Free speech?
: Why are we not hearing libertarians and conservatives — supposedly all in favor of freedom and less government –screaming about the attempts to interfere with media and the threat to free speech this brings. Do we really need hearings on Janet Jackson’s breast? Do we really want the government to say who can own which press? C’mon. I don’t care if you don’t happen to like the media you now see; do you really want goverment regulation of what you can hear and then what you can say? To the barricades, people….
25 responses to “Free speech?”
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I am not going to the barricades on this one.
JJ’s breast notwithstanding, the point is she bared it DURING A PG-13 half time show when people were not expecting it, we all think it is fine to go do that over on MTV. Leave primetime CBS for the old folks with kids and go have your free speech where you have 150 other channels. No one is infringing on your free speech. -
do you really want goverment regulation of what you can hear and then what you can say?
Well, if you put it that way. It’s an amzing thing, this rhetoric. If I don’t agree then I want to government to regulate what I want to say. But, if I’m bullied into agreeing like this then you’ve told me what to say. I think my head’s going to explode.
I’m still waiting for more libertarians and conservatives to go to the barricades to fight campaign finance “reform”, which actually severely abridges political speech. I think that’s a bit more important than Janet Jackson’s “right” to PR stunt. -
To some, Jeff, the answer to your question will be along the lines of “depends on who get to own the media”
If it’s Rupert Murdoch or Conrad Black, then the answer would be “NO”. -
This whole uproar over JJ is bringing out a similar emotion in me just like when my dem friends ROARED that the Dicxie Wimps had free speech and were being infringed, PUH-LEEZE.
The Dixie Wimps made a 5 second, applause grabbing cheap shot insult to GWB. And some people DID NOT like it one bit. Now, this is how I saw it…. if the Wimps had come back to the USA and done a show where all the money went to kids in Iraq or Afghanistan and they went up on stage and ranted all the anti-war stuff they could come up with, then FINE, they are having some free speech and they are putting their money where their collective mouth is… and risking pissing off their base of fans. But since it is a cause they believe in, they do it anyway.
But Nooooo, they don’t do that, they crumple up like wimps for getting caught making a cheap shot remark against the President of the United States.
It was not a free speech issue, nor is the JJ breast thing a free speech issue. And I refuse to lend credibility to stunts and call them free speech issues. -
Ebb Tide:
Much as I’m basically sympathetic to your point of view, there actually is a substantive difference here, in that the government, through the FCC, is actually getting involved with the superbowl halftime show. The reaction to the Dixie Chicks was purely done by private citizens. So, this comes closer to going into a danger area in that there is governmental involvement. Still, my take on it is that if there is going to be an FCC, this strikes me as exactly the type of thing it would do. If we’re buying into the idea that the laws about this from the 1930’s are valid, the airwaves are a “public trust” etc., then it’s perfectly legitimate for the FCC to monitor the content of those airwaves, particularly during the most-watched broadcast of the year. The true conservative/libertarian position would be to argue abolish the FCC, but as I’ve never seen Jeff argue for that, I don’t think it’s tenable for him to complain when it acts in exactly the way it was intended. -
Hell, Jeff, read your comments. I’d consider myself at least somewhat conservative, pretty libertarian and certainly a member of the Republican party, and I was saying it was a stupid thing from the first.
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Relax Jeff, you seem like you lost the Iowa caucus. First, please explain the correlation here:
“Do we really need hearings on Janet Jackson’s breast?”
And
“do you really want goverment regulation of what you can hear and then what you can say? ”
I think most people would just prefer some decency in public areas. I haven’t followed the Libertarian movement, but I don’t think they are in favor of public nudity at any time or any place. If so, then what about the outrage over CBS not airing the streaker, and moreover the outrage of the streaker getting assaulted by a player and then arrested by the Houston gestapo? -
CBS planned to broadcast “The Reagans”, but backed down in face of widespread (or narrow but targeted) pressure. Chilling effect! Censorship!
CBS broadcast the half-time show, at which Janet Jackson bared her breast to millions of viewers. The FCC was furious, and Janet has come under withering criticism. Chilling effect! Censorship!
CBS is one of America’s “official” networks. We’ve watched it from the beginning of television. Anything it broadcasts represents America, or so some people believe.
But its share of the total possible audience is falling rapidly, and new technologies are fracturing audiences into smaller, more discerning groups. Soon, there won’t be collective viewing experiences like the finale of M*A*S*H; just like movies in theaters or on DVD, we’ll watch them at our leisure.
