- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 9,595
- Reaction score
- 2,739
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
Take its role as broadcast censor: The agency has spent years enforcing an arbitrary, inscrutable code governing what speech and images are acceptable. Are four-letter words forbidden or not? Which ones? And when? What about breasts or bottoms or lower backs? Does it matter if the context is medical, accidental or unattractive? The FCC's answer to all of those questions is yes, no, maybe or all three, depending on whether the words and pictures in question meet its definition of indecency. But that test is performed using guidelines that are clear as mud: "An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material as a whole appeals to the prurient interest." Who counts as an average person? And how is one to determine current community standards in a country that contains both the joyous vulgarity of downtown Manhattan and the quiet piety of Pennsylvania's Quaker communities? The answer, unfortunately, is that these judgments are left to the FCC's whim.
The Fascist Commissar Commission has been nothing but another government toilet that money is flushed into. Its been long overdue to destroy this department and restore the 1st Amendment.
SUDERMAN: Whimsical FCC encroaches on First Amendment rights - Washington Times