News of the Stoopid

The Redlight District of Cyberspace

Denver, CO[NotS]

Okay, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Years, actually. But it’s gotten even sillier recently, with all the new discussions and whatever.
Censorship.
In America.
What’s wrong with this picture…
Last time I looked into it, the United States of America were built on two basic principles. The first, of course, was tax evasion, which failed to last. The second was some lark about the freedom of expression. Something like this, I believe…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Okay, I’ll buy that. I have to wonder on a couple of points. Like that bit about making no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Wow. That’s good news, I think: I heard about a new one called the BranchDavidians that’s supposedly getting started up, or something…
But what I’m mostly concerned about right now is the one about making no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. And since I’m not sure whether News of the Stoopid could ever be viewed as a publication of the press, I have to worry more about the freedom of speech.
In theory, according to Amendment One here, I can say whatever the hell I like. I have that freedom. I think of something to say; I say it; and that’s the end of it. Easy. Or is it?
There’s the simple issue of slander. Not that there’s really any such thing. What most people think of as a lawsuit of slander is really a libel suit. The difference is that libel is a written defamation of character, and slander is the spoken word. Either way, though, there’s a certain limitation of the freedom of speech there, I’d say.
Threats. ‘I’m going to kill you’ is a threat, but it’s also a part of speech. I can say it; you can have me arrested for it. So that’s another grey area.
So aside from threats and slanders, what can I possibly do to get into trouble next? Legally, I can’t really think of anything. At least, nothing particularly constitutional. And yet.
So now we have the Carlin List. Okay. It’s a list of seven desperately vernacular words which can’t be spoken to anyone, according to the Federal Communications Commission. That is, though the constitution, created by the Agents of the People [those who were actually voted into office], allows us to say whatever the hell we like, we now have the FCC–an appointed committee who aren’t actually voted in by anyone at the public level–telling us what we can and can’t say. Great. We should be grateful that we can learn how to be brainless from the experts.
Granted, that technically only applies to speech, according to the constitution. There’s no technical guarantee that you have any freedom in written words, or images, or whatever. And here’s the irony: I can use whatever words I like in a novel, but I couldn’t read more than about five pages of Catcher in the Rye on the radio. Does that make any sense to anyone? Is it just me?
What’s really funny, to me, is that the Carlin list isn’t even composed of the seven words you might have expected. One of them is ‘cocksucker’. Think about that. Think about that, and think about the world today. According to the FCC, you can’t say ‘cocksucker’ on the airwaves. Fortunately, we don’t have to anymore; these days, we can just use the euphemism ‘Lewinsky’ in place of that disallowed term. So that’s good news.
Given enough thought, I’m sure we could come up with acceptible euphemisms for the other six words on the list as well.
And that’s great for radio, and for speech in general. Then there the ‘net. And that’s a source of great concern. In fact, the concern is great enough that we were bothered with the Communications Decency Act of 1996. You’ve probably heard of this one. It essentially translated into English as ‘stay the hell off the web’. Fortunately, it was dropped in favour of a less generalised concept the following year. This is President Clinton’s Official Address on the issue:

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that portions of the Communications Decency Act addressing indecency are not constitutional. We will study its opinion closely.
The administration remains firmly committed to the provisions — both in the CDA and elsewhere in the criminal code — that prohibit the transmission of obscenity over the Internet and via other media. Similarly, we remain committed to vigorous enforcement of federal prohibitions against transmission of child pornography over the Internet, and another prohibition that makes criminal the use of the Internet by pedophiles to entice children to engage in sexual activity.
The Internet is an incredibly powerful medium for freedom of speech and freedom of expression that should be protected. It is the biggest change in human communications since the printing press, and is being used to educate our children, promote electronic commerce, provide valuable health care information, and allow citizens to keep in touch with their government. But there is material on the Internet that is clearly inappropriate for children. As a parent, I understand the concerns that parents have about their children accessing inappropriate material.
If we are to make the Internet a powerful resource for learning, we must give parents and teachers the tools they need to make the Internet safe for children.
Therefore, in the coming days, I will convene industry leaders and groups representing teachers, parents and librarians. We can and must develop a solution for the Internet that is as powerful for the computer as the v-chip will be for the television, and that protects children in ways that are consistent with America’s free speech values. With the right technology and rating systems – we can help ensure that our children don’t end up in the red light districts of cyberspace.

