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FCC Is Investigating Super Bowl Show: Entire Halftime Performance Faces Indecency Standards Test
Washington Post ^ | February 3, 2004 | Frank Ahrens and Lisa de Moraes

Posted on 02/02/2004 8:08:45 PM PST by new cruelty

The Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation into Sunday's controversial Super Bowl halftime show yesterday and FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell telephoned Mel Karmazin, president of CBS parent Viacom Inc., to express his outrage, saying the entertainment giant should have known what was going to transpire during the show.

The FCC probe will encompass the entire halftime program -- including the brief exposure of singer Janet Jackson's breast and the sexualized dance routine precipitating it -- to determine if it violates indecency standards set in law and enforced by the FCC.

If indecency violations are found, each of Viacom's 200 owned and affiliate stations could face a penalty of up to $27,500. FCC officials said the agency may also pursue penalties against CBS and the individual performers, Jackson and Justin Timberlake

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fcc; michaelpowell; nipplegate; superbowl; viacom
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To: thinktwice
This whole flap is more about the lack of talent and clash of culture than it is about the nudity. The point is the stupid entertainers thought that they could cover up for the lack of talent with a shocking use of sex. It didn't work.

An interesting side note about this flap is that the same people who are complaining the loudest about the degrading of the culture are the same ones who are very vocal about their criticism of the arts stipend that the President and First lady have proposed to restore the culture after the years of damage under the Clintons.
101 posted on 02/02/2004 11:06:34 PM PST by Eva
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To: rwfromkansas
I know --- it's just that some are so quick to condemn the heritage of this country --- much of it was more "puritanical" than anywhere else, holding certain moral and religious values --- but yet they or their ancestors couldn't stay away from what the waspish types built.
102 posted on 02/02/2004 11:07:13 PM PST by FITZ
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To: unix
Liberty, License, Or Anarchy?

The Libertarian movement seems to be gaining in popularity in some quarters these days. Its force has been felt in every part of the political spectrum, and it has many hearty admirers in both major political parties. This popularity is strongly felt on the Internet itself, where reckless electronic cowboys blaze completely new frontiers, make up their own rules as they are needed, and, along the way, viciously attack anyone who dares to bring order out of the chaos.

But many Libertarians, or those who hold views compatible with what they believe to be "libertarianism," are naively unaware of the consequences of Libertarian thought on society as a whole, either because they don't know of these consequences, or because they know, but don't care. Let's begin by clearing up a few definitions. Liberty is not doing whatever you want, when you want it. Liberty is having the ability to pursue your dreams within the confines of societal norms, but without undue government interference or outright oppression. Webster's Dictionary says that liberty is the "power to act according to one's natural rights as an individual.", and also, "the freedom from bondage." The confusion arising in Libertarian thought comes from a linkage between the concept of "restraint" with that of "bondage". That's the first of several mistakes Libertarians make in their logic. What happens when people in a society feel that all restraint by a government is a type of "bondage", and take it upon themselves to live a life with no restraints whatsoever? They move beyond the mere concept of liberty, and slip into a concept known as license. Again, Webster's Dictionary gives us a good working definition of license: "authority granted to do any act; an excess of liberty". Usually, this "authority" is granted by no one but the individual, who takes it is a natural right. Now a fine distinction needs to be drawn concerning natural rights and self-conferred rights. It's already been said that liberty is one's natural right as an individual, and that is completely true. WhenThomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable natural rights - among them being liberty - he was certainly correct. However, when it's taken to an EXCESS, and becomes a self-conferred license to commit ANY act, however heinous, demeaning or damaging to society or others, then it has ceased to be a natural right, and has become an excess.

In a free society, if everyone acted only according to one's own wishes, there would be no "society" to speak of, and "freedom" would be simply the absence of any restraint. But notice that Webster recognizes "bondage" as a separate concept from "restraint", since they are two forces, with separate gradations of restraint. The one is simply a check upon excess, and the other is the smothering of all expression. Undue restraints are in fact bondage, but restraint - and it's cousin "self-restraint" - is not bondage. It's also important to note that restraint is important in a democracy, and comes from civic-minded citizens who voluntarily act in this manner for the greater good of the society. In a society without democratic and free foundations, self-restraint isn't necessary, because the State has imposed bondage in its place.

