From: kdenning@portal.hq.videocart.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: Cable TV Consumer Protection Act of 1992
Summary: Objectionable material 
Organization: VideOcart Inc.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:47:40 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.161b08@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org> jack@myamiga.mixcom.com (Jack Decker) writes:

>This is one reason we get into trouble when we try to make laws by consensus.
>We cannot ever arrive at a true consensus, and in this case, we can't even get
>a majority opinion because people's standards are all over the place.  That is
>one reason that our society was much better off when we more or less agreed to
>use an external standard, e.g. Biblical morality (before anyone argues this,
>please remember that the original settlers in our country were mostly religious
>people, even if they didn't always agree with each other).  

I will point out that this is not an external standard; it is a standard of
consensus just like the rest.   The only difference here is that you have a
large number of groups with large amounts of money behind them.  HOWEVER, it
is still a "standard of consensus" -- the consensus is just over a
particular set of moral and religious beliefs.

> > However, if I have my way, that is if we adopt my standard for the
> > community at large then it is permissible to show sex acts on TV.  Does
> > this then mean that I have imposed my standards on you?  No, because you
> > are perfectly free to NOT watch the sex acts on TV.  You are clearly not
> > denied anything; you don't want to watch sex acts on TV, and you are
> > perfectly able to fulfill that desire.  The only way that it could be
> > said that I imposed my standards on you would be if I somehow forced you
> > to watch the sex acts that you didn't want to see.
>
>Except that I am denied the right (I hate to use the word "right" here, since
>there's no real "right" to have a TV conferred by the law) to have a television
>set in my home and still be free of objectionable material.  

No, you're not.  You can be free of this by several technological means:

1)	You can purchase a TV which allows you to "de-select" some channels
	in the scan order.  Now, only a >deliberate< act to select those
	channels will cause you to see the objectionable material.

2)	The service provider can provide a "type of service" encoding flag
	on broadcast material.  This allows content-decisions to be made
	>within< a channel.  You could then purchase a set or converter box
	which can be programmed to >refuse to receive< any channel which has 
	content on it that does not carry the encoding.

3)	You can refuse to watch TV at all.

I like solution (2) best because it does not force the providers to code
their signals, but gives the consumer the option to either receive or not
the uncoded material.  This then becomes the free market at work -- if a
broadcaster chooses to not code his or her material, and enough people don't
choose to be able to view "unrated" material, they won't be in business
long.

>objectionable material.  Never mind that you could ignore the rating bits and
>make your own decisions if you wanted to, some people seem to object to giving
>any people a tool that would help them avoid objectionable material.

Not I.

>And, also, in some small way I lose my "right" to personal safety (that would
>be much more the case if I were a female), because even if I don't allow such
>material in my home, those who view it will get a skewered idea of how others
>(especially women) should be treated.  If you watch a lot of violence, you
>become desensitized to violence.  If you watch graphic sex acts over and over,
>you may come to think that women are just sex objects.

Now THIS I object to as a reason to censor.

We as a society have grown too damn accustomed to blaming other events for
our own problmes.  The truth of the matter is that you can easily rectify
this -- make people personally responsible for their own actions which
>directly< harm others, and leave the rest well enough alone.  Today it is
popular to say "The Devil made me do it" or "I saw someone blow that guys
head off, so I thought I'd try it".  Nonsense.  If there is a difference
between man and beast, it is that we are given a brain and if we choose to
we have the power to use it.

BTW, I would hazard a guess that many people >experience< more sex acts
personally than they ever could see on TV.

>because others have watched this stuff, though, and you still have the problem
>that the objectionable material is available in your own home, unless you do
>without cable (and, the way things are going, without network television).  

You have the EM waves from satellite transmission coming into your home
every single day containing this "objectionable" material.  It is your
choice to decode it or not into visual and audio imagery.

--
Karl Denninger 		Inet:  kdenning@hq.videocart.com
VideOcart Inc.		Voice: (312) 987-5022