The Big-Brother Thing
Reuters (in a story by Jeremy Pelofsky) reports on the latest efforts of Republicans to "protect" something from something else:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two top U.S. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday said they want to apply broadcast decency standards to cable television and satellite television and radio to protect children from explicit content.
This reminds me that, in addition to various other irrational obsessions one can find in the minds of reactionaries, there is this hysterical posture about "decency". Can anyone explain this to me? Since decency advocates are stereotypically the biggest secret embibers of indecent material, is this really some sort of uncontrollable Dr-Strangelove syndrome at work? Recall that I, myself, tend to like indecent things quite a bit, and I tend to believe, along with quite a few other people, that the power switch is one of the best guards against indecency that modern-day parents can find: sort of an abstinence-only approach to broadcast naughtiness.
Oh, and can we move on past that do-it-for-the-children rhetoric? Does anyone really believe that their primary purpose is to "protect the children"?
I have to go along with John Aravosis of AMERICAblog on this when he says:
The Republican's just can't talk enough about sex. They are obsessed. Their obsession is dangerous. […]
This Republican Big Brother thing gets creepier every day.