First, though, the story. From MSNBC:
The chairman of one of the entertainment industry’s most important congressional committees says he wants to take the enforcement of broadcast decency standards into the realm of criminal prosecution.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner III, R-Wis., told cable industry executives attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. conference here on Monday that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations.
“I’d prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process,†Sensenbrenner told the executives.
The current system  in which the FCC fines a licensee for violating the regulations  casts too wide a net, he said, trapping those who are attempting to reign in smut on TV and those who are not.
“People who are in flagrant disregard should face a criminal process rather than a regulator process,†Sensenbrenner said. “That is the way to go. Aim the cannon specifically at the people committing the offenses, rather than the blunderbuss approach that gets the good actors.â€Â
The response of protein wisdom: Brilliant, Jimmy! I can almost see it now:
“So. What are you in for?”
“Me? I hacked three prostitutes to death with a hunting knife, then I skinned them and made their entrails into jump ropes. You?”
“Wrote something Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner found mildly ‘lurid’ on my blog—then repeated it on my streaming internet radio show.”
“Wow, that’s some sick shit –”
”—Yeah. And I’d do it again, too. So don’t you go fucking with me, hairball.”
Christ. If it isn’t the progressives trying to control my speech by prescribing “tolerant” pre-fabbed appellations for every aggrieved identity group on the planet, it’s the Republican moralizers looking to jail me for my occasionally earthy potty mouth.
Well, fuck you, Sensenbrenner. Because let’s face it: until you’ve actually had a licorice Twizzler yanked repeatedly from your mayonnaised squeakhole by a well-oiled 17-year old oriental lad, don’t you dare presume to judge whether or not such a thing is “indecent.”
Man. Does this country ever need the threat of a third party movement right about now.
****
h/t Cole
Hey, as long as it is a Twizzler, I’m cool. If it was a Lik-M-Aid, that would be wrong.
Lik-M-Aid stick, I meant to say. Don’t want anybody to miss the nuance of a “candy up the ass” joke.
Sign me up. Keep in mind that I’m too apathetic to actually do anything. But sign me up anyway.
Boy, that’s a big “No Shit”, on the third party.
During “Schiavo week” my steadfast-and-stalwart-Republican-since-1976 husband looked up from the paper and declaimed “I need a new party.”
It wouldn’t mean anything if I had said it, but coming from him…
I’ve already made my own third-party suggestion.
Been there.. Done that…
I wouldnt say ‘indecent’..
Just perhaps ‘overrated’
Now a ‘Good n’ Plenty’.. thats another story.
Step right up!
Get your Neolibertarian Party yard signs right here, ladies and gents.
Not that I disagree with your position on Sensenbrenner’s proposal, but let me make sure I have this right. Until I do something I can’t make any judgement regarding it’s indecency?
Let’s follow that little bit of reasoning to it’s logical conclusion shall we?
Um, from what’s contained in that story, I’d suggest you take a chill pill, Jeff. I can hear you hyperventilating from two states over.
Fer chrissake, we’re not talking about the electric chair. “Criminal penalties” apply to everything from murder to jaywalking.
Seems to me he’s merely saying that the criminal process is a more efficient and effective way of addressing the same conduct that the regulatory process currently aims to. But that says absolutely nothing about the degree of punishment or even the societal condemnation of those actions.
In sum: short of some increased penalty scheme not already being used (in the regulatory context), relax.
Russell,
Should we relax about this part too?
This is the criminalization of speech based on some completely subjective standard of “decency.” Process or not, that’s what it is.
You relax if you want to. Me, I’ll call Sensenbrenner a fucktard for even floating the idea.
No, Pile On. You can make a judgment. You just can’t turn your judgment into a law that affects me, unless you’re able to show that my actions are somehow damaging you in a way that minding your own business wouldn’t first alleviate.
“Criminalization of speech.”
I’d find that phrase a lot scarier if that wasn’t already something that’s existed continuously since the founding of the republic. See, e.g., fighting words, incitement to crime, obscenity, etc.
The meaningful question is whether this represents an extension of the restrictions on free speech that already exist.
