Trouble in Paradise (Part Three)

And which one of US Senator Ted Stevens' (R-AK) advisers told him that this would be a good idea?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push for applying broadcast decency standards to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television and radio affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters.[SNIP]

Stevens told reporters afterward that he would push legislation to apply the standards to cable TV and satellite radio and television. It could become part of a pending bill to boost fines on broadcasters who violate indecency restrictions or of an effort to overhaul U.S. communications laws.

I know this may surprise some of you who thought you had me pegged, but I think that such putative legislation is unconstitutional, dangerous and even immoral. Even God doesn’t impose belief in Him or adherence to His Word on us. (According to you-know-which-book, if you refuse to believe in Him, He’ll let you go your way.)

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” “Life, liberty and property.” Either way, Senator Stevens’ plan tramples on those concepts. It isn’t up to the state to define these concepts for its (adult) citizens; as long as those concepts don’t overlap the rights of another citizen, the state is supposed to butt out. If somebody thinks that watching (non-kiddie) pron in his/her own home will make them happy, so be it.

It’s this type of scheme, however, that causes people to brand us social/religious conservatives as fascists.

As Ace put it,

I wholeheartedly supported the position of the traditionalists and religious in our society who said: "That [Janet Jackson exposing her breast in during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show] crosses a line."

I agreed with them-- that they had a right to watch broadcast TV, during the dinner hour, and be free of seeing dirty images, especially without serious warnings that the program would contain such images.
It's one thing if she had run a special at 10 pm with warnings about "strong sexual content." Anyone watching would have been warned. It's quite another thing just to pop out a mommysac to millions of unsuspecting viewers. [SNIP]

But that dispute, I thought, was one in which the religious right was resisting the imposition of the irreligious left's values on it -- through the public airwaves, during a program generally considered safe for family viewing, unwarned.

(Emphasis mine.)

That’s what I thought it was about also and why I objected to Ms. Jackson’s little stunt: anyone tall enough to reach the TV has access to network fare, such as it is.

Cable/Satellite subscriptions are a different matter, however. Most subscriptions come with the ability to lock out certain channels with a password, as is so with all the ISPs that I know of. If someone wants to pay for some R/X-rated program to be transmitted into their private home, it’s their prerogative--their right—to spend their money as they see fit. Moreover, cable and satellite companies have the right to provide these services to adults without having to be subject to punitive fines.

Jeff G says,

…these types of infringements upon personal freedom and choice are the very thing that drove me away from modern day “liberals” in the first place; for instance, to me, the idea that free speech on a university campus can only take place in pre-defined “free speech zones” (while the rest of the campus is a “tolerance” zone, or—more aptly—the land of bland, inoffensive generalities mouthed by frightened, confused adepts to a fundamentally un-American PC/Diversity culture) is a clear indication that “liberalism” had lost its moorings, and that modern “liberalism” or “progressivism” is simply a soft totalitarianism proscribed by self-appointed cultural elites.

Whether you or I or Senator Stevens thinks that stuff is smut and detrimental to the soul of the viewer is totally irrelevant. And were Senator Stevens to successfully push such legislation through Congress, it would be an ominous foreboding of things to come.

Sure, pron is an big, easy slow-moving target (no puns intended). But I am forced to wonder what other *legal* private activities and private business transactions will be regulated “for the good of the citizens?”