Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Is This A Symptom Of GOP Overreach, Or Two Legislators’ Semi-Private Fantasy?
WASHINGTON -- A pair of powerful lawmakers want to put pay TV services under the same indecency regulations as over-the-air broadcasters, contending that viewers can't tell the difference between the services.Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Commerce Committee, said Tuesday that it wasn't fair for broadcasters to come under different rules than cable and satellite TV services, especially because the raciest programs appear on cable and satellite television.
"The problem is most viewers don't differentiate between over-the-air and cable," Stevens said during the National Association of Broadcasters' annual state leadership conference. "Cable is a greater violator in the indecency arena."
Stevens brushed aside constitutional questions about whether the government has the right to regulate indecent speech on pay TV services.
"I think that's wrong," he said. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air because of the combination of the two."
Stevens is absolutely correct on one point: the federal government does have the same power to deal with cable as with broadcast entertainment: NONE. The First Amendment explicitly guarantees freedom of expression without regard to subject matter, and nowhere in the Constitution was any exception made for the medium of television, or the subject of sex.
Recently there's been some return among the citizenry to approval for and endorsement of that antiquated notion, modesty. But Americans do not want to be told what they may and may not watch or hear in the privacy of their homes. If the Republican Party majorities in Congress ratify Stevens's and Barton's attempt to tell us, Americans will turn against the Republican Party in a flash -- including many who never have and never will tune to the Playboy Channel.
If the GOP's managers are smart, they'll rein these two in before they can do real harm. Given the positive direction of so many other recent developments, this would be a terrible time for the "Stupid Party" to demonstrate its qualifications for that sobriquet.
