Last night on The Daily Show, I saw that Zell Miller was a guest. I was prepared for insanity, and insanity is what I got.
According to Zell, indecency is one of the biggest problems in this country today. He cited rap music lyrics in particular as so horrible to kids, and I am sure he also was referring to Hollywood as a sort of Sodom and Gomorra, and how steroids is so horrible. In response, Jon Stewart said that indecency is in the eye of the beholder - namely, isn't the bankruptcy bill also indecent because it kicks sick people when they are down?
Stewart did not have to go so far as to say that. Mr. Miller, I guess your brain is a bit muddled, so I will refresh your recollection about a seminal Supreme Court case which dealt with indecency: Cohen v. California.
That case deals with indecency, namely, someone wearing a "fuck the draft" jacket. The case declared that "one man's vulgarity is another man's lyric." It gave three big reasons as to why indecency cannot be criminalized:
1) Vulgarity is in the eye of the beholder (back to the "lyric" quote)
2) Speech serves a "dual communicative function" - it's an emotive force, and sometimes, there is no other way to describe how you are feeling.
3) The power to prohibit particular words can and will be exploited to regulate disfavored ideas.
That last reasoning is really what is at play here, Mr. Miller, and you know it. For instance, Dick Cheney says "fuck you" and "go fuck yourself" to Democrats and to a New York Times reporter, and none of the "indecency" folks seemed to care in the slightest. Talk about selective prosecution! If John Kerry or a Democrat said that, the press would have eaten that person alive! That is the whole POINT about the law that Zell Miller wants to get rid of. Point of fact is, Republicans curse and have sex and engage in vulgarity just as much as Democrats. In fact, over the Republican National Convention, the New York Press reported on Republicans having fun at sex clubs. Is that "decent" for Zell?
Then there's lying. I think Al Franken's book says it best: "Lies and the Lying Liars who say them." I am assuming Zell would say lies are indecent. Well how about the whopper that went on in Texas, where legislators flat out lied out of their asses when they said that gay people are 11 times more likely to abuse children than straight couples, which is why a bill was passed outlawing homosexuals from having foster kids? Guess what? The numbers were a big, fat, whopping, lie. Not even slightly true! Is that "decent," to lie?
What is indecency, Zell? He listed steroid use by athletes as horribly indecent. Yet, let's call that horror at so-called "indecency" what it really is: a call for the government to regulate the bodies of not only athletes, but everyday citizens. It has become rather acceptable to have drug tests nowadays. When I was a marketing intern for the Ford Motor Company a few years ago - a marketing intern - not an intern in charge of driving cars - I had to submit to a drug test. A friend of mine had to get a drug test in order to get employment with an investment bank. I ask why the government encourages employers to examine our urine. Is that not "indecent"?
Freedom means freedom to decide for myself what to say and what to watch, and how to act. That sort of freedom is what this very country was founded on! And by the way, our founding fathers encountered vulgarity of their own! Ribald political cartoons were prevalent at the time - such as showing George Washington as an ass. This concept of blissful past and a Sodom and Gomorra present is simply untrue. That is why I love the TV show Deadwood - it shows the Wild West as it really was - curses and all!
The attack on indecency is just another way to censor those who advocate so-called "untraditional family values," such as gay rights. However, even traditional family values are untraditional! Moore v. City of Cleveland is a great Supreme Court case dealing with so-called "traditional family vales."
The problem is that no one can really define what indecency is, least of all Zell "I am challenging Chris Matthews to a duel" Miller. Indecency is in the eye of the beholder, because the actions we all take are just assumed to be decent.
So why on earth would I want some lunatic, pre-heart attack diaper dandy like Zell Miller regulating what I can and cannot watch? He would let me listen to Dick Cheney's tirade of expletives, but rap music=bad. He would let me associate with so-called "upstanding Republicans," as long as we all pretend we don't know that most of them are as "perverted" as the rest of us. Gay people are bad, so abusive parents are better than gay people. I forgot about how the same "decent" guy said that LBJ was "a Southerner who sold his birthright for a mess of dark pottage" after he enacted the Civil Rights Act. Where on earth did these "values" come from?
How on earth is any of this "decent"? And why on earth are we letting these hooligans decide what is decent and what is indecent? I am a voting member of the public - my voice counts, dammit!