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Thankfully, the vast majority of comments with the FCC oppose changing the rules to allow profanity and nudity on the open frequency spectrum.

My how the mighty have fallen. Rest in peace America.

Chas.

SF18C wrote:Isn't it grand when "we" want the gov't to tell someone else what to do!...

Or you could take your kids to Church, set the example of behavior/decency and provide proper parental guidance.

The downfall of the GOP with be demanding liberty for themselves while trying to restrict it for others. Live and let be should be the new battle cry...

Purplehood wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

rotor wrote:Hate to disagree but do we need the government controlling our first ammendment rights too. I personally don't need anyone censoring what I watch. Have you seen what's on the internet? There is no "decency". Control your kids, watch whatever you want.

The first amendment has to do with political speech not commercial speech. Public broadcasting is free and freely available and is not analogous to the internet or cable, both of which you have to pay for. Since the government owns the airwaves - and by extension WE do - (long settled legal doctrine) they have the right to control what is allowed to be broadcast so long as they don't attempt to suppress political speech. If people want profanity and nudity they have ample choices which they can pay for and watch. Profanity and nudity doesn't need to be sanctioned by the government to be broadcast over public airwaves.

I personally am disgusted by the current state of "art" in this country. If you can't tell a story without lacing it with profanity or portraying humans like they are rutting pigs with no self control, then perhaps you should think about the fact that you are not really a story teller. At one time Ozzie and Harriet couldn't even be seen in the same bed together. Now we have actors and actresses slobbering all over each other, tearing their clothes off and copulating against the wall because they can't even wait long enough to get supine. It's not a portrayal of real life. It's a degradation of the human condition.

The government should not be a part of promoting that kind of behavior.

Just because something is long settled legal doctrine does not mean that it is right. What happens when the FCC starts coming up with the notion that conventional marriage should not be promoted in an effort to show 'equity'?

In my mind when the government has become so intimately involved in something that is going to ultimately offend one person or another (wittingly or unwittingly) I just have to say, 'back off'.

I agree totally with both people quoted here. How do I reconcile that? I can think of several ways.....

I occurs to me that the "issue behind the issue" isn't just about free speech and common decency. Like most things that drive the culture, it boils down to three things: 1) money; 2) our baser instincts (collectively as a species); and 3) the appeal to #2 in order to make more of #1. The traditional airwaves broadcast networks—ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS—are in competition with the cable-only shows for viewership when their airwaves shows are broadcast over cable networks. When I compare the moral tone of say Jay Leno's program to that of Conan O'Brien's, the tonal differences could not be more stark. Leno occasionally tells a risqué joke, but he seldom goes beyond the same standards that Johnny Carson had 23 years ago when he went off the air and turned the show over to Leno. By comparison, Conan O'Brien's show often degenerates into the obscene. I have nearly stopped watching it entirely. A recent gag performed by Sara Silverman when she appeared as a guest bordered on the pornographic. I stopped watching the program for a while after that, then I managed to get sucked back in just a few days ago........my fault.......but I noticed that the overall tone was still very low-brow and was constantly bumping up against behavior that would have gotten him kicked off the air 20-30 years ago. O'Brien's "genius," if you can call it that, is that he knows how to keep the show right at that tipping point between funny in a grade-school bathroom humor kind of way, and downright horrible and worth shunning. People suck that stuff up for an obvious reason: most have their minds in the gutter anyway, so they relate to it.

So when NBC for instance wants to see their limits expanded, their thinking is easy to follow. Leno is about to step down, and the far edgier Jimmy Fallon is going to take over the show.......and he's going to take it in the same direction that O'Brien is headed, IF the FCC will let him, because that is what it takes to compete in that market these days. Under current rules, the only way NBC can do that is to produce TWO shows—one for the airwaves, and one for cable audiences, and that makes them uncompetitive. So in the end, capitalist self-preservation makes them demand that restrictions be removed.

That's what I mean by follow the money......

