Democrat Prudes
The Democrat-contolled Senate Commerce Committee is considering legislation called (it’s for the children!) the “Protecting Children From Indecent Programming Act,” legislation which was introduced by Jay Rockefeller.
Isn’t it usually the left giving the right hell over stuff like this?
It would reinstate the FCC policy making broadcasters liable for a $325,000 fine for a slip of the tongue. A committee vote on the indecency measure is expected Thursday.
Earlier this year, the federal appeals court in New York tossed out an FCC indecency ruling that said a fleeting obscenity reference gets broadcasters a fine for indecency, telling the commission that it failed to give a good reason for its decision and likely could not find a good reason if it had to.
The committee members are likely to approve the legislation, as it has the support of the committee’s leaders and is something that is politically difficult to oppose.
“It looks like it’s getting the support that it needs to go through the committee,” said Steven Broderick, spokesman for Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Rockefeller is the chief sponsor of the legislation and a senior committee member.
Commerce Committee chairman Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, and the ranking member, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, both support the legislation.
Rockefeller also is preparing legislation that would give the FCC the authority to regulate “excessively violent” content on television—be it cable, satellite or broadcast TV.
We need this legislation…because apparently Americans can be counted on to just change the channel (or turn the radio station) when confronted with content they find offensive. We need this legislation…because we need a bunch of bureaucrats at the FCC to tell us what is and is not “excessively violent” content on television.
Republicans are always cast by the left/media as the uptight, moralizing busybodies who get upset at television content, yet this happens on the left too. But Democrats get a pass for it. Just like the Gores got a pass for inviting Madonna and Snoop Dogg to Live Earth despite Tipper Gore’s crusade against suggestive music lyrics back in the early 1990’s.
I, personally, have long looked forward to the day when technology (the internet, satellite/cable television, satellite radio, podcasts, etc.) makes the FCC and all of its rules and regulations about content irrelevant, but what’s scary is that Rockefeller is trying to extend the FCC’s powers to those mediums as well. Which seems unfathomable given that the only tenuous authority the FCC has to regulate content on broadcast mediums is the idea that the “public” owns the airwaves. Unfortunately, the public doesn’t own the satellites. Or the internet servers.
So what possible justification does Rockefeller have for using government power to control what content Americans choose to watch/listen to in their own homes?
What’s particularly depressing about all this is that it will undoubtedly get bipartisan support. Because like it or not, there’s busybodies on both sides of the political aisle who love telling other people how to run their lives.
