(no subject)

[eirias]

From today's essay at Tomato Nation:

Christ. You know, Colin Powell submitted his resignation this morning, and I hope his first act as a private citizen is to march down to FCC headquarters and turn that martinet kid of his over his knee for an overdue spanking. I hope his second act is to go on Conan and expose his breast for a split second.

Comments

[darlox.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry... I HAVE to comment on this. First, let me say that I find the article amusing too, and am in 100% agreement with you over the necessity of the FCC getting whacked around hard.

That said, I'm not sure why arguments for anti-expression censorship carry so much more weight than arguments for pro-expression censorship. At the end of the day (and the phrase) you're still left with... censorship.

As an example, I can clearly recall being smacked-down by a rather militant lesbian whom I worked with several years ago at Metro. We went to an office lunch, and I was riding in her car as the navigator (since she'd never been to the restaurant before). I told her "Ok, turn right, and then just go straight." She actually YELLED at me (not kidding) for telling her to "go straight" instead of something like "stay on this road". She found it terribly offensive and didn't think, until then, that I was the type of person who would say such a hurtful thing to her.

What has this to do with the FCC? Well, as a complaint-driven body, it's behavior is unsurprising. I can assure you with 110% accuracy that SEVERAL people, knowing full well what the movie contained, sat down on Veteran's Day and watched it for the sole, express purpose of getting up-in-arms and complaining to the FCC the next day. Sadly, I actually KNOW people who would, and have, done things like that.

The FCC is a body whose charter was written in the 50's. It's standards and practices have been updated at bureaucratic-scale (i.e. glacial) speeds ever since. When "the people" complain, it's their job to listen whether they (or we) like it or not.

I would propose that for every assinine ruling the FCC makes censoring language or perceived morality, that's one additional mandatory vote for the FAPCC (Federal Anti-Political-Correctness Commission). Their charter shall allow for stiff fines on any person or organization who attempts to censor free speech or expression by reason of such activities being "offensive" to some other group.

If BOTH sides of the argument would stop being such thought-policing busybodies, then we probably wouldn't have these problems in the first place.

[mokatz.livejournal.com]

Next time a militant lesbian gets mad at you for telling her to go straight, just say that you weren't finished, and you about to add, "...gaily forward." Say it in a lisp for extra bonus points. ;D

[eirias.livejournal.com]

WRT your "militant lesbian" coworker story, I think you're confusing censorship with a personal request. Censorship, AFAIK, is something that governing bodies do - not something a private citizen can do. It involves shutting someone up by the force of law. Telling a person to shut his pie hole when he says something that offends you may be rude, depending on the circumstances, and it is often pointless, but it's not censorship. If the City of Cleveland slapped a citation on you for saying something like "Go straight at the light," that would be censorship. (But actually, they'd have a point - telling a driver to "go straight" on suburban Cleveland roads is often ambiguous enough to lead to a traffic accident ;) )

As far as personal requests to shut one's pie hole go, some are ridiculous and some are acceptable and some are bordering on necessary, if we are to live in a civil society - the lines separating those groups of requests depend on a few things. One: Is it reasonable to assume that the original speaker intended to offend? If not, caution is warranted. Two: Is the request delivered in a civil manner? If not, probably the person delivering it is about as big a jerk as the original "offender." Three: Is there some broad improvement of society on offer? For instance, it's obvious that society is not served by killing the first definition of "straight," because it's useful (Cleveland roads notwithstanding). On the other hand, I think society /is/ served by the fact that racial epithets are now taboo in polite company (with a few unfortunate counterexamples). The only things it's now (marginally) harder to communicate are ideas that we as a society are trying to discourage. This judgment call obviously depends on where you want society to go; me, I'd like people not to be nasty to each other for stupid reasons, so throwing out words like "Wop" and "Heeb" suits me just fine.[1]

In short: We have freedom of speech so that the government can't throw us in the slammer, or do anything else unpleasant to us, just because it doesn't like what we have to say. But that doesn't mean we should all walk around being dickheads to each other, and that doesn't mean that when someone else is being a dickhead, we private citizens can't call him on it.

[darlox.livejournal.com]

I see your point. Still, I think it's a chain of inevitable events. My point in raising the example was not to spotlight the militant wackos that get upset over the mundane. Rather, the recognition that there is an entire sub-society of people who walk the streets every day of their lives LOOKING to be offended. Censorship can follow many routes -- on one side you have a government entity whose entire purpose is to slap fines for violations of codified morality. On the other, you have mountains of frivolous lawsuits which sport better-than-Vegas odds of success for "discrimination" or "harrassment" or "violating civil rights."

NOTE: I'm certainly not suggesting that all such suits are baseless, however many of them undeniably are. There's entire extortion schemes based upon former employees asking for better layoff packages in exchange for them not filing an EEOC suit.

The path of the latter is less clear, but no less real or effective. As a society, we have become clinically unable to separate emotion from debate. Historically (and currently in many countries 'round the world), the vilest form of invective and vitriol is routinely trotted out, flamed at a dissenting object, and received in-kind, blow-for-blow. The gavel falls, the chamber is opened, and those selfsame combatants go out for a pint of bitters.

Here in the USA, if I tell you you're an ignorant little shit whose unfashionable grandma-panties are jammed so far up your bulbous ass that you couldn't tear your limited braincells away from the thought of your next Twinkie long enough to out-think a retarded West Virginia 2nd grader, chances are FAIRLY HIGH that under the right circumstances, I'm getting served with court papers within 72 hours.

Do I think that verbal abuse should be tolerated indefinitely? No! But the Catholic grandma in Alabama is just as offended by Janet Jackson's breast as the militant lesbian would be by my telling her she's a wanna-be man who ought to put on an apron and get back in the kitchen.

Explain to me why one is acceptable, and the other is not.

(And to clarify here, for the hyperbole-impaired, I'm not actually entirely a bigoted prick. The above opinions are devil's advocacy, and not the opinion of management or any affiliated entities. ;) )

[darlox.livejournal.com]

Let me also just say that I inadvertently combined two separate things here, and this was perhaps not the most appropriate place for this debate. We had an office lunch conversation dealing with Political Correctness, and how it has successfully morphed into a murky legal doctrine for which billions in "emotional suffering" damages has been awarded over what 10-years ago would have been counted as an off-color quip, or practical joke. Ostensibly well-meaning censorship wrapped up in a thin veil of Gettin' Along.

Your post addressed the issue of FCC censorship, so I sort of ran with it and went WAAAAAY off-topic from the original intent. Please feel free to nuke this and/or move it to a different thread if you feel this is too divergent to live here in your LJ!! Sorry!

[rms10.livejournal.com]

Do I think that verbal abuse should be tolerated indefinitely? No! But the Catholic grandma in Alabama is just as offended by Janet Jackson's breast as the militant lesbian would be by my telling her she's a wanna-be man who ought to put on an apron and get back in the kitchen.

Explain to me why one is acceptable, and the other is not.

One is a direct attack on an individual, the other is not. The Catholic grandma in Alabama may find Janet Jackson's breast objectionable, but she is not being directly belittled or harassed by the breast.