My own personal reaction? I agree with baldeagle that it is filth. I agree with Purplehood that we need less governmental oversight rather than more, and fewer regulations than more. I also believe that God is a just God, and He will deal with all of it, in His time. SF18C is right....if we take our kids to church and we raise them right, we will inoculate them to some degree against the evil that exists in this world.........BUT ONLY IF THEY SEE US ACTING OUT OUR BELIEFS!! I am in the world, not of it, and I'm only here for a little while. I cannot possibly change the culture at large. What I can do is change my culture, and as an individual, help other individuals to change their individual cultures. If enough people want to do this, the devil's influence on the culture at large will be diminished; but until a certain prophesied time comes, that's not going to happen. The wheat is currently being separated from the chaff. We (the editorial "collective we") are a fallen people living in a fallen world, and the energy required to overcome the inertia of cultural degradation was converted to entropy long ago and is no longer available to us. I believe it's a lost battle and that we are merely the witnesses to a dying culture. In my opinion, only one person can change that, and He hasn't returned yet.

The Good Word says that we shall be known by our fruit—individually, not collectively. My own swing to the (small "L") libertarian side of things has reinforced my belief in the importance of individual accountability rather than diminished it. I am all for individual responsibility, both in fiscal terms and in moral terms (which are really the same thing). Absence of individual morality got us to where we are now, with regard to the airwaves. If there weren't a market for it, they couldn't sell it. In the process of selling (and buying) it, the fruit of those people is revealed to us. Those who understand this also understand that they are set even further apart by God from this world, that they are being separated from the chaff. Glory be to God.

Romans 1:18-32 explains this better than I can, because this is not the first time in human history that a culture has found itself at this juncture, but verse 32 in particular is notable: "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." That is the kind of time we are in. And to make Paul's letter even more germaine, he did not call for Rome to abolish these practices. Rather, he called for individuals to abandon those practices for their own spiritual health.

So that is the only way I can respond to the insistence of the culture for displays of vulgarity in the public square......as an individual. Government is going to do whatever it does, regardless of what I want to happen or not. It is Leviathan, and it is as irresistible as a lava flow. You either get out of its way, or you get consumed. I choose to get out of its way and to try and live my life in a way pleasing to God, not man. I don't look at pornography. When TV becomes pornographic, I won't watch it either. I can always vote with my wallet, and I can refuse to buy the products of advertisers who sponsor filthy shows. I don't need government's help to do that, anymore than I need government's help to keep me safe from my own guns, or to tell me what church to attend or which God to follow. If people want to "give themselves over," as the Apostle Paul put it, to those things which will separate them eternally from God, then so be it. I can only deal with them one at a time.

I hate the filth. I just think it's everyone's individual responsibility to clean it up......not the government's. We've had entirely too much of government trying to solve all of our problems.

Newton Minow doesn't look as dumb as he looked, does he?

The culture has been in decline for decades. My granddad was keenly aware of it, and blamed it on Elvis. I wonder who HIS granddad blamed it on. Mark Twain, probably.

The money goes to those who constantly push the envelope of tolerance. That is where the eyeballs go. We went from Glenn Miller and The Dorseys to Sinatra to Jerry Lee to Elvis to Beatles to Rolling Stones to KISS to Twisted Sister to LL Cool Jay or whoever he is, and that whole crowd. I can't trace the same phenomena on TV shows, as I do not watch them anymore, and haven't for 20 years or more, but I know we don't watch "Leave It To Beaver" in prime time anymore. Same with movies.

I saw this first hand, working my way through high school and college as a dance band musician. The old style just wasn't cutting it anymore, and like Yogi says, "If people don't want to come out to the ballpark, nobody is gonna stop 'em." My only regret is that nobody told me an ugly guy who can't sing could be a rock star. That would have been a game-changer!

There is a difference between pornography and nudity.

JALLEN wrote:There is a difference between pornography and nudity.

There is. The one is more often than not found in museums and galleries, while the other is not. Both are found in the homes of connoisseurs.....which says as much about the home owners as it does the object of their in interest.

It amazes me that some people feel that not allowing profanity or nudity on the unrestricted airways is a great imposition on anyone's freedom. Comparing this to gun control or any other constitutionally protected rights is an act of desperation. Most folks can recognize a tempest in a teapot.

All the filth and depravity you want is readily available on cable TV, so not having it available on broadcast radio, TV or commercial/amateur bands is hardly an imposition. No civilized society survives its own moral decay.

Chas.

