DISQUS

Best college motto: "Knowledge Is Good" (Animal House)

Yeah, you've got a point James. Let's let all the shit in the world over the public airwaves. Hardcore porn in primetime. Anybody who doesn't like it doesn't have to own a tv. Or go to stores with tv's. Or own cars with radios. Or let your kids have friends with either. How about a little full frontal nudity on the nightly news? It's my fault for watching tv at all. "Get out more?" You're basically telling me that it's a parent's responsibility to shield their kids from anything they don't want them to see, but the only way to do that is to become Amish. Tell me, do you support having ANY decency standards on tv or radio at all? If so, what is that line?

But the real question is who should decide this question: five members of the FCC, or 300 million Americans with their remote controls?

I keep hearing this line, and it always rings hollow. We're talking broadcast TV here, not cable. I feel the same way about radio: they're both a pervasive presence, and to shoot back with "well don't watch it" is lazy and dishonest. Besides, not only was this primetime, it was a FOOTBALL game! I think the SuperBowl halftime show is a better example (I didn't think the MNF clip was bad at all), but in either case, viewers didn't even have the option to "decide with their remote controls." Viewers ostensibly DID decide with their remote controls to watch a sporting event, not an exhibition, and were still "treated" to the displays anyway. If viewers want to vote with their remote controls, they should be allowed to: on cable, where there has to be a conscious decision to invite it into your home. Ditto satellite radio. But unless you remove the tv from your home, or the radio from your car, then broadcasts over the airwaves are going to be pervasive, and should be subject to some sort of regulation.

Stop being silly with that list of "entitlements." I mean, seriously, why should the government provide you with a Netflix subscription when you don't have a DVD player on your list???

If people can vote drunk, then maybe Kerry has a chance after all!

This law strikes me as having the same effect as hate crime legislation (sans the think-crime effect, of course): adding punishment to an already punishable offense. To be charged under this law, you have to be caught trading copywritten material. Anybody punished as a result of this law would presumably have been punished anyway without it. So exactly HOW is this supposed to curb file trading?

"Metaphsically inviolate by others?" Someone who has upskirt photos taken of them without their consent is violated. How is that different from a peeping tom? Should it be legal to spy through someone's window?

You've got to be kidding me. You don't think it should be illegal to violate somebody's privacy for the sake of sexual pleasure? Are you saying that I can put a spy cam in the women's locker room at the gym and post the video on the internet as long as I blur out the victims' faces?

How could CAN SPAM possibly stand up to a court challenge? Wasn't the national do-not-call register ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it limited commercial speech but not political/non-profit speech?