What I’m saying is that the outrages and backlashes that greet controversial network content will soon go the way of the dinosaur — and will have a profound impact on what we discuss at the water cooler.
Richer, more varied choices will put a top to mob rule — TV will become a playlist, not a feed, just like music and movies. We will be happier, and talk radio, the news etc. will have less of a hook to hang their shouting front pages on… Maybe it will introduce peace and quiet.
BUT — there will be events like the Super Bowl forever. And at those events, just like at important civic events like a Presidential inauguration or a Veteran’s Day parade, decorum will matter and “anything goes” just won’t.
So while Janet Jackson won’t be able to wave her breasts around at national events, she will be able to do whatever she wants for her listeners and watchers.
So I’m not particularly upset. -
She wasn’t “nude.” She was wearing a pastie. That may have legal implications from the days of burlesque.
I didn’t watch the show, but I understand they were advertising “Erectile Dysfunction.” If so, there is a Double Standard problem going on here which is NOT acceptable! -
This libertarian/conservative isn’t screaming about it for two reasons. One, it’s the government’s bandwidth. There is no free press on radio or broadcast TV. Never has been. Never will be, as long as the government allocates the frequencies. It won’t bother me if the FCC decides to affirm its prohibition of boobs in the halftime show. It won’t bother me if the FCC decides to require boobs in the halftime show.
Two, there’s nothing on TV worth going to the barricades for. Every time I watch broadcast TV I see or hear something so offensively stupid that I have to leave the room, usually within the first five minutes.
My reaction to goverment regulation of what I can hear and what I can say on broadcast TV is somewhere between indifference and the very mildest approval. -
Plenty of libertarians are making plenty of noise about the pointlessness of hearings; go look at Reason magazine, for example.
Anyway, Jackson did something illegal in from of millions of people. Why should she NOT be investigated for this? If I went out on my street and waved my private parts at *one* kid, I’d be on the sex offender registry faster than you can say “Michael Jackson”. Janet Jackson flashes a boob at *millions* of kids and it’s “censorship” to bring up the possibility of an investigation?
Why — because she’s rich and famous? Feh. -
It wasn’t a “pastie” it was a nipple piercing.
(and no one watching CBS could tell that, you had to see the close-ups, on Drudge.) -
Jeff, even if you disagree with the FCC’s (threatened) actions, can’t you put yourself in the shoes of a VAST slice of America which is sick to its heart over the relentless, seemingly malicious coarsening of the public sphere? I find this to be an extremely unusual blind spot with you – perhaps influenced by your history as a television critic, I dunno. But you seem utterly gobsmacked that millions of Americans think that yes, this IS an immensely important issue not because of the thing in itself, but because of what it seemingly represents: the inexorable march of filth, vice, and sexual degeneracy into all aspects of our culture. You have no idea how many otherwise normal, easygoing parents I’ve met who are white-hot livid – so angry their fists clench – over this. They were promised family hour and got the Playboy channel instead. I understand that you weren’t offended in the slightest. I wasn’t either, really – intellectually I was dismayed, but I don’t particularly care. But that shouldn’t prevent either of us from acknowledging even the possibility that we might be distinctly in the minority over this.
I just don’t understand why you can’t even bring yourself to condemn the original action in the first place. Simulated rape and naked breasts may be nothing particularly noteworthy to those who have become jaded by it, but millions of other people. You can’t simply erase their viewpoints from the ledger because you personally believe they’re prudish.
And yes, the Libertarian approach would be to ban the FCC entirely. If it is going to exist in the first place, this is exactly what it’s there for – to enforce standards of decency on public airwaves. If you object to its doing so, you must object to the existence of the FCC as a whole (or at least that part of it which regulates content), not merely an isolated action. -
Cripes.
That should read: “Simulated rape and naked breasts may be nothing particularly noteworthy to those who have become jaded by it, but millions of other people are scandalized by it, and it’s presumptuous of you to a priori delegitimize their viewpoints.”
One of these days I’ll get all my thoughts across in one post. Just one post, I promise. -
“Additionally, unlike the Super Bowl, other programming is rated, giving parents guidance in their family-viewing choices.”
