We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Getting the state out of the censorship business It seems astonishing that the state still gets involve with the content of TV programming in the USA. I expect this sort of crap in Britain and Europe, but in the USA?
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to crack down on indecency on radio and television by sharply raising fines. The Senate also took steps to rein in the growth of U.S. media companies by invalidating new, more relaxed ownership rules.
Can anyone tell me, do these absurd rules in the USA also apply to other non-terrestrial broadcast media companies, such as cable and satellite TV or even internet ‘radio’?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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In some States they can fine you for a wet dream.
> It seems astonishing that the state still gets involve
> with the content of TV programming in the USA. I
> expect this sort of crap in Britain and Europe, but in
> the USA?
ROTFLMAO! Surely you must know the U.S. of A. is full of little narrow-minded prudes (particularly in the “Red” states) who think it’s the end of the world if some pop singer accidentally(?) bares her breast during the Super Bowl intermission. That country (apart from N.Y., L.A., S.F. and a handful of other civilized places) is still stuck in the 19th century.
MARCU$
You know, there might be a song in this.
Eric Idle has come up with one.
download here
USA’s media censorship has been infinitely harser than UK’s, for ages now. That’s because there’s basically not enough really convinced religious people to shout and make a fuss, over here. In the UK, religion’s for Sunday, if you’re into that sort of thing at all, and certainly not to be taken too seriously. So our censorship basically says “no explicit porn on TV, and nothing that might offend the kiddies before 9pm” and that’s it.
One thing to realize about US media is that there is a difference between broadcast and cable/satellite. Broadcast media is regulated under the idea that the airwaves are publicly owned. The cable/satellite programming is virtually unregulated and anything goes on these channels up to and including broadcast porn movies like the Spice channel. Most people in this country have cable or satellite and the broadcast media only includes the old networks and local stations that fewer and fewer people even bother watching anymore.
Can anyone tell me, do these absurd rules in the USA also apply to other non-terrestrial broadcast media companies, such as cable and satellite TV or even internet ‘radio’?
No, they don’t. Cable and “subscriber” services have very considerable freedom, and the internet is Liberty Hall. And they’re not particularly absurd rules, either. We’ve always had prissier standards about what we consider acceptable to broadcast in the daytime, but you aren’t without cultural norms, either.
We balk at a tit, but you’d balk at a wiener (at least during a prime-time sporting event, wouldn’t you?). It’s simply a matter of degree.
The REALLY silly thing is that Howard Stearn, one of the Big Time Famous “Shock Jocks” was dropped from 6 stations in various markets by the company that sydnicates him. Somehow, this was interp’d to mean that “The Gov’t” (or, more accurately “The Bush Administration) was “cracking down” or “out to get” him.
Now, say what you like about nudity/prudery on TV, or “the seven dirty words you can’t say” The rules are (or at used to be) pretty well defined.
Livign in Detroit, I’m often amazed at the ‘looser’ standards on Canadian broadcasts – movies w/ Full Frontal, interviews w/ Man on Street where they use the S and F words constantly are ‘surprising’ to me.
But they’ve banned Tom Leykis, a rude-but-not-obscene talk host who has whole segments teaching guys how to ‘get as much tail as possible’…
Go Figure.
All that aside, I’m quite convinced that one of the BIG diff’s b/n here and there is all the uptight a-holes LEFT europe several hundred years ago, and were instrumental in founding THIS country.
That would explain why we have 10x the beaches of Europe (as a whole) but 1% of the number of ‘clothing optional’ ones.
From what I understand the harsh indecency restrictions are only in force on terrestrial broadcast radio and TV at the moment. I believe a move to extend these provisions to cable and satellite failed by 3 votes recently, it is probably only a matter of time till the harsh provisions are extended to those media outlets, and the closeness of the recent vote will probably scare cable and satellite providers into self censorship. The fine was recently raised to $275,000 per incident, this recent upping of the fine seems to have been blamed by some on the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident, however if you look at this article from 2 days before the Superbowl it seems that the Janet Jackson incident was just a very timely excuse for a policy that was going through at that time anyway.