If Sensenbrenner simply meant that a better way to enforce broadcast rules was through traditional criminal sanctions that didn’t substantially change the substantive legal standards and penalties, then I wouldn’t have much of a problem with this.
I’d be more willing to agree with you on some showing that he’s fixing to make significant changes to what one can already criminally punished for in terms of speech.
So a station head could “earn” a criminal record due to, say, some spoiled athlete dropping the f-bomb, during an interview?
We’re not talking about shouting fire in a movie theater here, Russell; I’m not quite such a free-speech absolutist as to deny that the criminalization of such speech is proper. Ditto incitement to crime, though I expect that standard to be set very very high.
Obscenity I’m much more concerned with criminalizing. And the idea of criminalizing “indecency” makes me absolutely apoplectic. As it stands, regulatory “punishements” make everybody (relatively) happy: the preening legislative moralists get to show they care about the children and so have applied a “penalty” for indecency; and the networks wink back and pay the fine, then go right on providing people with what they want to see.
But look at how we’ve just upped the fines. The slippery slope impulse to do likewise to criminal penalties, should they become the new “regulatory” process, will be too difficult for some pandering politician. And I believe market forces should determine programming, not the indecency police—and especially not the real police acting on behalf of some faux-outraged prude who wants to pretend that the use of “fuck a hamster, Guido” in a “Sopranos” episode is an offense worthy of criminal prosecution.
Speaking of which, can we get back to the 8-INCH COCK OF DEATH, please?
Well, part of the reason we take indecency and obscenity so lightly is because we now stand much at the bottom of the slope started down for us 30 years ago. Not that that gives me any wisdom on any sort of line drawing or whatnot, but we have seriously come to a point in our country where free speech means no campaigning 60 days prior to an election, but “virtual” ….. …. is okay. Is this a good thing? I doubt it. Part of the other problem is no one is really putting on the effort to develop quality shows, it’s much easy to produce a lurid one that gets decent numbers than a decent one that gets decent numbers, so a lack of regulations leads to all lurid all the time, hardly something to seek I think.
Well, Jeff, I admit I’m much less concerned with obscenity and indecency prohibition than you are. In fact, I find it absurd that people can be so rigid about not drawing distinctions between legitimate and “low value” speech.
I’m sorry if that phrase sends you into paroxysms of indignant rage, but I have no trouble with communities (the federal gov’t is more problematic, I admit) deciding that they’re not going to allow, say, a Mapplethorpe exhibit.
So, where is the line drawn as a constitutional matter?
At a Sopranos episode?
Honestly, I dunno, but I think discussions about where that line should be drawn are more healthy markers of a society rather than one where people refuse to acknowledge any Constitutional difference between virtual ch!ld pr0n and democratic debate.
Where is this all lurid all the time, and how do I sign up?
No, seriously, teevee isn’t very obscene at all. What were the things that pissed people off recently? A 1 second nipple shot and a dropped towel. 24x7x365x250 channels and that’s it? There are lots of quality shows, and not a lot of cussing and nudity, and what little of it there is is on HBO (and those shows may be dirty, but they’re still good), so if you don’t like that don’t buy it.
All lurid all the time my chapped ass.
Matt,
Um yeah.
Obviously public airwaves vs. private cable channels is a distinction beyond ya, huh?
I made that distinction, Russell.
And by the way,
As long as we’re playing War of the Slippery Slopes, here’s my salvo:
I find it a very silly argument that the ability to prohibit certain things deemed “indecent” will lead us to a Mormon utopia where HBO executives are fined into penury because Tony Soprano said “fuck” on TV the night before.
I find it much more likely that your rigidity on the issue, Jeff, will work to send the culture into an increasingly lower common denominator of filth in the public sphere.
And since we’ve actually been SEEING the latter happen for a few decades, pardon me for going with that scenario.
