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Next, they come after the internet…
: I’ve warned you that after the national nannies attack broadcast, they’ll come after cable … and then the internet.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the aging fool who vows to censor cable, now hints that he’ll go after our medium.
But in all honesty, it’s hard to tell whether he’s targeting the internet… or whether he’s just an ignorant, confused, old fool. He says:
We ought to find some way to say, here is a block of channels, whether it
That’s pretty scary. this poor old fellow is obviously not in command of his subject matter, and ‘participles’ (of, by, for, at, etc.) cannot possibly be what he meant to say. No more than meaning to say he really wants to censor anyone’s private telephone conversations.
What is propping this relic up so that he can continue to lead the charge against public speech? you wonder. Could it have anything to do with his being front and center in the effort to open up Arctic wilderness (Anwar) to gas companies?
More respect to Sen. Sarbanes who is retiring because if he were re-elected next time, he would be in the Senate in his 80’s, and didn’t want to be past his own ability to make these important decisions.
Time to bury this old fossil.
Jeff,
I have read your blog for a while now, and you frequently mention that you are a Christian (well, a Congregationalist anyway). You bring it up all the time, so it seems to be important to the points you make.
Irrespective of the wisdom of the senator’s position and proposals, how is it that you desire to watch and listen to a lot of profanity and content that is hardly uplifting? If being a Christian means anything, does it not mean resisting the baser things and striving to follow Christ’s example? Even when we fail, the effort to be spiritual rather than worldly is central to Christianity.
I guess I don’t understand the fascination with Stern, profane language, and sexually adolescent content when conjoined with frequent professions of Christian faith.
This is a free country, and you are entitled to your worldly interests as well as to any faith of your choosing. But perhaps frequent references to being a Christian while displaying a greater interest in worldly temptations than service to God and his children is an inconsistency worthy of a period of reflection.
Jeff, admit it. You’re just trying to protect your right to have phone sex!
Jeff, regarding censoring the Internet under FCC rules, are you familiar with the NO IT’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL Supreme Court ruling, Reno v ACLU?
It’s well worth reading.
“Held: The CDA’s “indecent transmission” and “patently offensive display” provisions abridge “the freedom of speech” protected by the First Amendment. ”
Mallory: To quote Tom Lehrer, “Dirty books are fun.”
Jeff: Maybe the senator has a thing about dangling participles?
Mallory, perhaps you should look upon your own works for a while.
—
They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last…
—
Mallory:
You probably think that words we don’t usually ‘say in polite society’ are forbidden by the Bible, or you wouldn’t call Jeff’s Christianity into question because of them. I’m not sure what you mean by worldly temptations, since Jeff isn’t talking about wandering around the red light district looking for action that I have seen. Do you mean listening to people who use rough language, like some of the ‘christian’ posters on this site?
Taking “the name of the Lord they God in vain” is as close as I know that the Bible comes to talking about language, and my Bible Studies prof. was pretty clear that most interpreters of the original Aramaic can only ascribe that commandment to the actual use of God’s name to swear to something that isn’t true. As in testimony in court, specifically.
Please let us know if there is another basis for seeing Jeff as not being Christian. I’m sure all of us would be interested.
Allan K:
There was probably an English teacher in Stevens’ past who was really hot.
Is a porn-free area of the internet such a scary thing? I still don’t get the hysteria about this stuff. No one is going to take your cuss words and porn away. It’s like defending partial-birth abortion to the death on the basis that it will help your larger mission to protect Roe v. Wade: it won’t. Frankly it makes your case weaker if you won’t acknowledge that problems exist on both sides of the argument.
This is a how question, not a why question. You can retain access to all the deviance and prurience you want, but those who wish to avoid it should be able to do so without being told. We’ve changed from a world where you had to make an effort to expose yourself to porn and profanity to one where you have to make an effort not to. Is that a victory for anyone? We’ll all have to learn to live with some sort of compromise in the end, but all I read here is “Shut up and deal with it.” It’s like the Daily Kos on the war.