Perry’s post strikes to the heart of the problem I have with the Samizdatens, they are very pro American without knowing much about America. Learning about America is like learning French…before you understand the language it sounds very sophisticated but once you understand it you kind of wish you didn’t because in reality what they are saying is for the most part not sophisticated, and you can never recapture the feeling you had about it before because now you know the truth about French (and the same goes for America).
Why I may not like some of the outcomes, I can see the reasoning behind some of the US broadcast regulations. Only the “public” airwaves really face these, since they are essentially free for public comsuption. (on the reciever side anyway) Most of these are based on “communtity standards”, that believe it or not are widely supported in most communities. The idea being to protect one’s young from the goriest, harshest, and most pornographic aspect of popular culture. And please no arguements about the level of TV violence compared to amount of curse words allowed on TV. I know it doesn’t seem to make much sense, but people here don’t seem to mind as much if junior sees a bloody car wreck, as opposed to having him hear the f-word. As far as cable and satelite TV goes, the thinking is that you pay to recieve these services, therefore if you don’t approve of the content you can lock thesae channels out, or drop them.
And please no more red-state bashing. Believe it or not most Americans take their faith seriously. That is why their is so much fuss over what is broadcast on the public’s airwaves. If I work to block the offensive channels on my satelite, and to place filter’s on my children’s computers, I would hate to see that undermined by broadcasters streaming content into my household that I consider indecent. If enough other citizens agree with me, we can complain, and then the offending entity can either carry one paying fines, or change their ways.
This is the public reacting in a more-or-less free marketplace. The broadcast company will probably lose advertisers if it continues to offend. Is this not the free market at work? The fines just add that extra bit of incentive to reform.
Conservatives in the USA just want to tell everyone what to do. All they want is to say, “no you can’t do this” about everything (Gay marriage, abortion, lewdness over the airwaves, etc.).
That’s why we have it better up here, we’ve got conservatives , just no one trusts them!
No in Canada it’s much better, they just let communtites enforce Sharia.
Jeremy is obviously confused.
How could fines and regulations be part of the free market?
Go back and take an economics course before you spout such inane non-sense.
Furthermore, I’ll red states as I please.
If “most Americans take the faith seriously”, it got to be sad that so few others take americans seriously anymore.
Jeremy,
Your red-state American law is much more similar to Sharia than anything we have in Canada. You’ve got the death penalty, you’re the one with the hooded tortured civilians, you’re the one who’s president is a theocrat who prays before every meeting and spouts about how “we’re all sinners”
Your nation practises sharia.
We practive freedom
Leftists are no better than Conservatives. Try to purchase and own a gun in one of the People’s Republics like Boston or NYC. They both want to control people, just in different ways. Between the two of them, most of our Liberties are strangled.
Jeremy, you make some great points, but at the very end you say;
“Is this not the free market at work? The fines just add that extra bit of incentive to reform.”
— My only contention is that the free market will work without these incentives. I believe in giving the people what they want. If an open-air broadcaster shows content that is undesireable, their customers will drop off and they won’t have advertising money. Then they will change.
I don’t believe we need the government involved there.
Other than regulating the licenses and frequency usage, I’m not a fan of government intervention in media presentation.
I’ve read all of the opinions about protecting children and such. None of it is convincing enough to cause me to change my opinion.
The best thing about America is that if enough people support the current policy, it will remain. If a shift occurs, the government will (eventually) change the policy. That is *much* better than anywhere else in the world.
To the Canucks,
If you have so much “Freedom” in Canada then why don’t you go and say something that your government deems hate speech and see what happens. The rest of your blather is just typical Anti-American rheotric.
Well Della, I may be what Marx called a ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ and I am not ashamed to ask about regulations about which I know too little about… but in fact I am ‘half-and-half’ (American mother, British father), have lived almost half my 40-something life in the USA and have run several businesses there, so I think I know rather a lot about the place.
…oh, and it is ‘Samizdatistas’ if you please.
Canada has more freedom than the USA? I nearly choked on this one. Would I be free to criticize homosexuality? Would I be free to seek private medical care if I decided that the waiting list was too long? Would I be free to say where my (considerable) tax dollars were spent on?
There is nothing wrong with capital punishment that can’t be applied to life imprisonment. Cold-blooded murderers deserve to die. Presidents can pray without imposing their beliefs on us, and Sharia will never be the law of the land.
I love Canada, but I cannot see myself returning there any time soon.
