FCC's Selective Enforcement Of David Ortiz's Potty-Mouth Is Reason To End FCC Censorship

This weekend, before the Boston Red Sox played their first home game since the bombing of the Boston Marathon, slugger David Ortiz (fresh off the disabled list) rallied the crowd with some…memorable comments:

It was an emotional moment for the folks in Boston, who badly needed to have their spirits lifted (Ortiz and the BoSox delivered with a come-from-behind win), but some began to wonder how the FCC would feel about Ortiz dropping the f-bomb.

It turns out, the FCC doesn’t much care:

Kudos to Obama-appointee Julius Genachowski for exercising some common sense. But given that the FCC is now selectively enforcing its decency standards based, apparently, on the popularity of the alleged indecency in question can we just end the FCC’s censorship of broadcast content altogether?

The idea that the government needs to protect us from content we may or may not find objectionable is in fact more objectionable than any amount of profanity, violence or sex that could be broadcast on our airwaves. And with the proliferation of cable and satellite television, as well as internet streaming, the FCC’s decency standards mean very little for most.

So how about the FCC use Ortiz’s moment of passion and defiance to quit their paternalistic, moralistic monitoring of broadcast content in general? After all, we all have the ability to self-censor our own content by not choosing to watch or listen to content that offends us.