Forbes Magazine publisher Steve Forbes put it another way, citing the libertarian's patron saint, "Freedom is not anarchy, chaos, and mayhem. The freedom to 'let soulless forces operate,' as the great classical liberal economist Ludwig von Mises termed it, is actually tyranny in another guise."

It has been known for centuries that self-restraint is the key to the entire concept of liberty in a free society. Plato said, "Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery." It was also clear to America's Founders. Among many references to self-restraint we find in the writings of the Founders is the following from a 1798 address by President John Adams: ''We have no government armed with power capable of controlling human passions, unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''

Put another way by Adams' contemporary, the British philosopher-statesman Sir Edmund Burke, "Men are qualified for civil liberties in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites...Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

With that knowledge of self-restraint, Americans learned early on it our history, liberty thrives and grows at its own pace. It is in fact the cornerstone of Conservative thought. When all people have a respect for society, and act accordingly with that respect, then liberty is a good, since it promotes a stable and orderly society in which true freedom can flourish.

Without that self-restraint, however, people tend towards having less and less regard for society as a whole, and act accordingly out of that disrespect. At this point, the concept misnamed as "liberty" by libertarians becomes an evil, since it promotes violent instability and dis-Integrates society into self-centered, pleasure-seeking units no larger than an individual and responsible to no others. Consequently, liberty withers and legal chains are required to bridle the unbridled urges of a mob.

Alexander Hamilton realized this when he wrote, "Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint."

Most Libertarians today cannot seem to grasp these basic distinctions between liberty and license, and are in fact not advocates of liberty at all, but of anarchy. Finding their behavior outside of societal norms, and indeed harmful to society overall(and in fact, denying the very existence of "society" or any other entity except the radicalized individual), they urge the destruction of societal norms altogether, primarily the destruction of the government that regulates and oversees these norms. With the government out of the way, they think, liberty will prevail, and they may then engage in strongly anti-societal behavior with LICENSE. This, of course, isn't liberty at all, it's anarchy, and the behavior which derives from it is called licentiousness, which Webster's calls "an absence of moral or legal restraints".

Despite libertarians wishing it away, society exists, and if the libertarian philosophy is left to its own devices, we would evolve into a licentious, lawless society. The problem with that is a licentious society - in which all restraint and societal norms are banished to the dust heaps of history - cannot be a free or even a democratic society, in any sense of those words. It can only be a society in anarchy and decay and the resulting bondage to the slavery that comes from rampant, radically self-centered and destructive debauchery will engulf and destroy all that we have fought to build over the centuries. Hardly a goal for which Conservatives should be striving, and it brings to mind that great Conservative Margaret Thatcher, who said, "Freedom is the creature of law or it is a wild beast."

Libertarianism thus leads from the nice-sounding destruction of "government restraints" into a tyranny led by those who wish to "liberate" all people from all norms of decency, morality, duty and societal order. Libertarians, therefore, become the unwitting vanguards of the radical Marxist agenda of dismantling that order and replacing it with a permissive one. Like Burke, who said, "Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths," I also cannot stand idly by and allow libertarian permissiveness such as this take hold in our society. Nor may it lay claim to the name "conservative," while true Conservatives still have breath to defend it against such a slander.

We cannot allow a decent society to be sacrificed on the altar of personal licentiousness - where liberals and many others worship and find comfort. The temple must be cleansed of this false "liberty" and its sycophants. I don't want to live in a "libertarian" society any more than I want to live in a society based upon absolute bondage imposed by an all-powerful government. Conservatives must seek - and actively work for - a rational middle ground in which liberty is ensured within the framework of republican ideals, traditional societal norms and self-restraint. That's the only kind of society Tom Jefferson would venture to call "Libertarian."

103 posted on 02/02/2004 11:10:17 PM PST by johnmorris886
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To: unix
"Parents should be aware. If their not, maybe they shouldn't be parents?"

Riiight. Its all the parent's fault. When your daughter gets mauled at school by a Justin-wanna-be, we'll blame you instead of him. We'll blame your daughter instead of society.

"Secondly, the whole "right" to not be offended thing..please."

Not what I said. Reading comprehension please.

"I go back and say, it's CBS. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?"

Like I said before, I EXPECT the networks to abide by the FCC decency rules and I EXPECT the FCC to enforce those rules when the networks cross the line. Do you think society should have any rules re morality? Do you think those rules should be enforced?

