America; What Happened to Personal Responsibility?

In case you've been paying attention to other things, please let me inform you that your rights as a cable television customer, and more importantly, a free American, are about to be threatened. Once again, those self-righteous idiots who want to tell you what is good and proper for you, are on the warpath. Led by Dubya's torch and pitchfork carrying, broadcast nazi, Kevin J. Martin (current commissioner of the FCC), they are on a crusade to force cable televison stations to get the "filth" off of pay TV.

Uhh...what part of "pay TV" don't you morons get? What happened to the freedom to make your own choices? Doesn't anyone get that they are disgusing fascism as morality and censorship as conscience. Nobody begrudged the concept that there had to be more stringent standards for broadcast television. Thus the beauty of subscriber-based television came to light. It was up to you, the consumer, to decide what you wanted to watch.

Martin and his tele-nazis want to change that. They want to exercise their desire to limit, restrict, and censor anything that any American chooses to view. Whether you want to view it or not. Martin is rallying support among far-right christian activist groups and other censorship-supportive watchdog groups to force the subscriber-based media outlets to crack down on questionable (in their eyes) content.

Just for the record and to establish what kind of fascist we are dealing with here, when Martin spoke in front the senate committee on Commerce, Science and Transporation, last month on this subject, he was quoted as saying in response to a question about his statement:

"I think the industry needs to do more to address parents' concerns," Martin said. "You can always turn the television off and … block the channels you don't want. But why should you have to?"

He says that subscriber media outlets do not offer a more defined divsion in their packaging and they should break up the available packages to offer more "family friendly" grouping for concerned parents.

Okay, Commissioner Martin; why should they have to? Nearly all cable and satellite programming providers give the consumer access to block access any channels that they find offensive or not in their children's best interests. Furthermore, any individual can tailor their personal choices as to tune only the channels they wish to view. In addition, the "V-Chip" has been available in American TVs for years. However, all of these methods for regulating what appears on your TV have one thing in common; they all require an initiative by the consumer to get up off of their lazy asses and set up the system for themselves.

But again, Commissioner Martin asks, "But why should you have to?"

Thus the title of this particular post; Personal Responsibility.

Say it with me.

But then again, these are the same breed of mentally stunted and closed-minded people who would rather ban video games with violent content, rather than follow the ESRB's already established guidelines for content and just tell their overly-spoiled children, "No, you can't have that video game because you're too young to play it."

This reminds me of an incident some years ago. I was at my local video store, looking for something that my wife and I could watch for a long holiday weekend. While scanning the shelves, I saw a kid pick up a copy of "Cool World" and hand it to his mom, saying that he wanted to see that. The mother just casually added it to the pile of movies that she was picking up for her family, and moved on.

I walked up to the woman and said; "You don't want to let your son see that movie."
She looked at me as if I had three heads and asked me what I was talking about. I continued, "That movie is not for children. While there is animation in it, it is not a kids film. In fact, it is a rather adult movie."
She still gave me that "deer in the headlights" look.
"It's just a cartoon. He'll be fine."
Surburban ignorance knows no bounds. As she seemed at least a bit older than I was, I tried again.
Ma'am, do you remember "Fritz the Cat?"
"Oh. Ohhhh...Tommy, you can't watch this one. I'll get you another one."
Tommy began to throw the biggest temper tantrum in the world. She quickly went to the anime isle and picked up another choice film; "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend."

It was a long day, but she finally got the picture.

American parents are slowly being weaned from the task of controlling their own reality. More and more people are becoming too willing to allow the government to dictate what they see, read, watch, eat, and more. We are becoming cattle...easily led, guided, fed, watered, and eventually, slaughtered.

Our personal freedoms are being eroded and the FCC's move to force their decency standards on cable and satellite televison is the first step.

But then again, I could be crazy. This could be a product of Dementia or Dynamism. Unlike the FCC, I am willing to let the choice be yours.