FCC Indecency Ruling Struck Down 548
arbitraryaardvark writes "Reuters reports that the 2nd circuit has struck down the FCC's recent ruling on indecency, in a case brought by Fox. The court said the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was 'arbitrary and capricious' in setting a new standard for defining indecency. 'Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin angrily retorted that he found it "hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 'sh*t' and 'f@ck' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience ... If we can't restrict the use (of the two obscenities) during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want," Martin said in a statement.' No word yet on whether the agency will appeal.
The short version (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, one of the most amusing parts of the ruling was the court citing the fact that the words can't be that bad if George W Bush and Dick Cheney use them (to Tony Blair and Patrick Leahy respectively).
Bowdlerization (Score:2, Interesting)
No, he mentioned the words shit and fuck (see the article). It's ironic that someone felt the need to alter the (highly relevant) quotation in this supposedly uncensored medium.
Re:Sticks and Stones (Score:2, Interesting)
I hear this claim a lot, but it doesn't hold. Fuck, shit, damn, etc. are words that if used sparingly, express one's frustration better than a full sentence. If your claim were really true, what would be so special about these words that prevents them from having meaning like other words?
Re:So now we're afraid of swearing on the internet (Score:3, Interesting)
But I'd say "cat-you-cockatrice-kobold".
Then again, you can't say "cock", so that should be "cat-you-c@ckatrice-kobold"
And then we get "cat-you-cockactrice-you-cockatrice-kobold-ant-fa
Not censorship isn't about free speech -- it's about avoiding recursive pronounciation problems with censored nouns in the nethack/adom languages, as any geek should know.
Re:Bowdlerization (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:3, Interesting)
In short, the difference here is taking temporary powers the executive has acquired in the past and extended them to permanent status via creation of an artificial war (the "war" on terror is no more a war than the "war" on drugs) in a 1984-esque fashion.
The Republican party isn't conservative. (Score:5, Interesting)
They are no longer, and haven't been for some time, "conservative." In fact they seem to want to change quite a lot. They're probably best described as 'authoritarian,' particularly on the social side. And IMO, "social conservatives" aren't conservatives at all; the title is a complete misnomer. They're not trying to prevent some sort of drastic change to the social fabric, they're trying to induce a drastic change. They are, by many objective definitions, actually quite radical. (Of course, they tend not to think so -- they prefer to think of themselves as trying to take the country back to some 1950s idyll that never existed outside their own imaginations.)
The actual conservative wing of the Republican party died with Barry Goldwater; what remains has nothing to do with conservatism and everything to do with pushing a transformative agenda. It's just a different transformative agenda than what the more far-left elements of the Democratic party want.
Re:But Wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not necessarily so; though they often have such a moral, the character giving voice is usually compromised at the end of the episode and made to appear unreliable.
The real problem with this quasi-subversive dreck is that it tears everything you consider sane apart by the end of the episode, subverting not just government and morality, but the idea of that people can be governed, can be loved, and can embody right action. The real losers at the end of a Family Guy or Simpsons episode are the characters that try to adjust this status quo. The message to the viewer is: The world is unjust and insane, and the worst thing you could possibly do is try to fix it.
Re:Sticks and Stones (Score:3, Interesting)
The parent is simply saying "When you choose an ambiguous swearing word like "f*ck", you are either outright dumb or too lazy to think of something more appropriate. Neither reflects well on you".
Re:The FCC missed the point -- as usual (Score:3, Interesting)