Andrew McManama Smith, that was some profoundly looney shit. THank you for reminding me how ignorant many of the US’s critics are.
While I was probably wrong about the use of fines, what I wanted to say is that these are preferable to past restrictions. People used to face criminal charges for “indecency”. No, this system is not perfect, but it is preferable to what went on in the past. Hopefully as time passes the gov’t will let the free market truly decide what is “indecent’.
And one other point, being religious does not mean you are intolerant.
The problem with broadcast regulations is that they come up against the statist side of American politics from /both/ directions.
For the sake of you Europeans whose understanding of our political spectrum is very likely akin to my own understanding of yours, I’ll give a bit of a primer here : our mainstream liberals learned most of their politics during the 60’s and 70’s, at the height of the hippy movement, the civil rights struggle, and the Vietnam war, but there has always been a strong Marxist sentiment as well. They claim to support social “freedom,” but in reality they’ve always been far more supportive of social entitlement programs and big government.
Our conservatives, on the other hand, come in two main flavors. The Reaganite conservative favors lower taxes, free market, pro-active foreign policy, and really pissing off the socialists (which they seem able to do remarkably well). However, despite the fact that the Reaganites have been in power recently, the larger portion of our conservative movement has always been the puritanical side, heavily favoring religious programs and “moral” legistlation.
Thus, broadcast media gets unfortunately caught in the middle, and both sides want to regulate it away. The liberals have a fear that some big nasty corporation is going to take over the media and control our minds (errr, despite the fact that this is exactly the state of our current media, and the mind control it’s using heavily favors the liberals), and thus favors regulations to ensure this doesn’t happen – mostly regulations concerning who’s allowed to buy who or broadcast where, and whose only practical result is ensuring that no new competition can arise. The conservatives, on the other hand, continually fear that media indecency is going to destroy our youth and turn us all into sexually liberated marajuana smoking hippies (actually, they may very well be right about that one). Thus, they support censorship measures.
And, given that our government works (or doesn’t) largely by compromise and concession (which will, of course, be the death of us all), most media regulation winds up playing to both sides – economic restrictions for the liberals, content restrictions for the conservatives. That way, everyone (except the occasional libertarian) is happy.
As for the original contention – that this shouldn’t be expected because the USA is, after all, far more repectful of free markets and individual rights – well, you’re partially right. There’s a strong libertarian sentiment running through the country – most of us are still weary of big government – but that sentiment gets continually hijacked any time a significant segment of the population (be it liberal or conservative) finds something it really doesn’t like. The examples of this are all over our history – the Jim Crow laws, prohibition and the drug war, McCarthyism, gun control, the death penalty, abortion, smoking, etc.
Quite often lewdness or other shock material is used as a cover for weak storylines.
Anyway, I think any free-to-air programming should be suitable for children to watch – so if someone wants to exercise their personal choice to watch a channel containing material unsuitable for children, it should be encrypted or use some other way of restricting the viewing.
In other words, programming unsuitable for children should be something you have to choose to opt in to. (This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to cost.)
Oh, and no, those regulations largely do not apply to non-terrestrial media, although there are always loonies who try to make them stick – hence the DMCA. Fortunately, most of those bills don’t make it out of congress, and don’t mke it past the Supreme Court when they do – although, sadly, congress has been making inroads into censorship there as well.
Jason – really spot on. Can you recommend any good book about American politics (alt. history) and how it works (even though I’m half-American, I can’t say I know too much about the political system).
Our conservatives, on the other hand, come in two main flavors. The Reaganite conservative favors lower taxes, free market, pro-active foreign policy, and really pissing off the socialists (which they seem able to do remarkably well). However, despite the fact that the Reaganites have been in power recently, the larger portion of our conservative movement has always been the puritanical side, heavily favoring religious programs and “moral” legistlation”
Actually I’d reverse the two. Unless you have numbers about the red states, I’d say far right religious are outnumberd by the free-marketers with a moderate or no real social feelings. The problem on both sides is the fanatic fringe(of which we see a good example on this, and every internet board.). Both want into peoples life and to tell people how to live. The Left cause the idiots in NY, LA, and SF think they are smarter then everyone, and the far right cause god said so.
