Univision news is about to get a whole lot more interesting...
Posted on 06/21/2012 9:00:57 AM PDT by ColdOne
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the FCC's policy regulating curse words and nudity on broadcast television.
In an 8-0 decision, the high court threw out fines and sanctions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The case involved some uncensored curse words and brief nudity on various networks, including Fox.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Univision news is about to get a whole lot more interesting...
For years now the court has favored sedition, treason, pornography, narcotics addiction and the criminal element in our society. With this ruling TV will turn into a pornography mill exhibiting long and loving crotch shots! On any given program more swear words will be uttered than ordinary speech.
Oh goodie, next step: full up sex acts with same sex, multiple partners, babies, beasts and ?
I certainly hope so!
I’m going to start watching Univision!
Hate to say it, but you can always turn the TV off if you don’t like what’s on.
If I read this correctly, this ruling has more to do with the power of the FCC to arbitrary fine a Network, after the fact, for spontaneous nudity and or foul language in situations that the Networks could not have know was going to happen, ie. Award Shows, Super Bowl half time shows, etc. etc. etc.
However, no where do I read that the Networks are free to follow Canadian Network standards of nudity and foul language in their pre-programmed shows. Now, live shows could become very R-rated in the future, but that is all.
It is a step in the wrong direction though,
LOL!!
I’ll have to learn Spanish first, but why not? I can add it to my repertoire of languages.
UNIVISION’S new motto:
THE NEWS HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER.
Wow... whoever wrote this headline is an idiot.
The court did not reach any of the substantive issues or First Amendment grounds. The decision was VERY narrow.
In essence, they said that the broadcasters didn’t give sufficient notice that they would enforce the fines in the circumstances applicable to the broadcasts.
That’s it. The court didn’t reach any decision at all as to whether or not the policy is valid, or whether or not future broadcasts will be subject to fines (as the FCC has now given notice.)
Amazing how fragile personal liberty and freedom of speech is, isn't it? Sorry, folks, but there is no Constitutional right not to be offended. If you don't like what's being sold, don't buy it. If you don't like the smell, stay out of the sewer. Don't pretend "I didn't know what was going on there." Broadcast TV is a dying medium and you can be sure it will become ever more lurid and pornographic as it swirls the drain before passing into oblivion. Let it die a natural death without taking the First Amendment with it.
Censorship will always come back to bite you, whether it's bogus claims of "hate speech" or the "it's for your own good" self-righteousness of the nanny-staters. It is always at root the refusal to acknowledge that if I want freedom of thought and expression for myself I must tolerate it in others even when I disagree with it. That's part of the price of freedom.
The chicks will be hotter if you can’t understand them.
Good answer. I hate it when so called conservatives want to control stuff like media and drugs for the good of society.
If you don’t like it don’t watch. If you are worried about the kids, try raising them yourself instead of letting the schools and media fill their heads. The ability to differentiate between right and wrong, bad and good should be taught to kids from the beginning.
A good analogy would be a friend of mine doesn’t eat a lot of sweets where as I am addicted (and chubby). His parents always had the goodie laying around the house, mine did not. Alcohol was the same. My parents didn’t stop me from drinking from the time I was a wee young one. Other friend’s parents were super against alcohol. Guess who the abusive drinker is (it’s not me).
“The chicks will be hotter if you can’t understand them.”
How true. How many Hollyweird hotties have turned me off completely due to the drivel that comes out of their pie-holes?
VP Joe Plugs Biden approves of the "Big f****** deal" ruling!!
Well they didn’t get rid of content standards, they just ruled the standards can’t be arbitrarily applied. It was an 8-0 decision because sex and profanity is the only area that leftists aren’t fond of censorship.
Hey, how hard can it be?
Mexicans speak Spanish...
*nully ducking and sprinting for his blast shelter!*
As if that addresses the salient point of the issue. You may disagree, but it is important that certain things not be allowed, not because they offend someone, but because they cause horrible damage to society.
Let us suggest, for the sake of argument, that This was a common and popular program on TV, and we were faced with the solution of just turning it off. 
Let us also suggest that we were Jewish, and that we believed turning off the television would solve the problem for us.
To believe such a thing is to create a real life parallel to the Ostrich "Head in the ground" fallacy. It is utter naivete to think that the damage done will just go away if you don't look at it.