No really, where is this filth in the public sphere? I’m not seeing it.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy CSI x3 as much as anyone, and am a huge fan of not always squeeky clean arrested development, but just using those shows as examples, there’s a lot that goes on there that’s pretty well hmm…how to put…oh well. Even bachelor, next joe millionaire with the slobbering in the dark. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say filth, but Andy Griffith it ain’t. Not that I want to go back to Andy Griffith, but that and Leave it to Beaver were good clean funny shows. Now it’s a lurid sex crime a week and throw in a couple raunched up comedy/dramas…Did OC really need the lesbian story arc…hmm…
I’m not screaming about it…hey I watch these shows, and others, but sometimes it does feel way over the top…and why did they need X, really, allowing something to go to its LCD, usually mean it will. That people want to set a LCD is something I don’t find unreasonable.
When one is face down in the gutter, one cannot see the scum in it. (speaking from the personal experience of a misspent youth…)
Word: common. Like much of what passes for entertainment.
I’m floating in the middle on this one.
In one sense, I think that obscenity prosecutions are just silly. So long as the porn purveyors are keeping the stuff away from kids, I don’t care what they sell DVD’s of. A little competition will keep my costs down, if you know what I mean.
Likewise, I think that cable is a private realm and Congress can stay out.
On the other hand, I don’t mind keeping the on-air TV programming an island of clean programming. Frankly, I can not watch any of the police procedurals anymore for fear of seeing an autopsy in the middle of my dinner or having CSI conduct one of their “who can make the grossest corpse special-effect” contests.
We’ve gone from objecting to kiddie pr0n to complaining about simulated autopsies ruining dinner. Slope is greased up already.
Sure, let’s toss out speech that is clearly protected by the 1st amendment because Joel B. doesn’t think lesbian storylines are necessary.
I’m all for clean teevee, but I think there’s plenty of it to watch if you flip past the grody stuff. 7th Heaven is still on, right? I just really hate that we’re considering criminalizing speech to protect the kids and some weak stomachs.
It is astounding to me that some of you are actually okay with criminalizing speech based on the most subjective of standards. A reminder. Ulysses was banned in this country. And it wasn’t until very recently that the UK lifted its ban on The Exorcist.
Allowing elected officials who are willing to pander to a few special interests decide what is “decent”—and then to impose criminal penalties against those who disagree—is hardly liberal. In the good sense.
I mean, what are there, 1000 channels now? Turn. The. Dial. The idea that all we have on TV right now is filth that panders to the lowest common denominator is absurd on its face—particularly when you have entire channels dedicated to history, science, medicine, animals, sports, etc. etc.
I get all my TV in glorious HD OTA. Not a dime to pay, and get all of the nets. It’s pleasant, and about all the TV I need, the last thing I’d like to see is all of that TV go to crap because we can’t have any standards because, post-modernly, all standards are subjective. Maybe they are, doesn’t mean no one can draw a line. That being said, two things, I think there would be a lot less of an issue with cable TV, if people could purchase TV a la carte, or with rating-based tiers. But getting Comedy Central with the Disney Channel makes things difficult for parents and invites regulations. Criminalizing corporate behavior is also overblown, so there is a fine, you can’t imprison a company, so I doubt the “criminalization” is really any different than what the current regulation is, someone was just talking tough, that’s SOP in politics.
I have to jump in with a quick question to Joel.
What exactly is your complaint with the way Cable TV is offered now ? Is it cost or packaging options ? I ask because every modern TV I’m aware of allows specific channels to be blocked and /or removed from the channel scan memory. Seems to me if there are specific channels that you find offensive you can simply unprogram them. Many cable boxes have parental controls as well.
As far as cost goes, I cannot imagine that putting your own custom package together a la carte would result in a lower monthly rate.. It doesnt in other industries like phone or PCS services. Unless perhaps you just want the Alphabet Channels..period.
So what would make cable tv more acceptable in your view ?
Turing word: seen
As in: as seen on tv
I don’t have a huge problem with Cable TV, I just would watch about 5 channels and pay $50 for it. Then if I wanted to get my Locals in HD I would have to pay another $10 for the STB, and I’d still get UPN and WB in NTSC…ick. I don’t pay for Cable TV because it’s not worth it. Anything I do want to watch on cable, I rent through Blockbuster Online. For me, I’m almost certain a la carte would lower my cost. That’s mainly because I don’t need the Back to the Future Channel (TNT), the James Bond Channel (Spike), or the various other channels out there that rerun everything ever shown on television. It just isn’t worth it.