"I wonder what a "tit" being sucked by a newborn would do to you in a mall somewhere..You gonna call the cops? Gonna go and get offended?"

Strawman. You're OBE yes?

"I have an idea, let's put all women in burqa's, it's the only sure way to stem this type of problem!"

Another strawman. Address the issue please - should society have rules and should those rules be enforced?

"It's YOUR HOUSE; YOU control what come's and goes in and out of it."

Actually no - you don't have complete control. If Viacom had announced "nudity" then yes, I would have *enough* control to filter the smut out. Anyone with kids understands this. You can't lock your kids in the closet for 16 years and you can't control how smut affects the kid next door. Our culture is teaching young boys to view your mother, your wife and your daughter as sex objects - as toys - and encouraging them to treat them accordingly. You've got no problem with that? Thats fine - you're so hip hop cool non-judgemental and the rest of us are Puritan squares. Okaaay. :)

"Please, let's not give the gov't another reason to control something else...Our viewing"

So your position is "no rules", yes? You've got no problem with a 5-year-old watching "Rugrats" being exposed to Porno commercials? It's enablers like you who are half the problem here - you'll abandon any principle to look cool. Bets that you have Back-Street-Boys goo in your hair :)

104 posted on 02/02/2004 11:11:33 PM PST by Fenris6
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To: Eva
I can't believe how much everyone is going on about Janet's tit. You want to know what nightmare image I'm dealing with after that game? Mike Ditka talking about the quality of his erections in that Viagra wannabe ad. I've got the image of that wrinkled old bulldog faced jock trying to get an erection stuck in my head like an old sixties tune. I may never have sex again. My wife is NOT happy about this turn of events, let me tell you.
105 posted on 02/02/2004 11:11:46 PM PST by Elliott Jackalope (We send our kids to Iraq to fight for them, and they send our jobs to India. Now THAT'S gratitude!)
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To: unix
Your watching CBS, what did you expect? There's plenty of other channels you could watch.

Such as????? If you let your kids watch ABC, CBS, or NBC between 6am to 10pm, you're supposed to have some expectation that this kind of thing isn't what's shown. Where was the "R" rating ahead of time? I can see you condemning those who might buy cable and MTV then complaining about what MTV showed their kids.

106 posted on 02/02/2004 11:13:05 PM PST by FITZ
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To: NYCVirago
Until then, I'll just laugh at you.

Laugh away, enjoy your cage that is the FCC rule. Object all you like, but in the meantime, don't twist what I said. I made the burqa comment due to people like you. I want nothing of the likes of you. If you want to object, knock yourself out. But please don't tell me or any other's what we can and cannot consume on any level. That decision is reserved for me and my property.

I won't allow short sighted folks like you to enable further gov't rule; it will come back down the line to hurt me in the end.

107 posted on 02/02/2004 11:14:22 PM PST by Michael Barnes ( <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com">miserable failure </a>)
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To: unix
That's just it..I don't want to lobby congress for anything. I want the RESPONSIBILTY placed where it should be, the home; the individual. But many think we should relegate Gov't to think for us. Pathetic in my opinion.

Pollution seeps everywhere. I have been perfectly fine with sleaze on cable, pay channels, etc. because everyone knows what they are getting. Well, the result is that it has seeped into prime time, and then into the superbowl. They KNEW there would be kids watching. They knew there would be families watching, they knew they'd have a record audience for their crap.

It has to stop somewhere! I can throw out my tv, but my kids are still going to know what's going on when they walk out of my house. Kids out in the world will still be way too sexualized and cynical.

If I locked my children in the house and never let them out you'd be criticizing me then, too. So, what am I supposed to do?

108 posted on 02/02/2004 11:14:35 PM PST by Dianna
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To: Elliott Jackalope
Mike Ditka talking about the quality of his erections in that Viagra wannabe ad.

That's past tense stuff --- Bob Dole broke that barrier over a decade ago.

109 posted on 02/02/2004 11:15:49 PM PST by FITZ
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To: unix
Are you a parent?
110 posted on 02/02/2004 11:16:38 PM PST by stands2reason
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To: unix
"I won't allow short sighted folks like you to enable further gov't rule"

The rule of law is nothing more than a codifcation of morality.