This guy Stevens is a ninny, but he can’t, and won’t, outlaw obscenity. He and the others like him are really talking about limiting underage access and providing for those who wish to avoid certain things. I’m not a prude, and I’m as supportive of free speech as anyone here, but by being so absolutist you’ve effectively put me on the defensive for respecting the desires of those who don’t want what you want. Labelling CDs didn’t hurt free speech, and neither will the kinds of things that have any chance of actually happening to TV and the internet.
Relax. No matter what happens, you’ll still get to see naked people and hear cursing. Forever.
Undertoad, you are sharp, you found the invisible stones you imagined Mallory was casting.
Ruth, I read Mallory’s comment a little differently. Sounded to me like that person thought a sincere Christian might want to either avoid profanity or indulge at will, but then not constantly profess their faith as some kind of justification. It could seem inconsistent depending on how important your faith is to you, and how you interpret it.
Terribly repressive, must be because of the Patriot Act or something. Maybe Mallory is really Ashcroft, isn’t he retired now?
Uncle Mickey:
“Is a porn-free area of the internet such a scary thing?”
No, although I don’t know how a “porn-free area” differs from what we have today. Most sites don’t have it and won’t advertise it. But the question, as you point out, is how do we do this? If the government does this, I don’t see any way short of some form of censorship, or at a minimum, some form of control and oversight. Neither is acceptable to me.
I don’t have a problem with ratings as a general concept, but, again, I don’t know how that would work on the internet. Also, ratings are a convenient way to know that what I’m about to see might be something I’m interested in. If a teen goes looking for objectionable material, wouldn’t a big “Mature” rating on a website’s front page work more as a green light? Isn’t that why there are such products as NetNanny and the like? And that’s the free-market taking care of the problem.
That being said, I agree that Stevens won’t get what he wants. I’m more frustrated that he’s wasting everyone’s time than I am that he’s wrong.
It’s called a “filter”, get one. They’re cheap, easy, and work pretty well. Although if you use Websense any number of good blogs will be filtered (Althouse, Captain’s Quaters, Econopundit and others) for some strange reason. I discovered this through my employer, which has a filter.
Wow! Jeff dropped the F-bomb! More than once! Usually he censors himself on that.
Indeed, this is all about who draws the lines and where. But, the bottom line is, any effort to censor the Internet is obviously a joke. We’re not China. We don’t have some sort of giant firewall around the country with gates at certain junctures that can be open or closed. It’s the Internet, stupid, it can’t be censored, it’s already grown beyond that (at least in most of the civilized world). I would almost like to see some government agency try. It would be fodder for endless blog entries.
Why should we be surprised that Senator Stevens doesn’t give a care about ACLU Vs. Reno concerning controlling content on the Internet? This is the same US Senator that refuses to recognize the various Supreme Court decisions that ruled that cable cannot be regulated like traditional broadcast signals can. He still thinks that Congress has the right to control content anywhere and everywhere they wish.
Senator Stevens is guilty of contempt of past Supreme Court decisions, and he is guilty of contempt for the First Amendment. And he has the power to pick the next FCC commissioner, which means the FCC will once again do whatever it is he tells them to do.
Don’t say it can’t happen, folks, because IT IS happening right in front of us!
Oh my goodness…he sounds like a revamped Donald Wildman. Whoop!! …. I had better not say that….he might call for boycotts… against blogger, movable type, bloglines, yahoo, google, maybe even microsoft. That’s a suggestion….boycott microsoft on the internet. Or should i have said boycott microsoft from the internet. Oh well,… or oh hell…. what will a u.s. senator with too much time on his or her hands do next? Say “if Strom Thurman won the presidential race things would have been better off?” “Pity, pity, pity…..
Really need a Mandatory Retirement Age for the Senate. What a bunch of fossilized gummers.
Do you suppose a blogging staffer by now has presented all the reflections here to Sen. Stevens by now? And that he has no idea what they mean?
Cecil:
I re-read Mallory’s post several times, and still don’t see him as accusing Jeff of using his christianity as a *justification* of using obscenity, or of appreciating Stern. If you would elucidate?
Funny, and kind of sad, that we continue to elect people to “public service” who are either unwilling or unable to learn how to use a remote control.