Supreme Court To Rule On TV Censorship 426
Khashishi writes "The LA times and the Associated Press report that the FCC v. Fox Television Stations case is being heard in the Supreme Court. The FCC policy would impose a heavy fine on use of 'indecent' words on broadcast television, which Fox and others are claiming is a violation of free speech. The case was appealed after being ruled in Fox's favor in a federal appeals court in New York. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia support the FCC policy of censorship." Here's a transcript (PDF) of the oral arguments.
Re:Words (Score:1, Informative)
Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
Re:A monument to free speech (Score:4, Informative)
A video on this very monument (I'm not intentionally karma whoring, I promise):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kV0xRcC1aA [youtube.com]
Not right. (Score:2, Informative)
Or... (Score:5, Informative)
or
2. People that believe in social and/or financial conservativism (like me) can also appreciate off color humor (I own every season of Family Guy that's available on DVD).
or
3. Fox news and Fox entertainment division cater to different markets that they thought were being under served by their competitors
or
4. Some combination of the above 3.
Re:Not right. (Score:3, Informative)
The networks have no way of preventing these sorts of occasional, often one-time outbursts from occurring.
Sure they do: it's called a delay. It's standard practice for radio. If they're anticipating a bunch of potty-mouths at a live broadcast of a comedy show, hey, just block the time as TVAO and turn the delay off. If it's a live broadcast of The Lion King on Ice, block it as TVG and turn the delay on in case a naked streaker runs across the ice shouting "Ba ba booey."
Re:Unreliable Scalia (Score:2, Informative)
I noticed one example of this in an interview with him. Near the beginning of the interview, discussing the 2000 election, he said that the Supreme Court really "had" to intervene, because the election was making the United States the laughingstock of the world. In discussing a death penalty case later in the same interview he said that some of the amicus curae briefs had mentioned how Europeans thought that the death penalty in the US was barbaric. but he had nothing but contempt for the justices who were swayed by that argument, since United States shouldn't pay any attention to what Europeans say.
What's ironically amusing about the answer was that not only was he inconsistent, he got the law exactly backwards. There's no constitutional basis for paying attention to the opinion of the rest of the world in deciding whether to intervene in an election. On the other hand, the death penalty case is arguably the one place where the constitution does allow, and perhaps even require, considering the opinion of the world is, since the crux of the matter is to decide what constitutes "cruel and unusual."
Re:What everybody else does (Score:3, Informative)
This is exactly what the US does, and what the FCC is advocating. Fox is arguing for the right to use "fleeting expletives" (isolated use of "fuck" and "shit", usually during live broadcasts) during a pre-10pm window that the FCC says is off limits. Post-10pm, broadcast television can say anything it wants, although it generally steers clear of "fuck" and "shit" at all times of the day.
For the record, I think the FCC's guidelines on when you can use expletives is arbitrary and capricious ("Saving Private Ryan"/news broadcasts OK, Scorcese documentary NOT OK), therefore Fox should win. I also think it's silly to let the FCC regulate broadcast television when it doesn't regulate cable ("invades your home" vs. "you subscribe"), as the distinction between accessing NBC and accessing Comedy Central from a standard US household setup is viturally zero.
Because he wants to follow the Constitution? (Score:3, Informative)
Scalia thinks otherwise. He thinks his role is to follow the Constitution. So much so, that the Federalist Society considers him a hero [csmonitor.com].
If that makes him insane, I want more crazies on SCOTUS.
Re:2 Elephants in the Room (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I would like to know why any word is considered vulgar. Context is the only thing that gives meaning to the human language. You can say the same thing in two different contexts, and one way will really hurt someone's feelings, and the other hurts no one. I partially blame this way of looking at words for the lack of tact in much of society.
I know some of the reasons that some words were originally problematic, but since their subtly shaded meanings have been lost in time, even in those cases it no longer makes any sort of sense.
Even the meta words have lost all shade of meaning, curse word, vulgarity, and expletive are different things (or were at one time).
For example, to say that someone was damned was to say they were literally so horrible that even God could never forgive them. That's a strong statement in a pious Christian society. Naturally, that makes the phrase "God damn you" a curse. Literally (amongst believers) a hope that God will find your immortal soul irredeemable and that you will spend eternity in hell.
To not give a damn was quite a different thing. Tinkers in the day had the same stereotype of emitting a constant stream of curses, expletives, and vulgarities that a sailor has today. Thus their curses were exceedingly common and of little value. So to not give a tinker's damn was just saying you felt the situation didn't have even that minimal value to you. It wasn't a curse. The willingness to utter a vulgar word to make the point did convey additional strength to the statement.
Mere vulgarities were simply less imaginative word choices that said more about the speaker than the person spoken to, implying poor breeding. However, in the right context, you could be implying that the person you're speaking to hasn't the breeding to understand a better word choice or that they simply do not warrant more refined language. Naturally, in some social circles that's quite offensive. Either way, you wouldn't want your children to say those words as it would reflect poorly on them and their parents.
Oddly enough, when people show great offense at words without even knowing why their use would be offensive they reveal mostly their own ignorance and "lack of breeding".
At the same time, constant use of expletives really weakens them. If you drop the F bomb every other sentence, how can you express a more extreme displeasure?
Personally, I think expletives in general tend to be over-used but at the same time I can't agree with censorship or claiming some special harm to children. Censure and watching something else are much more appropriate.
Re:Unreliable Scalia (Score:3, Informative)
Also look at DC v. Heller (2008), where he effectively writes the "well-regulated" portion of militia clause out of the Second Amendment, ruling that that only refers to all male citizens capable of common defense and reads self-defense against criminals (and not just defense of state or country) into the Second Amendment. He also goes to considerable lengths to pull in additional interpretive documents, like parallel state constitutional clauses, to interpret the text instead of sticking to the textualism he's so famous for.
Whether you support, politically, his interpretation of the Second Amendment or not, you'll have to admit that Heller is an exception non-Originalist decision and a betrayal of Scalia's judicial philosophy for his political philosophy.
Re:Conservative moralists vs. Fox?!? (Score:3, Informative)
"the Supreme Court's leading conservatives made clear they would like to uphold an official crackdown on the use of expletives during daytime and early evening hours."
Reading this brought to mine Thomas Jefferson's warning:
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.
"The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
Clearly the conservatives on the court are NOT acting as judges interpreting law, but as private citizens trying to push their own agenda, and using their power to superimpose their religious views onto all 300,000,000 residents ("They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps"). This is just wrong.
Re:Conservative moralists vs. Fox?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's another Jefferson quote that I like, mainly because he must have been peering into a crystal ball, because he so accurately predicted the future:
"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But the Supreme Court has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114
Examples:
- the SCOTUS decision to censor television.
- the SCOTUS decision to allow Congress to ban the growing of wheat or corn by private citizens (unless they first ask Congress' permission).
- the SCOTUS decision to allow random car stops & checks by Homeland Security or Immigration Cops.
- the SCOTUS decision to allow searches of home without a search warrant.
- and on and on.