While I myself am tolerant of (and indeed sometimes welcome) indecency and even obscenity in my own life, I’m not entirely dismissive of the “protect the children” rationale for restraints on material broadcast over the public airwaves. Howard Stern, whose show I quite enjoy, frequently argues that it is the job of parents to protect their children by close supervision, and not the job of the government to protect children by imposing criminal sanctions.
OK, then, say Joe is a U.S. distributor or retailer of porn. At present, if Joe sells or rents a copy of classics such as “Cumdumpsters vol. 1” or “Cum in my Mouth, I’ll Spit it Back in Yours” to a 12 year old, he gets thrown in jail. Who here thinks this situation should be changed to allow him to fearlessly rake in profits from the as-yet-untapped pre-teen market for hardcore porn? If its the parents’ (and not the state’s) job to protect kids from this stuff, you’d think Joe should have free rein to market his wares to whomever he pleases.
Should the rule be different if Joe is just transmitting audio of porn (Stern occasionally uses snippets of porn audio for comedic effect)? If so, why should this make a difference? How about broadcasting descriptions of arguably indecent but undeniably disgusting events? (Stern’s show fairly recently featured a woman vomiting on a man for whom this was sexually arousing.) If this stuff should be freely available to children (subject, of course, to whatever controls their parents can implement), why then should poor Joe face prison for selling them the latest volume of “Young, Dumb and Full of Cum?”
By the way, I’m not asking these as rhetorical questions to imply that a libertarian position on free speech is patently ridiculous (I am pretty strongly libertarian myself, and think parental concerns about access to indecent materials are better addressed through technology than legal sanctions). I’m just not so sure the opposing view is so self-evidently “absurd” as Perry’s post posits.
Oh, please. This hyperventilation over “censorship” is insulting to everyone involved. Virtually *everyone* is in favor of censorship of some sort. No one would approve of twelve-man bukkake films aired on broadcast channels at 10AM on Saturdays. That’s censorship. You might disagree with where the “obscenity” bar is set, but you’re going to set it *somewhere*.
Sure, some of you might think four year olds in red states should butch up and get used to the fact that in the real world men ejaculate on each other’s faces, then slap each other with their cocks. But surely there is some point at which you would say “this material is inappropriate for airing at this time and through this medium.” That’s where you stop becoming a high-minded first-amendment voluptuary and start being a prudish censor.
You all believe in censorship in principle. Don’t pretend that you’re any better on principle than any of the “prudes” you despise. You’re both very happy with censorship; you just have different standards. If you want to argue that their standards are too tough, make that argument, but don’t pretend that they’re censors and you’re not.
The airwaves a twelve-year-old can access by walking into Wal-Mart and spending $40 of her babysitting money to buy a combo boombox-B&W TV are censored, yes, and you aren’t going to get most Americans to give up the feeling of security they get from that. Similarly, laws against public nudity or swearing in the presence of children are unlikely to be overturned.
The Supreme Court has, however, repeatedly blocked any attempt by either the states or the Federal Government to censor either cable/satellite and the Internet, since such service must be contracted for (implicity by adults, since minors cannot enter into contracts). Claims that we’re “on the verge” of extending such restrictions to such media are either ignorant or deceptive.
Eric-
No numbers, but I live in one of the reddest of the red states (typically goes 60+% for the Republican in presidential elections). We’ve definitely got the religious types waaaaaaay outnumbering the small-govt types (although most of the religious types are mostly small-govt as well). The Democrats here talk about family values and oppose abortion.
Actually, scratch all that. There’s a very strong religious belief here that is best thought of as a political axis that is mostly independent of the smaller-larger govt axis. Here, it’s much more for social than other reasons that people tend to vote Republican. But that’s the South – I would be surprised to see the same for Western Republicans (except Utah).
Andrew McManama-Smith from Canada, what a joke. Those ‘evil’ conservatives are the ones that want to strip the CRTC from a regulating agency that says you *must* have so much ‘canadian’ programing on the air or you’ll get fined into a ‘spectrum only’ agency like the FCC.
I am quite glad to see you are buying into the Liberal ideas of lies, obfuscation, waste, mismanagement, and fraud.
