Look upon this face. This is the face that will steal your liberty every single time. Do you know why? I’ll tell you.
Your freedom is harmful to children, therefore it must be curtailed. The ideal nanny state would reduce us all to this crying child, helpless to do anything without government help or better yet, permission.
About a year and a half ago, Colorado passed a law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in such areas as employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, and so on. While I am opposed to anti-discrimination laws on principle and believe them to be relics, the response from the social conservatives on the right was to try and scare people by saying that their children would be preyed upon by cross-dressers in public bathrooms. Listen to this ad by Focus on the Family. Try not to laugh, because although it is comical and absurd, a lot of people fall for shit like this.
Here’s another spot by the lovely kooks at the National Organization for Marriage, the lovely bunch who brought you the hysterical “Gathering Storm” ads.
Notice how they use children to make parents afraid, scared that they will learn that gay people exist, that they’re even your neighbors and relatives, with the underlying, unstated threat being that acceptance of same-sex marriage will make your kids gay.
Lest you think I am a one-trick pony with this gay issue, look to other nanny-state laws that were put into effect initially to protect children, but were soon extended to all of us. Seat belt laws are a prime example. Used to be that if someone under 12 was in a car they had to be buckled in, but now we all have to wear them regardless. It doesn’t matter that seat belts can kill by trapping someone in a burning car, strangling a motorist or passenger in a wreck, or holding them firmly to a seat that careens into a tree whereas an impact without a seat belt may have knocked them aside, the government is going to force you for your alleged own good to wear a seat belt, and it all started with the grand, noble idea of protecting the children.
Video games are a favorite target of censors who claim that they make children violent, or turn them into lethargic slugs who shun fresh air and grow obese. Yes, it’s the video game, not the lack of parenting, that makes a child stay indoors on beautiful days. It’s Grand Theft Auto that makes a kid steal a car or shoot someone. Has to be, because the parents in these cases are all in utter denial that their special little zygote would do something so terrible. It’s the same kind of denial that allowed Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to stockpile guns and grenades and pipe bombs and pull off the Columbine Massacre. Not my kids, not my fault, must be Marilyn Manson’s fault.
The most damaging instance, however, came following the halftime performance at the 2004 Super Bowl, when Justin Timberlake grabbed Janet Jackson’s blouse and tugged, exposing for a mere half a second, one saggy, flappy brown breast that had a gold star over the nipple. You would have thought that she was masturbating with a crucifix in front of Catholic school kindergartners by the outrage, but in reality it was so fast that few people even saw it. Cameras cut away and Janet quickly covered up her, ah, “wardrobe malfunction”. If I remember correctly, this was tame compared to some of the other performances where raunchy bump and grinds were being performed by Nelly and the suggestive lyrics coming from him and Sean Combs (I have no idea what the fuck he calls himself these days). In the aftermath of this event, the FCC increased their fines for indecency tenfold and began going after broadcasters in television and radio for things that wouldn’t have merited a second listen or look. Howard Stern was chased off of terrestrial radio, and many morning “shock jocks” either lost their gigs or were forced to water down their shows to the point where they weren’t funny or engaging anymore. The panic also had a chill factor on what networks and stations were willing to allow, and many programming decisions were now put in the hands of worrywart lawyers and middle management whose job was to insulate the company from fines and possible lawsuits. The television networks are dying dinosaurs, giant carcasses being strangled by regulation, while cable thrives. Terrestrial radio is a dead medium for all but political talk on the AM waves, satellite radio is ascendant. The internet is blowing them all away, it’s truly the last frontier of free speech.
If you think the government and the FCC don’t want to stick their noses into cable, satellite, and internet, think again. Bet you dollars to donuts the rationale they will use is “protecting the children”, because apparently, being a parent is hard and we need our government to help us out.
Think long and hard before you offer up everyone’s liberty as a sacrifice to protect your children. Those of us who are over 30 grew up with very little of these restrictions and protections and we’re just fine. You’re simply being groomed to accept more and more government intrusion into your everyday life, and they’re getting at you by preying on the fear that parents naturally have for their offspring. Don’t fall for it, whether it comes from a liberal or a conservative, the government does not have your best interests at heart. The leviathan is only after power and can never have enough.
~Matti Frost
Tags: broadcasting, censorship, FCC, freedom, liberty, parenting
More crap has been foisted against our liberties under the guise of “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” than in any other way.
When politicians say “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”, people should say “you think of your children, I’ll think of mine, thank you.”
Michael W. Dean
Kudos, Matt! I am an adult and want to live like one!
So tired of everyone begging and pleading for “the children”. They are not fragile pieces of china. Yet, this country treats them as such. I am still very angry over the “wardrobe malfunction” incident. It happened so quickly that I missed it. Yet, somehow, the children’s eyes began to bleed from what they had seen. I have never understood how the Super Bowl is a “family” show. Ok, I might be a little stereotypical here but I was under the impression the most common viewer is a man and not a man with his wife and children. Why else would the commercials be so appealing to the male demograph? Bikini-wearing models serving beer to its drooling male patrons is clearly for the dads and not the kiddies.
