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The New Broadcast Profanity: 'Redskins'?
Townhall,com ^ | October 18, 2013 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 10/18/2013 5:45:01 AM PDT by Kaslin

Conservatives begin by revering tradition; liberals often by trashing it. In fact, it doesn't bother liberals that something they found acceptable one day is declared -- by them -- repugnant the next. It's taken only a few days of liberal media agitation for MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell to announce that Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is "the George Wallace of the NFL."

Snyder saying he'll never change his team's name has somehow become historically comparable to George Wallace's "segregation forever." It's suddenly so offensive, apparently, that the leftists who have gone to court to make the airwaves safe for every profanity imaginable, in the name of free speech and tolerance, are now petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to ban "the R-word" from television.

They're urging the broadcasters to "self-regulate" the team name out of existence. But why would you petition the FCC to urge the media to self-regulate? It's nonsensical -- unless self-regulation is merely a first step. The anti-censorship left is just getting started.

Reed Hundt, an FCC chairman under Bill Clinton, led a number of former FCC officials in a letter to FCC acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (the daughter of Rep. Jim Clyburn) asking the FCC to use its muscle to force Snyder to surrender. They demand Clyburn apply the agency's "unquestioned authority to convene an open forum with broadcasters to determine whether they should self-regulate their use of the term 'XXXskins' when referring to the Washington D.C football team."

The word "Redskins" is so apparently offensive they've made the team sound like a porn film. Here is the insanity: They'd be less offended -- and in some circles of the libertine community, openly supportive -- if Snyder renamed the team the "Foreskins."

These liberals are not reflecting a nation's outrage. They are attempting to create it.

Only 11 percent of Americans (and 10 percent of Native-Americans) are offended by "Redskins," so Hundt and Co. are left with the weak argument of championing American apathy: "63 percent of those surveyed either would approve of broadcast TV stations not using the current name or do not care if broadcasters stop using that name. Only 37 percent would disapprove of broadcasters if they no longer used the name. Several media leaders, including Peter King (Sports Illustrated) and Mike Wise (Washington Post), have already recognized this shift and agreed to abandon use of the term 'XXXskins.'"

Like most liberals, these letter writers claim their own "momentum" means everything, so they cite President Obama's recent comments suggesting maybe a name change is in order. The letter went out before that pompous NBC hack Bob Costas ruined a halftime show by being a good liberal and declaring that, after 40 years of sportscasting, he too, suddenly decided "Redskins" cannot possibly be an honor of someone's heritage, only a "slur."

It really gets comical when these supporters of glorious free expression incidents, like Paris Hilton cursing at awards shows, have the unmitigated gall to pull out the "moral strength" card.

"The image of Washington is prominent throughout this country and the world," they plead. "To continue arguing that the name 'XXXskin' is an honor to Native Americans requires willful ignorance, which casts enormous doubt on team leadership. It is inevitable that this will make an already difficult situation in the nation's capital worse. As all of us have learned in international diplomacy, strength is essential to leadership, and that includes moral strength."

By contrast, Hundt has favored the "free expression" of Janet Jackson displaying a breast on national television in front of millions of children and their shocked parents during the Super Bowl in 2004. In a talk at Duke Law School in 2005, Hundt was outraged anyone would find that NFL incident lacked "moral strength." It was "sad to say a backwards journey of a million miles begins with a single (albeit silly) step." In it, he detected sexual McCarthyism: "The FCC has generated the biggest threat to the First Amendment faced by the electronic media since the McCarthy era because it seeks to limit television viewers' freedom of choice."

Current broadcast indecency regulation doesn't mention any football team names. It's designed to prevent broadcast use of words and images which "in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Current law also only applies to broadcast TV, so the FCC can't regulate this football "profanity" on cable sports at ESPN and the NFL Network.

The left is only proving that they're no more anti-censorship than anyone else. They're making it plain that they want any alleged sign of racism, sexism and heterosexism banned from television. But with Snyder, they're trying to win the old-fashioned liberal way: Where they can't regulate, they'll intimidate a businessman into a private-sector surrender.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: nfl; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; washingtonredskins
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1 posted on 10/18/2013 5:45:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

PJ ORourke put it best.
A Conservative will say you shouldn’t tell Helen Keller Jokes.
A Liberal will say you cant tell Helen Keller jokes.


2 posted on 10/18/2013 5:47:55 AM PDT by Yorlik803 ( Church/Caboose in 2016)
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To: Kaslin

Where Indian fights are colorful sights
and nobody takes a lickin’
Where pale face and redskin
Both turn chicken.


3 posted on 10/18/2013 5:48:22 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Kaslin

A certain band of Indians war-painted themselves red.

That’s all.


