This is BEYOND DISGUSTING! (1 Viewer)

[Jacinto]

"Stop shoving your moral values down my throat." ^ This. I  basically have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to that.

Maybe it's just me, but I have a very hard time seeing a difference between that statement and the OP's equivalent sentiment of "Stop shoving your immoral values down my throat." Why can't a reasonable discussion of decency standards take place between adults without one side being painted as lazy, filthy degenerates and the other side as lazy, shitty parents? Does it offend your zero tolerance policy that Hustler isn't available at the supermarket checkout aisle? If not, then you don't have a zero tolerance policy for people shoving their moral values down your throat. The fact is, nobody in this thread has suggested that questionable content should not exist, they've merely questioned why potentially offensive or disturbing content should be so readily available. I have very fond memories of sitting on the couch with my parents and brother when we were young to watch things like Little House on the Prairie, or CHiPs, or the Cosby Show. I work from home, my wife and I take and pick up our kids together almost every day from the neighborhood elementary school, I volunteer in their school several times a month, I coach their soccer teams, I make it to every performance, I play Lego or Wii or make believe adventures every day, yet Stan would suggest above that I am a lazy parent that does not take care of his family because I'd like to watch TV in the first hour of prime time without worrying about what my kids will see. Seriously? Why is that desire so outrageous? As it is now, we watch one television show as a family every week -- The Biggest Loser. That's it. And even at that, we can't do it without seeing several ads for the next SVU about child rape, or the next Grimm with some freaky imagery that'll give a six-year-old nightmares. It's like taking your kids to see Tangled and being treated to previews for Se7en and Pulp Fiction. I am not some ultra-conservative political activist. I'm just a reasonable adult that would like to see better standards for free, over-the-air broadcast television. Why does that bring out some people's venom? Certainly we're still capable of civil discourse, right?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Does it offend your zero tolerance policy that you aren't allowed to murder anyone?

 

[DaveHof]

I am not some ultra-conservative political activist. I'm just a reasonable adult that would like to see better standards for free, over-the-air broadcast television. Why does that bring out some people's venom? Certainly we're still capable of civil discourse, right?

Because we now live in a world of political correctness and moral equivalency. "Right and "wrong" are antiquated concepts. And whatever standards of quality, civility and decency that haven't been shattered by cable television have been destroyed by an Internet that offers free and instant access to, literally, anything you want to see. And there is no going back.

 

[TravisR]

Because we now live in a world of political correctness and moral equivalency.

I know you'll keep ignoring it but just for fun, I'll point out again that you keep posting as if people in this thread are cheering this on and that is clearly not the case. The vast majority of people have said that they would not have watched this but at the same time, they feel that NBC shouldn't be told what they can or can't air. You can try to give yourself the moral highground by twisting this discussion into the area of morals or political correctness but those topics have nothing to do with this. If anything, the fact that NBC didn't air the episode should be disprove your claims that people today are morally bankrupt. It wasn't fear of the PTC or FCC fines that made NBC not air it, it didn't air it because the feedback that they received from the public discouraged them. Had the feedback been positive, NBC would have aired it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I am not some ultra-conservative political activist. I'm just a reasonable adult that would like to see better standards for free, over-the-air broadcast television. Why does that bring out some people's venom? Certainly we're still capable of civil discourse, right?

But the kink is: who decides whose standards are applied? Rightly or wrongly, the United States has long had a tradition enshrined in law that the people can be trusted to make their own moral judgments and should not have government's moral judgments imposed on them. There is no contradiction between this and accepting legal limits on actual violent behavior, like murder. My rights end where yours begin. You have a right to be legally protected from bodily harm. You don't have a right to be protected from depictions of bodily harm. The current FCC exemption to normal free speech rules exists only because the public airwaves are a limited, finite resource.