Oh and as others have pointed out, the hate speech and other bits of freedom tossed in. Just remember, in Canada…it’s ‘Illegal’ to own a satellite dish unless it’s approved by the government. Which ranks Canada along the same lines as Iran and old state Iraq. We have two providers Bell and Starchoice which are legal, old C & KU dishes are illegal, American dishes are illegal. Outside programing unless approved by the government is illegal. Fines ranging upto $100,000 for decoding, and 10 years in prison are just fine aren’t they?
And don’t even get me started on the press, you think Americans and you guys over in Europe have collusion with the media? Two compaines own 90% of the media in the country, the CBC is owned by the feds and tote the party line or they loose funding.
Freedom here indeed.
Surely you must know the U.S. of A. is full of little narrow-minded prudes (particularly in the “Red” states)
There is a great deal more regulation of expression coming from Blue Staters these days. Hate speech laws, regulation of campaign speech, political correctness, “hostile environment” enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. . . .
AK: nope, wrong. And even as a matter of practicality, in the internet age, do you actually think you can stop Junior getting pictures from newsgroups called ‘puke sex’ and ‘fun with goats’? No, you cannot and no laws will change that. I may not like such things myself but as both a matter of practicality and the actual morality of avoiding unenforceable ‘one size fits all’ laws in such issues, censorship laws make no sense.
salaryman: actually I don’t think the censorship issue is that self-evident at all, particularly where the images themselves involve a real criminal act (such as kiddie porn, for sure), though I do think the ‘no censorship of obscenity’ is indeed the best position in the end. But no, it is NOT an easy issue.
“Sure, some of you might think four year olds in red states should butch up and get used to the fact that in the real world men ejaculate on each other’s faces, then slap each other with their cocks. But surely there is some point at which you would say “this material is inappropriate for airing at this time and through this medium.” That’s where you stop becoming a high-minded first-amendment voluptuary and start being a prudish censor.”
What a TOTALLY imbecilic and so amazingly stupid comment to make. Do you really for one second actually imagine that Perry was making such a comparison as that, or is it that you just happen to be a complete fucking moron?
May I suggest in future that you actually try reading the post, before trying to comment upon it, that is if Nurse Ratched allows you to use more than just crayons …
Conservatives want to ban tits from prime time TV and the seven bad words from public broadcast radio. Liberals want to ban the political speech of Rush Limbaugh and Foxnews.
In an ideal world we might not have either. I’ve lived in europe as well as the US and most Euopean broadcasts keep the tits covered until after 10PM. Janet’s tit came out during prime time on one of most watched programs in US television.
If I have to choose freedom of political speech over freedom for nudity and obscenities the choice is easy. Goodbye nudity. Goodbye F word. But don’t F@$& with my freedom to here political speech of all types.
Well, this has certainly been illuminating.
Let’s go (almost) all the way back to the top: Marcu$, you’re smarter than that. Fly over here and I’ll show you civilization.
This reminds me of an idea I had a while back for the more vociferous Euro-critics in the blogosphere, at least those who’ve never been to the USA. Start saving up those nickels and dimes (or their equivalent). Write the names of all the states, or at least of the lower 48, on slips of paper and put them in a hat. Mix them up and draw one out.
Look up the largest city/metro area in that state on a map and plan a trip there. Figure on staying at least a couple of weeks — preferably a month.
There’s no generalizing America; it’s way too big and may, effectively, be composed of several smaller nations. But you can get a vastly improved idea of what it’s really like if you 1) visit, 2) stay a while, and 3) avoid a stereotypical itinerary.
Beyond your means? Maybe not. A thousand euros will cover the airfare and then some. Find a host family to stay with — the blogosphere ought to be good for something. You can feed yourself quite well (including several meals out) on under a hundred euros a week. With some planning, you can even use public transportation to get around the community you’re in.
I guarantee you’ll leave with a very different picture of America, and Americans.
Jay, you just had to bring out Jack Stack’s BBQ didn’t you? Man…I need to plan a trip back down to the states and get some real food again. The stuff I eat up here most of the time doesn’t even compare to what I can get from New Hampsire, to Kansas back and down to Georgia and Louisiana, pop over to Texas and Ariazona for a bit. Snag and smooze out in Lower Cali before heading to Northern Cali for a complete different experience. Drop by the Dakota’s, and maybe swing by Chicago and finishing off in Indianapolis for a Hoosier steak before coming back home.
