Sunday, June 21, 2009

And the nanny-state mentality seeps deeper...

...or so it would seem, reading this comment to this story:

Are we any better off after giving in to the so-called "freedom of speech" argument for this genre (Deep Throat, etc. -- ed.) of movies?
I think we have desensitized ourselves to this and violence. Even TV shows at anytime of the day or night have loads of adult material and we just keeping watching and waiting for the next big "no no" that will be allowed.

Even if this is true, the only thing I can say to it is, so what? Better that it be that way than us having government agencies backed up with lethal force telling us what we can and can't watch or listen to -- and what we can and can't put on record or video. Even what this story detailed was absolutely outrageous. FBI agents seizing copies of Deep Throat? Really? I shudder to think what they'd have been seizing had they been doing the same thing with heavy metal music in the 1980s at the behest of the PMRC. (You should have seen my reaction the first time I heard the WASP song "Animal"...) Yeah, a lot of those films and records are way the hell out there to say to the least. But it should be up to the individual -- not the government -- to decide whether to watch or listen. I could almost understand why some might ask if we're better off, but the bedrock principle of freedom of speech is tolerating things that might offend you. It's pretty frightening to think the average American doesn't understand or agree with that.