 

[Hugh Jackes]

Chipping in for the first time. I don't think anyone is asking for gofernment action, but rather for the broadcasters to have some small amount of decency and taste. But, if there are stockholders that need to be satisfied and if NBC (or any other broadcast network) sees their competition making a buck by pushing the envelope, NBC (or any other network, especially if they are in the kind of deep struggles that NBC is) will push the envelope further. Standards of decency devolve. Daniel Patrick Moynihan brilliantly called it "defining deviancy downward." As each line get crossed, it is erased. I don't know what the solution is. Again, I don't want the government involved; even if it were constitutional (in the USA) for the government to establish standards of decency, every 4 years those standards could whipsaw and my standards may not agree with the standards from the next administration, be they on the left or on the right. One can argue that the FCC may be beyond what is constitutionally permissable, but most people are willing to accept their limits on broadcast media, and even there, everyone tries to push the envelope. NYPD Blue's bare butts are still being argued at the FCC. So, my $.02 seem particularyy useless. I don't want government or any activist group (even the well-intentioned ones) defingin what can be on the broadcast nets. But I do long for a simpler time when moms and dads and kids could enjoy an evening of TV together. But, my glasses aren't so rose-colored that I can't remember that most family fare was pretty insipid for the adults. So, there is a problem with no acceptable soution beyond parents' involvement. But, we can dream. I seem to have rambled and greed with everyone. Wow.

 

[Jacinto]

But the kink is: who decides whose standards are applied? Rightly or wrongly, the United States has long had a tradition enshrined in law that the people can be trusted to make their own moral judgments and should not have government's moral judgments imposed on them.

That's the rub indeed, Adam. I think very few people would say that broadcast TV should have zero decency standards, and that absolutely anything goes, anytime, on any channel. That said, there is a line, spoken, or not, that most people have that they feel is not appropriate to cross on broadcast TV, but it may be vastly different for everybody. So how to define where that line should be is extremely difficult. I don't have the answers; I'm merely trying to engage in thoughtful discussion on the matter.

Chipping in for the first time. I don't think anyone is asking for gofernment action, but rather for the broadcasters to have some small amount of decency and taste. But, if there are stockholders that need to be satisfied and if NBC (or any other broadcast network) sees their competition making a buck by pushing the envelope, NBC (or any other network, especially if they are in the kind of deep struggles that NBC is) will push the envelope further. Standards of decency devolve. Daniel Patrick Moynihan brilliantly called it "defining deviancy downward." As each line get crossed, it is erased. I don't know what the solution is. Again, I don't want the government involved; even if it were constitutional (in the USA) for the government to establish standards of decency, every 4 years those standards could whipsaw and my standards may not agree with the standards from the next administration, be they on the left or on the right. One can argue that the FCC may be beyond what is constitutionally permissable, but most people are willing to accept their limits on broadcast media, and even there, everyone tries to push the envelope. NYPD Blue's bare butts are still being argued at the FCC. So, my $.02 seem particularyy useless. I don't want government or any activist group (even the well-intentioned ones) defingin what can be on the broadcast nets. But I do long for a simpler time when moms and dads and kids could enjoy an evening of TV together. But, my glasses aren't so rose-colored that I can't remember that most family fare was pretty insipid for the adults. So, there is a problem with no acceptable soution beyond parents' involvement. But, we can dream.

Hugh, I pretty much agree with everything you wrote, from not wanting the government to legislate such things, to the nostalgia for an evening in front of the TV as a family. It's a nice dream.

 

[DaveHof]

Because we now live in a world of political correctness and moral equivalency.

I know you'll keep ignoring it but just for fun, I'll point out again that you keep posting as if people in this thread are cheering this on and that is clearly not the case.

Did you even read my post? I did no such thing. The only point I was making was that there was a time, and if you are over 35 you probably remember it, when no television network would have allowed the material described in the original post to air. And that standard, for better or worse, no longer exists. I also understand that, in the earlier eras of television that many of us treasure and continue to enjoy through DVD, there were no gay people. There were sometimes no African-American people. There would be casual racist expressions and dialects against Asians and Indians and other groups played for humor. Sometimes progress is a good thing. But in our admirable zeal to be more inclusive and less judgmental, we have now created a pop culture where nothing is really off-limits.

 

[TravisR]

Did you even read my post? I did no such thing.

Yes, I've read all your posts and, like I've repeatedly said, you make it sound as if people here want to watch this and you keep brining up today's morals, etc, when it really doesn't have a place in this discussion other than to cloud the issue. Bringing that into the discussion doesn't help your case anyway because the show didn't air and that's because people, who according to you feel that "'right' and 'wrong' are antiquated concepts", didn't want it to air.

 

[JonZ]

I did respond to the comments above, but after thinking about it.. really dont want to reply to this thread again.


So nevermind