Man…I miss trotting around the US. It’s not even the food, but the absolute variety of people in the US that you can run across. Travel 30 miles and everything will change.
I did that on $5000 back two years ago, took me two months. And I still didn’t have enough time, to be young again.
Perry, you wrote: “[I]n the internet age, do you actually think you can stop Junior getting pictures from newsgroups called ‘puke sex’ and ‘fun with goats’? No, you cannot and no laws will change that.”
Actually, we could change that with laws if we really wanted to. Notice how comparatively difficult it is to find child pornography on the internet. It’s not impossible, but it’s much, much harder to find than either of your examples.
Banning child pornography has tremendously restricted its availability. Similar restrictions on any other type of content could be just as effective if they were backed by stiff penalties. So the statement that “no law can change” the ability of children to access obscene material is demonstrably false.
Oh, and do you consider the ban on child pornography to be censorship? If so, will you call for its legalization?
What Jason says is exactly right. It comes from both sides of the spectrum.
The “Baby Boom” generation in power right now is very moralistic. The moralistic impulse is aimed at different targets by the left and the right, but it’s the same impulse on both sides.
I think that “j’accuse” 68ers might be the nearest European equivalent.
PC, anti-smoking laws, etc, yech.
Everyone is on a sacred jihad to save the world and reform the naughty proles. They’re all Taliban if you ask me.
The social pendulum will swing back eventualy, but not soon. Maybe when gen X reaches middle age around 2015 or so.
Actually, I think regulating internet adult content – at least a little bit better – would be a doddle. The W3 guys should implement some sort of <meta content-type=”adult”> tag in the next HTML spec that browsers and/or search engines could recognize.
Pornographers are in it to make money. I’m betting they lose far more money with kids sucking up their bandwidth than they make on kids who manage to wangle a credit card number. Hence, I think even the scumbag operators would voluntarily label their sites as adult.
I know I administer a couple of sites I’d label that way just because they’re “shhh, honey…the grownups are talking” sites.
I oppose censorship, and one of the reasons is that a lot of the stuff that people seem bent on censoring, I’d be happy to see more of. I could argue that “you can’t stop porn”, and I’d be right, but even more important is “you oughtn’t to try, because it’s good“.
AK wrote
Sure, if the whole world were subject to US laws. However, a huge number of webhosts (both adult and general) are in European and Eastern countries. I rather think their governments would take a dim view of handing over sovreignity to Capitol Hill, anymore than many of us like the US Supreme Court “making up laws” (the beetle-brained puff-ups, as if that was their function!) based on European decisions. Although most, if not all, countries are against kiddie porn already, which is why we’re not spammed with ads for it.
Having lived in both “Republican” and “Democratic” states, as well as growing up in Norway, there is no question that there is more liberty in Republican states.
And there’s far more more liberty in the US as a whole than anywhere in Europe.
Economic liberty. ( Example: Tax rates in Republican controlled NH, TX vs. Calif and NY). Worse still in Europe.
Personal liberty: (Example : Right to bear arms is generally much more leniant in Republican states) Worse still in Europe.
etc, etc
Having attended state run colleges in both types of states, I would say the freedom of expression is greater in Republican states as well. (Especially if you are an Ayn-Rand Anarcho Capitalist like myself!).
The censorship debate I find silly. My right to free political expression and economic liberty means infinite more to me than the opportunity to watch smut on TV in daytime. A small price to pay to live in the freest country in the world.
Just my .02 cents
Yes. leave it to Micky Mouse, he seems to reflect the American Way, especially when it comes to Michael Moore, who in my opinion offers more hope to Amerca than any political party.
Your red-state American law is much more similar to Sharia than anything we have in Canada.
‘Protest rises over Islamic law in Ontario’
Life under sharia, in Canada?
‘Bible as hate speech’
signed into law: Canadian measure said to ‘chill’ opposition to homosexual behavior
Maybe in another dozen years Canada might be able to win the Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, it’s in Florida. Bwahahaha.
BTW, if Howard Stern were broadcasting between 10pm and (I believe) 6am, he probably wouldn’t have had a problem.
Good heavens, is Perry de Havilland really a man in his 40s? I assumed from the way he carried on here, bragging about his love of freedom while constantly proclaiming that he had “banned” contrary points of view, that he was some sort of Student Union type.