^^^ from Akron Ohio newspaper story I found on Google^^^
OOooops, so… um, it looks like the Super Bowl was NOT rated PG-13, it wasn’t rated at all. Maybe that is a loop hole in combating all the people who were upset, since it wasn’t actually rated, people merely ASSUMED it was family viewing.
I still feel the FCC has a right to make broadcasters comply with the rules, by not putting objectionable material on channels or times when people don’t want it on, they are enforcing rules that already exist. -
Ebb Tide, sporting events, just like news broadcasts, go unrated as a rule. I think it’s pretty clear why that would be so. But it stretches credulity to argue (and I’m not saying Jeff is, by the way) that simply because the Superbowl was unrated that meant that folks should have had an expectation of “anything goes.”
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Jeff,
The media can broadcast all the JJ breasts during prime time in front of parents and children they wan t. However, if they want to do this over the air waves, since the US Govt owns the frequencies, the media is screwed, and rightfully so. Go ahead CBS. Do it again and again. Now, you no longer own the frequency and it will be rented to someone else. But keep shoving those breasts in the faces of our children.
Say howdy to the bankruptcy judge for me. -
Paul: We almost agree. Actually, if CBS keeps doing it, it will lose advertising revenue and that would lead to bankruptcy. The marketplace and audience will take care of that; I trust them over government in this sphere.
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….it will lose advertising revenue and that would lead to bankruptcy.
It’s hard to boycott the sponsors when the sponsers are crying foul too. Like what sponsor isn’t coming back by necessity for the Super Bowl next year?
This issue of network abuse of prime time is more complicated. The FCC has a legitimate concern, and trust me, it is driven as much by feedback from an angry public. -
Jeff B,
So if it is unrated as a rule, is that like a de facto G rating? -
This is free speech–I have the right to say I don’t want to see that kind of porn–I don’t want Janet to flash kids to likely push her new album–likely has a song about her boobs or something. Anyways all is free in free speech land. A new website pushing a boycott of MTV had nearly 50,000 people sign up to support the effort after just 14 hours online. That’s free speech. It goes both ways.
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I dunno — I wouldn’t classify Janet Jackson’s exposed mammary as a “free speech” issue unless it started singing the rest of her song. Or later… “Janet Jackson’s spokesperson has a statement about the Incident at the Superbowl. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Janet Jackson’s breast has the floor.” In more ways than one.
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Jeff,
You’re too smart to commit the either or fallacy. The issue as Ebb Tide noted above is that this program was not the place for that content. We had 9 children in the room to watch the Super Bowl. The adults were outraged, the children stunned and as far as I’m concerned there’s hardly too much that you can fine CBS, the NFL, and VIACOM/MTV. They’re cultural pimps selling other people’s bodies to make money.
That aside, why is it that liberals are always for free speech in the media that consists of 4 letter words, naked bodies, perverse life styles, but against conservative newspapers and organizations on campuses? Why does the ACLU sue the Boy Scouts, prayer before football games, and the display of creches and the Ten Commandments? Is the liberal moral compass so awry that they would rather have JJ’s breasts displayed on camera rather than allow football players to pray that no one get hurt off camera? Which does more harm to society and civil discourse?
Also, I find the liberal usage of “free speech” not only surreal, but positively threatening to me as a Christian and a conservative. Can anyone possibly doubt that if it were up to liberals, Christians wouldn’t be able to pray in public and we’d have sex acts on TV?
The only consolation I draw from such an observation about many of my fellow citizens is that the majority of them don’t realize their own cognitive dissonance: thinking that they are fair-minded but in practice persecuting people of opposite opinions.
Good work overall, but that was a very stupid comment which casts doubt on your ability to make a judgment for people other than those who think exactly as you do, or to consider that perhaps behavior that you condone and find pleasing may be deeply offensive to others and, worse, harmful to children.
m. -
Jeff,
This isn’t a “marketplace will decide” issue when you put up the headline “Free speech?”. Please tell us where in the US constitution is it a protected right to show bare one’s body for entertainment purposes? Again, I point out that the streaker was arrested, but JJ was not. What’s the diff? Why aren’t you protecting the speech of the streaker or will you admit that stripping on public airways is not protected as free speech? -
I’m a student working on a term project about Powell’s 2/11 Testimony(Senate/House) on Indecency. Searching for a webcast of that hearing, but so far, can’t find it. FCC website said it’s not available through their website, but not that it doesn’t exist anywhere. Do you have ideas where I can get the video webcast of this hearing? Thx.