It’s that last paragraph that really confuses me. How in hell do you protect children from the freedom of speech? What the hell does that mean? Children should be seen and not heard; they’re protected from the freedom of speech. Is that about right? Or is the idea here to censor what’s said to kids? And why? Are we planning to kill them off before they become adults? Is the idea here to make sure they live short lives and never encounter what the rest of us take for granted? You wanna protect kids from something? Protect them from politicians. I think that’s a healthier environment for kids: the make-believe land where there are no stuffed suits playing with people’s lives and making six figures a year just for being the Lewinskies of the world.
I think maybe it’s time to give Strom Thurmond the sack and find someone who isn’t vainly attempting to legislate morality. What, precisely, is this loser’s problem? What, that people are uploading jpegs of ugly sluts Lewinskying bowling leagues? Who really gives a damn. People upload jpegs of their cats, too. What if I were a feliphobe? Could I get a law into effect to lose all images of Fluffy? Or maybe we could lobby to have all images of the BMW Nazca deleted, since looking at one makes me feel kinda bad about driving a Formula. Is that why Strommy is so upset about pornography on the ‘net? Have you seen this guy? I mean, I’m not just giddy over the idea of pornography on the ‘net, because I deal with enough of it IRL. Looking at Thurmond, I have to assume he’s got other reasons for hating it that much.
Still, while words are theoretically protected by Amendment One, images technically aren’t. But that’s easily remedied. After all, what’s a picture worth? Any idiot will tell you that a picture is worth a thousand words. Words make up speech. Speech is free. Therefore, images are an alternate type of speech. QED.
And if that’s too far out a concept, here’s a better one, since we’re on the ‘net: an image is a number of kilobytes, and kilobytes are thousands of bytes, and bytes a little sequences of zeros and ones, and zeros and ones are characters in words. And if that’s supposed to be something audible, listen closely to a modem sometime. That weird noise is a form of speech, spoken in a binary language. Are there any further questions.
Of course, there are those–possibly a senator from South Carolina or two–who won’t be able to understand such newfangled thingamajiggers as that. Fine. In that case, I’ve got a better idea.
We’ve got the VChip on the drawing table. Wonderful. I don’t know what VChip stands for–presumably the Vulgarity Chip, or something. Whatever. I have a new proposal. I propose the invention of the SChip. The Stoopidity Chip. The Stoopidity Chip would block out all stoopidity before it ever reached us. That includes everything from the politicians: if they don’t want us to use certain words, sorry, that was blocked; if they don’t want us seeing certain things, sorry, that was blocked. And let’s not forget the parents’ groups which got all this started in the first place. Where but in America could you find a group of lemmings with enough free time to ban a Venom figure that electronically said ‘I’m gonna eat your brain’, but not enough free time to notice what they’re buying their kids for Christmas. Think about it: if a kid is old enough to walk into ToysRUs and buy a Venom figure, or a copy of PrimalRage, or whatever it is, without Mom’s help, then what in hell are we pretending these kids don’t already know about? Last time I went to ToysRUs, located there between the Freeway of Smouldering Carnage and the International House of Profanity at Interstate Two-twenty-five and Mississippi, a twelve-year-old wearing a FUCT TShirt asked me if I had any rock. Good thing Mom got the world’s coolest Venom figure ripped off the market, apparently because she was still bitter that it had eaten her brain.
Sure there are some unpleasant things out there. I’m not going to pretend that everything I encounter is just ginchy. But I’m also not real interested in the fictional world which Strommy and Tipper Gore and Rush Limbaugh seem to inhabit. I saw Demolition Man, and that’s not really my idea of eutopia. No quero Taco Bell, and damnit, don’t try to tell me what I can and can’t say in the Land of the Free.
That’s just my opinion; [CENSORED].

–Gremlin

← Homophobia News of the Intellectually Challenged →