Hello Johan, from Norway (I’m from Sweden). Nice.
Censorship laws will, most likely, only prevent the censored stuff to popup on mainstream TV, movies, etc. but it will probably flourish in a way similar to how liquior managed to be just about everywhere during the liquior ban way back (1920-30). Those who wanted booze knew how to get it, and those who want to watch adult content-type of things will find ways to get it as well.
MightMole seems to have missed all the contrary opinions that are tolerated on this blog… but I guess he is mifed that they culled all the racists, oh sorry, ‘race realists’ from the comment section here a few weeks ago because they were endlessly repetative, not to mention assholes. I wonder if MightyMole is typing with a white sheet over his head?
Must add Marcus to the list of people who spew out cliches about places and people they know nothing about; let’s see….number 1,245,879,645.
As if some pop singer could show her boobs in the middle of a prime-time music intermission and nobody would talk about it or react in Europe. Please. People in Ireland are upset because Madonna’s concert is on a Sunday and that disturbs their faith, and Americans are prudes ? Riiiight.
Private cable/satellite TV is definitely free, as far as I can tell. I have long ago stopped watching broadcast networks, in fact. So does an increasing number of people.
Our liberty is an ordered liberty. This will seem
a contradition to wild-eyed libertarians. Turn on
MTV some time and you’ll see that decent community standards are not winning the day in the American media.
Hey Andrew from Canada, your country is one vast sawmill and stripmine for the U.S. market. You are not asked to foot any of the bill for the security of the Western Hemisphere and never have been. Face it, your fate is dependent that of the U.S. Canada is no more an autonomous state than Minnesota or New Hampshire.
No, it just seems like a meaningless statement as you do not explain what you actually mean or even who the ‘we’ is in ‘our’.
Johan (the Swede): The issue as I understand is not to eliminate “indecent” material, but, rather, to keep it from public airwaves during day-time programming.
As for internet porn, I have always thought the best way to control access it for ICAN to approve an .xxx domain. Not only does it make it easier for those who want to exclude the content, but it also makes it easier for those wanting access.
One interesting facet of the Senate bill that has escaped notice is that it also includes reduced government restrictions on media ownership.
This is not a bad trade for a freedom lover. These restrictions were passed when it was ABC, NBC or CBS. Now the free market and technology have provided enough diversity (of ownership if not viewpoints!) to relax those.
Lastly I just cannot get my first amendment knickers in a twist for shock jocks and prurience peddlers when McCain Feingold has restricted political speech — the target of the 1st amendment — much more than a fine threat will intimidate Howard Stern.
Editor’s note: Comment deleted. We really do not need childish name calling, so feel free to get lost.
Johan (the Swedish one, I guess, judging from the email address) – Sadly, I couldn’t recommend any books, since I really don’t remember where I picked up most of my views on politics.
Eric – I disagree. The small government conservatives are in power nowadays, and have had a strong presence in the party since Reagan took office, but I wouldn’t say that they are the majority of the party for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the president maybe be the most high-profile job, but there are far more congressmen (and state congressmen) floating around out there, and you will find that they tend towards the more extreme end of the spectrum simply because they’re elected by a smaller group of people. And in terms of law-making, they have in the aggregate more power than the president. Secondly, it’s rather hard to draw a line between “small government” and “religious” conservative. Scratch a neocon and more often than not you find a supporter of “faith-based initiatives” etc.
Why? Mainly because of the establishment. Just as the establishment of the left – the “elites” as it were – are farther left than the majority of the party supporters, so is the establishment on the right farther right than the majority of the party supporters.
My understanding is that they can impose obsenity restrictions on anyone using the “public airwaves” if they’ve been rented. Use of frequencies that were auctioned off in the 90’s don’t apply.
Andrew from Canada’s anti-American fit reminded me of a debate I once watched. It was between American conservative William F. Buckley and a young Canadian.
The student criticized the U.S. for being warlike and menacing instead of laid back and supportive like Canada.
The student actually said ‘America sends out warships. Canada sends out peace ships.”
Buckley said some nice things about Canada and then dropped the hammer (paraphrasing, this was some years ago), “Canada gets to be Canada because the United States has paid the price to be the United States.”
Sort of like being a protective big brother, even when the sibling is annoying as hell.