4 posted on 10/18/2013 5:50:04 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (The "government" is nothing but a RAT jobs program)
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To: Kaslin

The “Redskins” name will become a thing of the past. Liberals will not let go. Alinsky tactics work time and again. I’m a “Skins” fan from the John Riggins/Joe Jacoby/Joe Theisman days and it saddens me deeply.

Some think that there are “bigger fish to fry” but everything is in the same frying pan.


5 posted on 10/18/2013 5:50:14 AM PDT by albie
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To: Kaslin

Marxists want to talk about anything except their destruction of our economy.

Pray America is Waking Up


6 posted on 10/18/2013 5:51:06 AM PDT by bray (Coming Jan 2014: The Republic of Texas 2022)
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To: Kaslin

One can only dream of the day when 100 percent ban opinion polls and believe or disbelieve based on their own perceptions.


7 posted on 10/18/2013 5:52:23 AM PDT by billhilly (Has Pelosi read it yet?)
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To: Kaslin

What would society do without effite, urban, white liberals to tell the inferior races what they should be offended by?


8 posted on 10/18/2013 5:53:17 AM PDT by Paine in the Neck (Is John's moustache long enough YET?)
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To: Yorlik803

I don’t suppose she could hear them anyway.


9 posted on 10/18/2013 5:53:39 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch (http://thegatwickview.tumblr.com/ http://thepurginglutheran.tumblr.com/)
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To: Kaslin

Liberals think they can absolve themselves of the terrible harm they have done to this country by publicly posturing in politically correct contortions. They are vile.


10 posted on 10/18/2013 5:54:18 AM PDT by allendale
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To: Kaslin
 photo Redskins_zps403f33a0.png
11 posted on 10/18/2013 5:54:43 AM PDT by FatherofFive (MIslam is evil and must be eradicate)
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To: Kaslin

Braves (chant)
Blackhawks
Indians
Seminoles (chant)
Chiefs
Redskins

It’s part of our history. Good or bad. WHO CARES?? All this crap is just the latest PC BS that has ruined this country because everyone has to be so God damned sensitive. GROW UP!!

Seriously, if you live in North Dakota and are an American Indian, and this offends you - well, then, you need to get a life.

Cowboys? I don’t see any offended Cowgirls.
Giants? I don’t see any midgets offended by the exclusion.
Vikings? I don’t see any revolt from Scandinavia.
Fighting Irish? Notre Dame seems to revel in that.

GROW UP and mind your own business. If you don’t like it, don’t follow it, read about it, root for it, watch it...just IGNORE it.

I hope Snyder shows his balls and leaves it be. But thanks to Obama the issue now has legitimacy from the bully pulpit. Because it’s not a new issue, far from it. It just took this POS to give it traction.


12 posted on 10/18/2013 5:55:29 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue (I have no home. I'm the wind.)
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To: Yorlik803

PJ ORourke put it best.
A Conservative will say you shouldn’t tell Helen Keller Jokes.
A Liberal will say you cant tell Helen Keller jokes.

what difference, at this point, does it matter. helen keller couldn’t hear the joke, even if she wanted to.

but then again, a liberal is more likely to tell you that you can’t tell helen keller jokes, and then tell one.

t


13 posted on 10/18/2013 6:00:03 AM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
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To: Kaslin

“So we are going into the second half with the Dallas Cowboys 20 and the other team 10”


14 posted on 10/18/2013 6:01:17 AM PDT by RetSignman (As Goes America, So Goes the World. A Communist America, A Communist World.)
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To: Kaslin

The ultimate offence for me is to take God’s name in vain.


15 posted on 10/18/2013 6:04:05 AM PDT by Coldwater Creek (")
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To: Kaslin

1st Down, “distraction from what my other hand is doing” - e.g., Redskins name controversy

2nd Down, “say what I am trying to stop but actually am doing the very things I say I’m against”

3rd Down, “inflict more pain and control”

4th Down, “I’ll punt back to the media who will ask me what the coolest thing is about being the president”...”It’s good to be the king”


16 posted on 10/18/2013 6:04:52 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (“Life is hard, but it’s harder when you’re stupid.” John Wayne)
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To: TangledUpInBlue

Good post. Has anyone ever pointed out to you that God’s last name is not Dam?


17 posted on 10/18/2013 6:08:34 AM PDT by Coldwater Creek (")
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To: FatherofFive

Now that's funny!

18 posted on 10/18/2013 6:09:43 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("Remember... the first revolutionary was Satan."--Russian Orthodox Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov)
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To: teeman8r

19 posted on 10/18/2013 6:19:59 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: albie
If the mascot and name goes I want it changed to the...


20 posted on 10/18/2013 6:37:55 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (IÂ’m not a Republican, I'm a Conservative! Pubbies haven't been conservative since before T.R.)
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