Cable is just odd, it’s a municipality granted semi-monopoly. Other than OTA it’s pretty much the only way to get the major Nets in HD. It doesn’t help that a huge slice of the population >60% has very little clue when it comes to OTA reception. Cable operators will then tell you that to get HD you need to upgrade to their $80 Digital Package or some such. And throw all these channels at you.
Cable would be easier, if they just offered family tiers. Why should one pay for some of the rauchier channels to get the few they want? It doesn’t feel right. Sure you can block channels but that’s kind of like saying, Family A (who wants less raunchy programming) can subsidize X’s programming choices and that’s okay because A can block X’s channels. I don’t like that thinking, it kind of like screw A for the benefit of X. Now X will come back and say that if A doesn’t pay for X’s channels X’s channels would be more expensive and that would be bad for X, which I guess it would be, but why make that A’s problem, because they’re a prude? Because I guess it’s okay to use prude’s money to subsidize raunchy programming. And as long as the cable co is a government sponsored monopoly there’s just something not right about that to me.
As long as tiered pricing is the way it goes, and a la carte or a “family tier” are not offered cable is in danger of being regulated, and I’m not going to shed a tear for them.
And I guess one last point, my main concern is really with the OTA channels in the long-run, cable is an interesting tangent, but not really my care or concern. With OTA, there just isn’t going to be a huge number of programming options. Around here it works out to about 8 English Channels…Now I’m happy with that because most of the stuff on those 8 channels is all of what I would watch anyways. But, I’d hate to see those 8 channels get even more indecent and leave me with 4 channels I feel comfortable watching…and then 2…and then just PAX. Part of the reason broadcasting has a hard go at these things…is because of cable cos and because OTA reception is a lost art. This is getting long, but I’ll return for more questions or clarifications later if you’d like.
I didn’t endorse criminalizing anything, Matt. In fact, I stated that I thought obscenity prosecutions a waste of time and I would prefer that they cease.
Oh, and what a rube I am for daring to express that I’m tired of explicit depictions of autopsies on TV.
Constitutionally, we have a dubious decision that holds that the public airwaves are within Congress’ power to regulate indecency. Rather than whine about it, lets just keep that decision limited to the public airwaves and keep Congress and the FCC completely out of content on cable transmission.
And don’t forget that its McCain-Feingold that we must be working to reverse.
Uh.. one and all…
When the airways are considered “public property” and subject to regulation, stuff like this is unexpected???
Simple solution…sell off the frequencies and reduce the FCC to merely policing the frequencies for trespass, like your local PD makes is there to help keep the gangbangers from kicking down your front door and making off with the stereo equipment.
As long as the FCC is charged with policing the airwaves for appropriate content and having broadcasters live up to their “public mission” one is always going to experience the push-pull of where the line is drawn vis a vis “decency” in the public square.
Janet’s pierced nipple would have brought a collective yawn in a Vegas show … but in a vaguely SM moment on National TV where most people watching with their kids expect at most a college fieldshow level of pop entertainment, it offended not just in the decency level but in the bait-n-switch “not as advertised” level. “If I wanted to watch a woman’s clothes being ripped off and boobs aflyin’ I wouldn’t be watching the SuperBowl with the kids.”
Certainly I believe Congress and FCC should not get anywhere near Cable stuff … it’s not the “public airwaves” so Stevens and Barton should sit on it and spin, but as long as the the public airwaves ARE public than regulation about “decency” by the FCC is within their legal realm (and I do not wish to see it moved into the criminal system).
A third party got you Clinton twice, so if you want some more of that, start another third party and get Mrs. Clinton.
Now this is really scary, the word below is “likely.”
you’ll note that I spoke of the “threat” of a third party movement. And anyway, the alliance I’m thinking of would likely snag a lot of the Lieberman / Miller / Bayh Dems who felt uncomfortable voting for Bush, knowing that his base might try to exert a lot of social influence, and marry them to moderate conservatives and Republicans, and interventionalist (neo) libertarians. This isn’t necessarily a “centrist” movement, either. It is a classically liberal movement that looks for smaller goverment, lower taxes, fiscal restraint (except for military spending), social freedoms, the protection of US sovereignty, and a robust—and principled—foreign policy, backed up by an equally robust military.
