Should the Public Airwaves be More or Less Censored?

While you find your equivocation hypocritical I find it merely incomprehensible.TTFN,WK

And I firmly believe that parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit unless and until they cross the line into something that is clearly and demonstrably harmful to the children. Watching a movie doesn't even come close.Consider also the fact that different movies affect different kids different ways. If we are forced to reduce all programming to the level that no kid is going to be bothered by it, we'll be left with Sesame Street and the Teletubbies.Moreover, as someone previously said in this thread, even if there are some things that kids should't watch, that doesn't mean it's a good idea for government to regulate that for all of us. I'm not a kid, and I ought to have the right to watch programming that may not be suitable for kids.We live in a free society (or at least we used to). That means that you are going to be exposed to ideas that you don't like. You are certainly free to expound on why those ideas are bad and influence the marketplace of ideas. You are not entitled to shut that marketplace down.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

clearly you're just not discussing anything with anyone. you're just ranting about basketball and bad commercials. get over it.i'm so done with this.

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Well last Sunday, during a game, I mentioned that desperate housewives commercial, where a "desperate housewife" gets her clothes torn off by a man down to her lingere. I don't know what rating that falls under, but it sure ain't G.

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So, what about regular beer commercials during sports broadcasts? They often show a lot of female skin, and they ARE selling beer. Should those be allowed in case a kid might watch them?What about ads for serious news programs that might contain scary stuff about guns and war? Should those be allowed?What about the cheerleaders in skimpy outfits that they show during the sports events? Should cheerleaders be banned becasue a kid might see them?And sometimes the basketball players take their shirts off. Should we ban basketball games because a child might see an almost naked man?

If you don't like what is on TV, and you don't care to or cannot control what your children watch, then your only other option is to turn it off or get rid of it.Let's say there was an exhibit at the local art museum of an artist who painted nudes. Somebody in town didn't like it because they felt it was inappropriate for children, even though there was no mystery about the nature of the exhibit and there were plenty of signs and information outside the exhibit. That person decides to lobby the government to never allow nude paintings to be displayed in that museum ever again.How is that reasonable? Isn't it more reasonable to simply allow parents to decide if an exhibit is appropriate for their children or not rather than make the exhibit unavailable for everyone?Why does this person think they have the right to decide for everybody else?

Oh. So it's not just art, religion, and the media.Tell you what, why don't we make this easier. Is there anything you don't think should be censored? Why not? It's legal to lie. Is there something special about TV that makes it a magic box through which no lies can travel? If you can't say why it's valid for the FCC to censor content, maybe you shouldn't note the FCC's content-censoring authority as a justification for your stance.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

I'm afraid Sesame Street might have to go too. Do we all want our children to see a monster that eat cookies any time they want, even before diner? I think not. That would undermine the parents autority. What about a monster that lives in a trash can, glamourizing slothness?

I regret to inform you that the Cookie Monster, as you knew him, is dead. He has been replaced by a pod monster who says things like, "Cookies are a sometimes food."

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Take a look at how freedom of speech originated.You must take into account the spirit of that consitutional law.Freedom of Speech was not originated so that people can freely offend each other, it was originated so that people make legally speak out against government, and things in general that were hurting them.Freedom of speech has stipulations, like the miller test, and the hicklin test.

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The Hicklin test is a legal concept stemming from the English case R. v. Hicklin (1868), LR 3 QB 360, in English Common Law.

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Congress can outlaw anything that, "deprives and corrupts those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort might fall." (i.e. children)

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Since it's not a guarantee that all children will be supervised, then it is entirely probably (if not 100%) that children will get to see something offensive to them before a given age.Even if they were supervised, sometimes you just can't shut the TV off fast enough.I don't get you ppl. It's ok to have an abortion when the birth control fails. What we goona do when the V-chip fails, or the TV can't be shut off fast enough? Extract the childrens brains out?Ah, but don't worry, in a few more years there will memory earsing devices, like a metal strainer attached to a kids head. We will have nirvana, even if it has to be. Well I gotta give you a star. Very few people recognize that I am actually in the middle about most issues. Good catch. I have the ability (God given) to be able to see both sides of the fence in most circumstances, limited by my knowledge.Believe me, nobody hates the way government controls us more than me, or do I want to take anyones freedom of speech away, I would rather be dead. But there is a real issue, that cannot be avoided, and the current solutions for it, just ain't workin brotha. I see the minds of our youth being corrupted at an early age, much earlier than when I was a kid. I am not putting all the blame on TV, but it is one step that maybe we can do something about.

Teletubbies offend me, especially that purple thing with the bag I don't want you to lose that right either. That all depends on the law.

Oh shit you found me out, I better go home and find my blanky.Just because I am using that one example doesn't mean that it isn't happening everyday, several times a day to my children. If it was just that once, I would not be making a fuss over it.

if it's such a problem, turn it off. you don't have the right to restrict the viewing of the rest of us. period. ever. the fcc's current censorship is unconstitutional. the first amendment doesn't say "true speech" it says "speech". all speech, all expression is protected. period. that's it. if you don't like it, then you don't understand why it's there.

Come on nator, eveyone know beer and good looking women go together!
The more you drink the better they look!
Besides, thats not fiction.But just look at cigerette ads, and how they have censored them, and how professional baseball players cannot advertise certain products.But really, is it necessary to show women to sell beer? I hate marketing in general. Yes, I've mentioned that already in this thread. IT's real life. There is a HUGE difference between those things and people getting their heads blown off, or women cheating on their husbands. LEave it to you to go in the wrong direction.

The truth. Read a couple posts back about the hicklin test.

Sorry brenna, freedom of speech doen't give you the right to offend people.Freedom of speech - WikipediaWhat gives the right to watch TV, and not me without being offended? It's a public venue, regulated by the government.And all of you need to stop including the entire spectrum of freedom of speech. WE are only talking about TV here.