**** Yeah!!

Post Reply New Topic

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2260380/entry/2/?gt1=38001


"The FCC's indecency policy, which bars fleeting profanities and other indecency from the nation's airwaves, has been overturned by a federal court. In a surprise ruling, a three-judge panel in New York struck down the rule, calling it "unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here." The ban has been on the books since 2003, when Bono dropped an F-bomb during a live broadcast of the Golden Globes awards, and currently allows networks to be fined up to $35 million for each offense. That forces broadcasters to "choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose," today's ruling notes. "Indeed, there is ample evidence in the record that the FCC's indecency policy has chilled protected speech." Broadcasters welcomed the ruling, although a Fox spokesman said the network would to "continue to strive to eliminate expletives from live broadcasts.""

Now if we could just get rid of the concept of banning words in general then maybe we could focus on more important matters.

Good. The FCC isn't there to raise your children. Honestly it's pretty much completely obsolete. We don't have to worry about there being too many radio signals now.

Well, time to hear sentences which are half expletives or more, now that broadcasting companies can get away with use of waste words to make up for thoughtful dialog. Meh, I like the Die Hard series anyway.

The Censor sits
Somewhere between
The scenes to be seen
And the television sets
With his scissor purpose poised
Watching the human stuff
That will sizzle through
The magic wires
And light up
Like welding shops
The ho-hum rooms of America
And with a kindergarten
Arts and crafts concept
Of moral responsibility
Snips out
The rough talk
The unpopular opinion
Or anything with teeth
And renders
A pattern of ideas
Full of holes
A doily
For your mind

Foul language may have some artistic usage in a movie if done properly, such as when there is a cause for frustration saying something in anger. But if the foul language is used every other word, it might as well be fluffy marshmallows for all the benefit it is to a movie's quality. For example here is my paragraph with "fluffy marshmallows" interposed throughout.

Hooray! Now, if only we could make it mandatory.

When I was in the army every second word wasfuck. It has very little to do with education or sophistication but a great deal to do with the general dissatisfaction of being trapped in inevitably stupid and unavoidable miseries. I am not stupid nor uneducated and I have a pretty wide vocabulary and am, in general, quite articulate. I find the disposition to avoid certain words unnecessarily idiotic and subjugated to moronic social mores. There are times I choose to be linguistically offensive and various words are quite useful in those situations. In general I find people who are afraid to use or are offended by any word to be idiotic and over-inhibited and somewhat untrustworthy.

One very important point about expletives is that the reason they have any power at all is that they are disruptive and socially impolite. That is their essence and their basic utility and to remove powerful expletives from language is to castrate it.