From Cynopsis this morning (before my coffee)
The cost of saying *&$@!# or doing anything remotely similar, just went up by about a gazillion percent. Yesterday President Bush made it official -- the FCC now has the authority to levy fines of $325,000 per violation of the broadcast indecency rules. And how does the FCC define indecent? If "in context [it] depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." As far as indecent speech - it has be when the little ones are in bed, determined by the FCC as after 10p and before 6a.
(There goes my TV series idea: Boner & Colostomy: Hollywood Private Dicks)
Denis, you guys may have your problems up north, but we have our fair share down here in the Southland too. Like Commisions that operate in direct violation to our constitution. Let's take this one to court, guys!
1 comment:
I don't think that our dear president has any grasp over the constitution or the bill of rights.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (Doesn't mean you can yell F*#$ on the public airwaves or yell fire in a crowded theatre). But I do believe it should be left up to individual communities to decide their decency standards.
We have a president that uses the word "Democracy" to describe our form of government. We are not a democracy!!!! In the beginning America was a constitutional republic. Then we degenerated into a democracy. Let me explain:
It would be an understatement to say that the Founding Fathers hated democracy. They warned against it vehemently and relentlessly. They equated it – properly – with mob rule.
Someone far wittier than I once remarked that, in a democracy, two wolves and a sheep take a majority vote on what’s for supper, while in a constitutional republic, the wolves are forbidden on voting on what’s for supper and the sheep are well armed. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution even contains the word “democracy.” In a democracy, the majority rules and individual rights are irrelevant. If the majority votes that half of your income be confiscated before you can even by groceries, oh well. If the majority votes that you must educate your children in a certain location because you live on a certain side of an arbitrary line, oh well. If the majority votes that you must be disarmed and defenseless against violent criminals, oh well. If the majority votes that your religion be designated an “outlaw religion” and that you and all other practitioners be committed to mental institutions, oh flipping well.
(And this is what our political, economic and media elites want to export across the globe?)
The Founders knew democracy would inevitably degenerate into despotism. There is a great line in Mel Gibson’s move The Patriot about there being no difference between one tyrant 3000 miles away and 3000 tyrants one mile away. Tyranny is tyranny, whether it is imposed by one person or by millions. Voting does not guarantee freedom. Voting for evil does not legitimize evil.
The United States Constitution goes to great lengths to thwart the process of democracy.
Our federal government has three coequal branches – executive, legislative, judicial – and an intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that, when one branch oversteps its bounds, another branch can say “We don’t think so!”
(If you think that federal courts have no accountability, you are wrong. Article 3, Section 2 authorizes congress to limit the scope of this jurisdiction. Instead of whining and weeping and wailing about a rogue judiciary, congress needs to start exercising this power.)
Federalism, embodied in the Tenth Amendment, forbids Uncle Sam from engaging in any activity not expressly authorized by the Constitution. These powers, which are few and defined, are found in Article 1, Section 8.
(The FEDGOV started chipping away at this one in 1861. During the 1930s it became a dead letter. Our current “conservative” president and congress show absolutely no interest in reviving it.)
The Electoral College is another means of thwarting democracy. Suppose that a candidate for president wins, say, California by a million votes and loses every other state by ten votes. He loses the Electoral College by 483-55. The Founders would not stand for the principle of the majority uber alles. They feared – prophetically? – an elected despotism. Again, just because people vote for something does not legitimize it.
(In the first presidential election, only ten of the 13 states participated. Only five held any kind of popular election for president. It just wasn't a big deal. The president could do next to nothing anyway.)
Until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1916, US senators were elected by state legislatures. A senate elected by state legislatures would serve as a “brake” on the runaway potential of a popularly elected house. The house was the only segment of the federal government that was democratically elected.
The Constitution contains other defenses against runaway majority rule.
The Second Amendment states:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The ultimate purpose of the Second Amendment is to guarantee that the people retain the ability resist their government. This right to bear arms, as most americans know, is slowly being taken away from us.
This two party system of ours is broke.
As Benjamin Franklin said:
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
and outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Post a Comment