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21 July 2004 
FCC Narrows US-Canada Censorship Gap
In my last post I said Americans would never stand for a government agency that vets each new broadcast channel to ensure its content fits into a cultural master plan. While I do still think that's true, an Ayn Rand Institute editorial on the FCC by Robert Garmong makes it clear that free speech is in real danger in the home of the first amendment. Particularly scary is this bit:
Commissioner Michael Copps has vowed that he will not be satisfied until "I see us send one or two . . . . cases for license revocation."Garmong rightly calls for the abolition of the agency. Unfortunately, given the current political climate, I'm pretty sure that's as unlikely to happen as the disbanding of the CRTC here.
Read the whole editorial at ARI's ultra-spiffy new website (it even works with my beloved Firefox now - yay!).
11:52 PM |
15 July 2004
Censors Rule Tractable Canadians
It's not the fact that Al Jazeera has been approved for broadcast in Canada by the CRTC that bugs me. It's the very idea of these periodic decrees from the mandarins in Ottawa who pretend to know, better than broadcasters or audiences, the precise mixture of programming that's best for us. (Just take a peek at the "The Commission’s approach" section of the linked press release.) Americans have too much independence and self-respect to stand for such an offensive combination of nanny state and free speech violation. Canadians, on the other hand, run in fear from the only political party that even hints at reforming the commission and restoring some of our freedom to run own own lives. And only a pathetic ripple of interest is aroused by the government agency's shutting down of a radio station.
With that depressing background, you have to wonder whether any opposition to the status quo has a chance of rising above the white noise of mass submission and conformity, let alone a chance of being taken seriously. Regardless, I can't let pass the opportunity to make some kind of protest. And an opportunity is available right now in the form of feedback on the application to allow Fox News onto Canadian airwaves. If you're an atypical Canadian, too, consider sending your own comments to the commission by following the instructions in the "Procedures for filing comments" section at the end of the document. (See also these helpful suggestions.) If nothing else, it'll make you feel better for a little while.
10:20 PM |
2 July 2004
Sublimate This
Most same-sex marriage opponents — as much as they want to prevent government protection, support, and/or sanction of gay relationships — will tell you that they don't have any political objection to gay people pursuing whatever consensual romantic/sexual relationships they want. I don't read her often, but I have no reason to doubt that Eve Tushnet is any different in this respect. And yet, even knowing she wouldn't give these opinions the force of law, I can't help being disturbed to read this on her blog:
... I was asked what I would tell a gay couple to do. And I hear this a lot: You're very clear on what they can't do, but what should they do?The first bit of advice may be useful to women, a few of whom do seem to have the ability to slide around on the Kinsey scale. Other than them and a handful of confused teenagers, no one else is well-served by the "maybe it's just a phase" line (not even its most frequent employer, the mother in denial). It just isn't true that "a lot of people find out that they are less homosexual than they thought." If there's some evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it. Until shown otherwise, I'll believe what every reputable study and my own experience tell me: sexual orientation for the vast majority of people is deeply ingrained and practically immutable....
First: A lot of people find out that they are less homosexual than they thought. They find someone of the opposite sex and marry and have babies. This happens about a hundred times more than we are allowed to acknowledge these days. And it happens to people who only a few years before their marriages would have considered themselves thoroughly homosexual. It is worth keeping this fact in mind.
Second, too: ... We hear virtually nothing about this today, but historically one of the basic ways of dealing with same-sex attraction has been sublimation — not repression, sublimation. The three most common forms of gold into which this base metal was transformed have been deep abiding friendship, great art, and personal sanctity. All three of these options are still open to everyone.
The second point is the more alarming one. There are so many angles to attack it from (like how wonderfully well it's worked for Catholic priests), but I'll confine myself to the one that makes me angriest. Romantic love (along with a productive career) is one of the two most profoundly rewarding endeavors in life. To counsel someone to suppress, repress, or sublimate — call it what you like, the result is the same — his desire to pursue it is obscene. Just the thought of what misery can and does result from taking that advice is sickening. What, aside from blind religious belief, could ever make someone think that anything good could come from it?
I suppose I should ignore opinions like this as irrelevant to the same-sex marriage debate. Still, it's hard to engage fully in rational argument with people who you know are so far out of touch with reality.
12:55 PM |