you can censor it yourself by turning off the TV. If I feel that something on TV has been ruined by censorship, I can't undo the censorship.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
There is no country that is more simultaneously obsessed with and embarrassed by sex than the United States.
America seriously needs to grow the fuck up.
Technoli
Google with Safe Search disabled doesn't even have anything like that.
For _you_. The owner of that computer must have different Google habits than you.
Well, Google has some algorithms that will bring search results to the front based on what you've searched for in the past...
Maybe the OP should stop sending them over to his horse-fucking relative's house.
I don't have a problem with nudity or profanity. I'd argue nudity and profanity is much less harmful than glorified violence. On the other hand, American culture suffers from this odd dichotomy of prudishness taking things way too far. A lot of people seem incapable of anything other than shocking and offensive entertainment. Americans seem to be the source of some of the most depraved content in the world when it comes to mainstream entertainment. It's like Americans have this desperate, immature need to prove they're "adults" by enjoying excessively violent, shocking and offensive and overly sexualized entertainment. It's like writers, directors and producers are comprised of wannabee iconoclasts. I'm not saying I can't enjoy this sort of thing, but simply that I don't need to be bombarded with it constantly. It's nice to experience entertainment with a bit more maturity.
For parents with children, like myself, the solution is simple: don't let them watch television or don't let them watch broadcast television. That way you're in total control of what they're watching. And better yet, they're not being bombarded with constant advertising, which I think is a far larger problem for society compared to any tv show which can easily be dismissed as fantasy. It's not like there's much of substance on television anyway. Kids should be occupying their time with other activities anyway. The last thing we need is to perpetuate this dependency on television for entertainment.
Of course, war is different for children, especially boys. There is a big difference between seeing soldiers fight one another and seeing senseless crime and atrocities. You can claim there isn't, but that doesn't make it so, and for millennia, civilizations have understood the difference between glorifying the warrior ethos and senseless violence. The former, is not inherently harmful to children, and is actually good for a society that wants its boys to grow up to be **men** and not overgrown boys who act like pansies in the face of a violent world.
**checks pants**
Last I checked, I am a man, and I find mindless nationalism and international chest-bumping to be completely, and totally, irrational and idiotic. Especially nationalism, nationalism is one of the dumbest social constructs we can train our children to uphold (outside of, maybe, various flavors of extreme religious dogma). Training our young men to go kill other young men because their flag is different, and they might speak a different language, is stupid, not "manly". As history shows, having a glut of young men glorifying war leads to war. If all you have is a war hammer, everything starts looking like a war nail, etc... I, personally, would rather we have a glut of young men (and women) glorifying something interesting, like reason.
I read your comment in the voice of R. Lee Ermey, by the way, it didn't help make your point.
War should be seen as a terrible necessity of last resort, not as some glorious brojuajua. We like war too much, in my opinion, hence our two largely unjustified and wasteful (both in money and human life) wars of the moment. How much glory is there in Iraq or Afghanistan? Everyone I know who has been involved in either didn't find it very glorious. Same with all the Vietnam and WWII veterans I know. My grandfather was one of the first US troops to hit Auschwitz, and he never talked about it, ever. I very much doubt he found any glory in that experience. Or at least he found as much glory in war as all of the hordes of suicidal and PTSD suffering current "glorious warriors".
Most war is nothing but senseless violence. America hasn't been in a justifiable war since WWII, the rest has been nothing but moronic slaughter for political ends. How glorious! How manly! How idiotic. Being there is no glory in being a disposable tool for your government.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey