Yeah... let's give Congress the right to define "content" and the power to "restrict". That's always worked out so well in the past.Concerned about an increase in violence on television, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday urged lawmakers to consider regulations that would restrict violent programs to late evening, when most children would not be watching.
The commission, in a long-awaited report, concluded that the program ratings system and technology intended to help parents block offensive programs — like the V-chip — had failed to protect children from being regularly exposed to violence.
As a result, the commission recommended that Congress move to limit violence on entertainment programs by giving the agency the authority to define such content and restrict it to late evening television.
“Clearly, steps should be taken to protect children from excessively violent programming,†said Kevin J. Martin, the agency’s chairman. “Some might say such action is long overdue. Parents need more tools to protect children from excessively violent programming.â€
Apparently it's V-chip and other tools fault for having 'failed to protect children from being exposed to violence' and not those children's parents. Also, parents seemingly need "more tools" to protect their own children from excessively violent programming (not sure what they mean by 'excessive', but that's not really the point.) Beacuse, ya'know, more tools is just what we need, in conjunction with federal rights over television content. Just what we needed. In my day, the only tool a parent needed to "restrict" something was a nice fresh switch from the tree out back. But those days seem to be long gone. Today when we have severe concerns over the size and scope of federal government, in all areas from war and defense to the FDA, EPA and law enforcement, apparently the solution to bad parenting is... increasing the size and scope of the federal government? Wait, what? Didn't that get us into two foreign wars in less than a decade? Didn't that get us tens of thousands of illegal federal wiretaps? Didn't that get us a monolithic presidential administration complete with file destruction, cronyism and intractable policies? Didn't that get us a brand-spanking new federal law enforcement organization with oversight over all aspects of "homeland" security?
In this case, I really, really, really hope I'm wrong about where this is going to take us.