I am also tired how people think everything should be for their kids. In 2006 I went to Vegas for vacation. There were so many families there that I thought I was in Disneyland. This is Las Vegas, NV not Orlando, FL. I was pissed at how often I would see six-year old kids running around the casino. Many times I would witness security guards collecting kids and returning them to their parents. The parents, of course, had the nerve to act surprised when they were told their children can not be on the casino floor.
A couple years ago, I received a phone call from some woman wanting to talk to me about tv shows. I thought that it was going to be a survey. Usually, I don’t even answer the phone when I see “private number” on the caller id but I guess I was bored. Anyway, I was ready to say which programs I liked and disliked but I was prepared for the first question. She wanted to know which shows I felt were harmful to the children so we could make tv more child-friendly by eliminating them. I told her that sounds like censorship to me and that I do not condone it. She quickly hung up on me.
By the way, new parents need to be told to get a fucking babysitter if you want to go to a movie. Don’t drag your tired and cranky two-year old baby to the theater. You chose to have the kid, not me. I paid for an over-priced ticket and should not have to put up with a crying child because you didn’t want to wait six months later for the dvd release.
Finally, we need to realize that “think of the children” is crap that is spewed by BOTH the left and the right. The left wants to nanny while the right wants to please jesus.
I’ve made every effort I possibly could to raise my children so that no one else will HAVE TO think of them. So far that’s working out quite nicely for everyone involved. My children are no one’s responsibility except for myself and my wife. We made ‘em, we’ll raise ‘em, and if we don’t like what’s on TV, we’ll turn it off. Actually, we already did that years ago. No one should have to sacrifice their rights in order to protect my kids, that’s my job, and I fully accepted that responsibility when they were born.
Justin
PS – Don’t hate children, it’s not their fault. Hate their doting, moronic, idiotic, over emotional, unrealistic, stupid, . . . You get the idea . . . so called parents. They’re the ones raising these recalcitrant, spoiled, disrespectful little monsters.
Well, it’s more a hatred of children being used, because if you disagree with some nanny-state bullshit law then they turn around and say, well, you must hate children. So I’ve taken to saying “You’re darned tootin’, I hate kids!” That’s what they want to hear and they won’t listen to reason, so, I hate their kids. And them.
Uhh, where did the video go?
Our society thrives on treating us like babies, and I’m sick of it. Everything has to be “ok for kids”…why? Why do we have to water down R-rated movies and pretty much ban NC-17 movies from being shown? I mean, the movies are made for adults. Why do they feel the need to protect grown adults from depictions of sex and violence? I could have any kind of sex I want, and I could walk into a recruiters office, sign some papers and be off cutting down towelheads in a couple months, and I’m perfectly alright with any of that…yet someone out there still thinks I can’t handle seeing these things depicted accurately in a movie.
Fuck “kid-friendly”, how about some adult friendly places? It seems like the only places now that are truly adult space is places involving alcohol, porn, and of course strip joints. I’m sick of uptight parents who act like they are “protecting” thier kids when, in reality they are just too sqeamish to answer questions about life. I’m not going to give some speil on some hippie shit about nudism and whatnot but really, why so uptight about nudity? It’s not like we don’t have all that stuff under our clothes. Kids breastfeed, but when they get older it’s somehow bad for them to see bare breasts? Whats up with that?
Again, not saying we should all shed our clothes but I do think that people make too big a deal out of nudity.
I totally agree Matt, LOL, for that matter, I hate kids too! Except my own, I just love them little monsters unless they do something insolent, then I blame it on their mother.
All joking aside, OK not ALL joking but most of it, the world is not, and shouldn’t be, a “kid friendly” place. Many “parents” would accuse my wife and I of being complacent, but our house has never been “child proof”, just as my parents’ house wasn’t when I was growing up. If you drank Drano, you died, and if you were that freakin’ stupid you probably deserved to, LOL. Even if you survived you weren’t likely to do something dumb like that a second time.
Fortunately neither myself nor my kids drank Drano, but we did get in trouble for breaking things, making messes, burned ourselves by touching something hot, tumbled down the stairs a time or two, all the stuff that every kid has to do in order to learn common sense. As a result, my kids don’t think the world owes them a living, and they don’t believe that they should be, nor do they need to be, nannied by the government or anyone else. They’re capable of operating autonomously without a constant shepherd’s hand to keep them out of trouble. I spent a lot of time worrying about how my kids would turn out when they were growing up, wondering if I were doing right by them, but as I look at them now as teenagers I’m happy to say that I’m proud of them. Having to think for themselves hasn’t hurt them one iota IMHO.
On a side note, I do think that broadcast media should be held to at least some standard of decency, but I draw the line at anything broadcast over the airwaves for free. If a person is paying for it, then I say anything goes. If you don’t want your kids to see sex and violence and nudity, then don’t pay good money to have it piped into your home, it’s just that simple. In large part it’s due to the fact that I don’t watch TV, but I’ve never had cable and probably never will, even once my kids leave home. There’s plenty of free mind rot to be had should I feel the need to lower my IQ any farther.
Justin