My problem is, I’m all for the check on activist judges; I understand the impetus behind the DMA—(and am for civil unions but against gay marriage)
Robin – I wasn’t really speaking to you with the criminalizing stuff, and I certainly wouldn’t call anyone a rube for being grossed out by teevee. I would literally puke if I watched any of the insect eating on Fear Factor.
Its not that I don’t have a strong stomach, Matt, come out this fall and help me field dress an elk.
I just don’t think depictions of human autopsies are entertaining. Black helicopter autopsies now …, those are fascinating.
Robin, I recently posted a link to an alien abductee checklist on my blog. Very possibly, an untoward interest in black helicopters could be added to the inventory.
Gail, everything at zapatopi.net can be added…
No matter how you mix and match voters, I believe a third party will take the majority of voters from the right just as they did for Perot (for different reasons, perhaps) and hand the left a victory.
Democrats are much more disciplined than we are. Their big voting blocks like the unions are ideological and will vote for the Democrat no matter what the issues may be. Simply said, Kerry received 48% of the votes because his name was on the Democrat line on the ballot. Lieberman and Bayh are team players who have a spent a lifetime in the Democratic party leadership. Why would they risk their careers to endorse a third party candidate?
Like many of your other readers, I agree with you that right now terrorism is the primary, secondary and tertiary issue. When those bent on our destruction are destroyed, we can return to arguing domestic issues at our leisure.
BTW – Civil unions seem a quick and simple solution for gay couples. I wonder why there is so little support for it the gay community. Perhaps they’re not really serious about gay marriage and it’s just another burr to put under the president saddle?
Heh, if wasn’t for “a third party movement” it would have been Al Gore reading “My Pet Goat” on 9/11
erp,
The reason gay people are not on board with civil unions is that our constitution doesn’t guarantee equal rights for everyone but gay people. Personally, I don’t have a problem with the gay community accepting civil unions. But why are gay people expected the pay the same tax rate as hetero’s? Why are we expected to pay property taxes that support the educational system for the children of (mostly) hetero’s? I do have a problem with being expected to have different individual rights than hetero’s but more of a financial burden than heterosexuals.
That some here are arguing it is a good idea to let the government grant itself more power is appalling. The rule of thumb should always be less power, not more. There is no greater power that the government has than to remove your liberty by criminalizing behavior that was not criminal before.
To the actual issue, it must be such a drain on people to change the channel when they don’t like what’s on. What’s more, all tv’s sold these days come with built in channel blockers. Don’t be lazy and expect the rest of us to have to pay the price you are unwilling to. Don’t allow others to dictate to you what is decent and what is not in the realm of speech.
To those claiming it places an undue burden on parents to police their children’s viewing habits, I would suggest that you have already given up the fight to educate your child on what the world really is.
Ben
The logic you are using re: taxes can be equally applied to those non-gay couples who do not have children. In addition, consider it an investment in the future of your country. Someday you might want those kids to be able to do things you might need, like say deliver the mail, run hospitals, etc.
Ben
—Sorry the constitution doesn’t say a thing about marriage or public schools.
We citizens in our collective wisdom decided that public schools would be a good idea and it was until the teachers’ unions took over.
As for civil unions, it’s how people get married in Europe. We just had an example with Charles & Camilla. Clergy don’t have the legal authority to perform a marriage. I don’t know how or why that changed in the U.S. but I, for one, would be glad to change it back so everyone (gay, straight or whatever) has a legal civil union at city hall and go on from there to have whatever they want for religious or secular ceremonies.
Take the play out of grandstanders on all sides. Equality under the law, but not under all the various religious denominations and their holy books. Let gay Catholics, Orthodox Jews and Muslims, among others, worry about dealing with their various spiritual leaders and take it out of congress, the judicial system and the hair of the president who has enough to do protecting us from people trying to blow us up.