Mr. Cotton, I don't think anyone feels more smut should be on the airways just that we don't need to govt to mandate that to us.

If our society is going to fail, I am sure its not because of NBC.

SF18C wrote:Mr. Cotton, I don't think anyone feels more smut should be on the airways just that we don't need to govt to mandate that to us.

If our society is going to fail, I am sure its not because of NBC.

So, I'm sitting with my 11 year old daughter watching tv in the afternoon or evening and some guy walks out of the shower full frontal nudity. Would the world be a better place?

I don't think so.

would it be worse?
the "decline" has happened, the 10 o'clock news is there for afermation if anyone really needs its.
bring childern up with a sence of morality all the smut and trash will fade do to lack of intrest.
Im sorry to say but the 50's died along time ago.

If someone would allow their young children to watch the type of show that would have full frontal nudity I am not sure how this change would help.

If someone allows the TV to babysit their children so they can focus their attention elsewhere then it probably doesn't matter what is on the TV, the outcome is inevitable.

Just out of curiosity...I wonder how many Americans get their TV signal from over the air. In my house even the local channels are "paid for" in my cable package. I don't see to many antennas on peoples houses anymore.

SF18C wrote:If someone would allow their young children to watch the type of show that would have full frontal nudity I am not sure how this change would help.

If someone allows the TV to babysit their children so they can focus their attention elsewhere then it probably doesn't matter what is on the TV, the outcome is inevitable.

Just out of curiosity...I wonder how many Americans get their TV signal from over the air. In my house even the local channels are "paid for" in my cable package. I don't see to many antennas on peoples houses anymore.

We use an antenna. I'm so offended by most of the shows that we leave it off 99% of the time. I'll watch the Rangers on Friday nights, Jeopardy, the WFAA 8.2 all weather channel, and an occasional show on the Smile of a Child network. We even had to turn off Family Feud because the questions were so offensive.

Our kids are 5, 4, 3, and 1, so keeping it off is the best plan. It's not like we need more noise or entertainment around here anyway!

I do get a kick out of people equating cable with broadcast.

This is not government control of what people can or can't own, it is government control over a shared commodity, the radio spectrum. This is a property that we jointly own and have ceded government the control of for us, thus the FCC has to have comments on proposed rule making, and you, as a "shareholder" get to make comments. If you want smut to be broadcast, make a comment, if you don't, make a comment, the FCC doesn't always take the same track as the comments would produce, but they do usually take them into account.

SF18C wrote:If someone would allow their young children to watch the type of show that would have full frontal nudity I am not sure how this change would help.

If someone allows the TV to babysit their children so they can focus their attention elsewhere then it probably doesn't matter what is on the TV, the outcome is inevitable.

Just out of curiosity...I wonder how many Americans get their TV signal from over the air. In my house even the local channels are "paid for" in my cable package. I don't see to many antennas on peoples houses anymore.

You are missing the point completely. If they loosen the rules, it could be any show or commercial. What about watching a Disney movie and one of those provocative dial soap commercials comes on with totally nude actors? What if a condom commercial decides to show more? If they change the rules, all shows could become "the type of show that shows full frontal nudity". It's not appropriate.

Yeah, I think the world would be worse for it if my and others' daughters and sons saw these things.

mojo84 wrote:You are missing the point completely. If they loosen the rules, it could be any show or commercial. What about watching a Disney movie and one of those provocative dial soap commercials comes on with totally nude actors? What if a condom commercial decides to show more? If they change the rules, all shows could become "the type of show that shows full frontal nudity". It's not appropriate.

So why isn't that happening now on USA, A&E, AMC, Discovery, the Food Channel, Syfy, TLC, etc, etc, etc

The Internet, ham radio, local tv, FM, AM,and XM all have an on and off switch. If you don't like what you are seeing...turn it off or change the channel. No one is forcing you to watch or listen.

Short of someone performing a pornographic act in my front yard, or yelling obscenities in my ear no one is infringing on my rights. Do as you wish and I will do as I wish, I won't tread on you if you won't tread on me.

The first ammendment writers did not know Ham radio would come or Satellites would roam the sky any more than the second ammendment writers knew that one day modern sporting rifles would exist.

We (and I mean those who beleive the Constitution) better start believing all of it before it loses it's meaning.