And the networks don't own the airwaves.
111 posted on 02/02/2004 11:16:57 PM PST by Fenris6
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To: Elliott Jackalope
It's like I said on an earlier thread, football doesn't need the viewers that CBS is trying to attract, this stuff has nothing to do with football, it has to do with $$$$$, and I think the real fans are finally upset enough to say that they are fed up and aren't going to take it anymore. CBS shows no respect for civilized adults, or children either for that matter.

Sometimes I have to laugh because I think that I sound like my mother. I can still hear her imitating the Four Seasons singing, Sherry. She had perfect pitch and bad singing really got on her nerves.
112 posted on 02/02/2004 11:18:48 PM PST by Eva
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To: FITZ
Yeah, well I HATE THEM BOTH! May they ROT! Remember the good old days when old people stayed home and didn't talk about their erections? I want those DAYS BACK!
113 posted on 02/02/2004 11:19:32 PM PST by Elliott Jackalope (We send our kids to Iraq to fight for them, and they send our jobs to India. Now THAT'S gratitude!)
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To: thinktwice
It's not just about the nudity. It's about the portrayal of what is acceptable behavior and what isn't.

It's about presenting the image that it's okay for a boy to rip off the blouse of a girl.

And finally, it's about why people feel it necessary to make in-your-face statements like that half-time show during the most-watched event in the television year, when there are so many other outlets during the rest of the year to show such images.

It's about why people can't seem to accept the fact that other people want some segment of entertainment to not be infiltrated by such images, and why can't they just leave it alone for the rest of us and stick to the other 99% of the venues that have been corrupted.

-PJ

114 posted on 02/02/2004 11:20:56 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (It's not safe yet to vote Democrat.)
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To: Dianna
I can't fight this alone

I don't believe you are fighting this alone for one minute Dianna. You may not believe this, but I think Jackson was one hell of a dumbass for doing what she did. Timberlake needs a good smacking around, up one side and down the other.

But alas, What I do not want is teh Gov't trying to telling me (or you) what is right and wrong. That unsettles me to no end. I have young kids as well. They did not see any of the tirades. I made sure of that. And good on ya for fighting the good fight. Bottom line, I see this whole thing as nothing more than more Gov't intrusivness right around the corner. Recall it's our gov't saying that God should not be allowed in our schools etc..Laws did that. Are you happy with the outcome? I'm not.

115 posted on 02/02/2004 11:22:20 PM PST by Michael Barnes ( <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com">miserable failure </a>)
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To: FITZ
If the Superbowl had advertised that there was going to be live nudity, then I could change the channel or forbid my kids to watch it.

I understand that, my point is that the raunch, the trash, was there before the finale and therefore the televison - one hopes - would've already been turned off. Heck, the television should've been turned off as soon as one heard that it was an MTV production with people like Janet Jackson in it. Don't try to argue that this was some big surprise and - my goodness, if I had only got a warning I would've turned off the tv.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not protecting what they did. They should all be condemned and fined, but if you let your kids play on the railroad tracks and they get run over, the fault doesn't lie only with the brakeman.

116 posted on 02/02/2004 11:22:45 PM PST by PMCarey
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To: Fenris6
And the networks don't own the airwaves. EXACTLY.
117 posted on 02/02/2004 11:22:47 PM PST by johnmorris886
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To: johnmorris886
your a cut and paste junky...

127.0.0.1 johnmorris886

you get the idea..

118 posted on 02/02/2004 11:24:13 PM PST by Michael Barnes ( <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com">miserable failure </a>)
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To: Eva
This whole flap is more about the lack of talent and clash of culture than it is about the nudity.

That too. In a way I can't complain --- my kids didn't see it --- they were actually looking forward to watching the game and the half time show --- thinking that half time shows were much of the fun. A few minutes into the half time, they became bored and wandered off until the game began again. Timberlake and Jackson both are just that desperate to be something --- to get their faces on the cover of something, but I think this will be about it for them. They're both pretty much pop music history.

119 posted on 02/02/2004 11:25:25 PM PST by FITZ
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To: unix
Can't argue with the quotes? Please Show us all how Burke, Adams, Penn, Henry, Blackstone, Bork Ect. Are all wrong.
120 posted on 02/02/2004 11:27:04 PM PST by johnmorris886
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