The â??fleeting expletivesâ?? decision

April 28, 2009
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This morning, the Supreme Court said in another of its 5-4 decisions that the federal government has authority to regulate occasional instances of profanity on broadcast television and radio, called â??fleeting expletives.â??

But the high court also ordered a federal appeals court to determine if the Federal Communications Commissionâ??s policy of penalizing â??indecentâ?? speech violates free speech protections of the First Amendment.

Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC â?? all of which have TV stations in Indianapolis â?? had joined in fighting the commissionâ??s stance.

What do you think? How far should the government go in regulating the airwaves?
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  • The fleeting expletives don't bother me.

    As the father of a three and a five year old, the thing that bothers me is the graphically violent movie advertisements. I can't watch a Sunday afternoon Colts game on TV without exposing my children to all forms of murder and mayhem that are far more disturbing to me and my children than a fleeting a--hole.

    That needs to stop!
  • Joe, I couldn't agree more! When that Last House on the Left movie came out, they were showing horrible images of implied sexual violence before 8pm, and nobody cared. And that's just one example. People are numb to violence but will grab a torch and pitchfork if someone says sh*t. I'm a lot more concerned about getting the channel changed before my kid sees the horror we call entertainment than I am her hearing some random expletive on the local wacky morning show. But American culture isn't exactly known for having either its priorities in order or truly decent values, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised we'll take up time in the Supreme Court to quibble over the b-word. Yeesh. What a bunch of a-holes! :)
  • Guns, bombs, explosions, killings, murder, glorification of crime, gore... all of that is just gravy on Primetime TV.

    Nudity and curse words... that gets the endless wrath of the FCC.

    And that reversal of logic is insane.

    Why is violence so accepted and woven in to TV, but bad words (oh no!) and images of even the most attractive people in the flesh (yikes!) can't be tolerated.

    It's misguided priorities and heaping piles of ignorance. Bare skin never killed anyone and a curse word cannot be nearly as bad as seeing the image of somebody being shot. Being desensitized to Skin and Words can't be nearly as harmful as being desensitized to Crime, Guns, and Murder. But that's Primetime TV for you and your Gov't hard at work (not so much).

    Why are people so shocked by a naked person and a word? The human body (ignoring 75% of the waistline-bulging American Population) is natural to see. And a word is just a word. But seeing some dude shot and killed and a building exploding while cracking down on Nudity and Words is just flat out crazy.

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  1. these guys only skill was to steal from other's hard earned savings.

  2. I voted for him last time and it WAS the LAST time. He needed to to quit running around the world on useless trips, and giving our $$ away to sports teams. I'll vote for anyone but Ballard next time. BTW...we gave $40M to the Pacers and cannot even watch the games on TV.

  3. For the people concerned about traffic, you should know that mixed-use projects (like the one being proposed), actually allows for and encourages more people to walk and bike, thereby mitigating additional automobile traffic. If we continue to design and build suburban-type projects in the City (i.e. automobile-oriented projects), we are not offering anything different from what the suburbs offer, which means we will continue to lose jobs/people to the suburbs. The reason Broad Ripple is somewhat successful today is that people want to live in a place that offers the convenience of being able to walk/bike to restaurants, retail, nightlife, the Monon, etc. Why would you not want to support a project that is complimentary to what already makes the area desirable? The real argument with this project should be its lack-luster design and layout, not the density.

  4. It is unfortunate that there is a perception that celebrities validate an event. The Indy 500 stands on its own, especially for those coming in from out of town. It was always so disturbing to read the gushing descriptions of Ashley Judd threaded throughout the local coverage. Very happy that era is at an end.

  5. Good ole' Obamacare. Thanks liberals and those who didn't bother to vote.

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