Evil, socially damaging stuff affects us even if we turn the Television off. The issue is not about offending us, it's about letting horrid ideas creep into the minds of our neighbors, and transforming them into barbarous people. Showing such things as rapes, blatant racism, beastiality, gay sex, glorifying violence and murder, all of these things will eventually turn our fellow citizens into threats against us.
You may say that is far beyond what the Supreme court has allowed by their decision, but in terms of the principle involved, it is exactly the same. If no standards apply, then no standards apply. It will only be a matter of time before the suppliers of media entertainment push the envelope till we reach this point. As they slowly add more and more salacious material to their lineup, it will become a mutually devolving process between the suppliers and their increasingly vile audiences.
"GLEE" has already had a great effect in normalizing homosexual acts and behavior. Eventually it won't be pushing the idea that we should tolerate homosexuals, eventually it will be trying to "out" everyone who won't agree to participate with them, just as in Sodom, and just as in the City of Benjamin.
Freedom of speech was given constitutional protection for the purpose of protecting dissidents from Governmental retaliation for the offenses to public officials which their speech may have engendered. It was never intended to allow vile and profane language or acts to be promulgated among the populace.
One of the specific events ruled on was a nude woman in NYPD Blue. That was scripted and planned, although brief. It included this shot, as well as a rear view without the robe, which I will not post although it is easy to find.
They have already found ways to work everything up to the F word on the air. I imagine it will be next. Then the only taboo word will be the N word when spoken by whites.
James Madison on licentiousness and the First Amendment:
Is, then, the Federal Government, it will be asked, destitute of every authority for restraining the licentiousness of the press, and for shielding itself against the libellous attacks which may be made on those who administer it?
The Constitution alone can answer this question. If no such power be expressly delegated, and if it be not both necessary and proper to carry into execution an express power--above all, if it be expressly forbidden, by a declaratory amendment to the Constitution--the answer must be, that the Federal Government is destitute of all such authority.
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions,Jan. 1800
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs24.html
Comments like yours lead me to question if a great many FReepers actually read the articles before posting replies. The court said that the FCC was free to modify it’s policy to make it more clear to broadcasters. The only problem here was the policy was vague, and the FCC had been capricious in it’s enforcement creating an environment where the broadcasters could not have known beforehand that fines would ensue.
Amazing how fragile personal liberty and freedom of speech is, isn't it? Sorry, folks, but there is no Constitutional right not to be offended. If you don't like what's being sold, don't buy it. If you don't like the smell, stay out of the sewer. Don't pretend "I didn't know what was going on there."
Censorship will always come back to bite you, whether it's bogus claims of "hate speech" or the "it's for your own good" self-righteousness of the nanny-staters. It is always at root the refusal to acknowledge that if I want freedom of thought and expression for myself I must tolerate it in others even when I disagree with it. That's part of the price of freedom.
I will take some exception with your comment. While I stand with you in spirit, the lessons of the past should be attended to... And that being that our fathers have always maintained a certain amount of censorship wrt moral issues in order to maintain a sense of decorum for ladies and children. It has not been until recent times that pornography and profanity have become matters of 'free speech'.
Don't get me wrong - I know there have always been bawdy elements to our society, but in the past, the uneasy compromise was to keep such elements 'across the tracks', as it were. Nowadays, such elements are right up in our faces. There is no 'across the tracks' anymore. And our society suffers for it.
I do not know where that censorship is best exercised, but would assume state and county levels would be more palatable to everyone... But I CAN tell you that anything as ubiquitous as the town square, the internet, or television cannot be effectively policed at the household level - it is impossible, unless one remove them all totally, denying 9/10ths of available information and communication. That, FRiend, is not reasonable.
“...you can always turn the TV off if you don’t like what’s on.”
Mine went “OFF” permanently 7 years ago. That was one of the best decisions I’ve made...
It's not that simple. The sewer comes to you, and you can't run from it. The consequences of normalizing (through television and other media) debauchery will eventually knock on the door of every citizen, even if they don't participate in it themselves. Just as the Jews could not escape the consequences of Nazi Propaganda by refusing to listen to it, nor can we escape the consequences of letting our fellow citizens learn to have hatred and bile against us.
Don't pretend "I didn't know what was going on there." Broadcast TV is a dying medium and you can be sure it will become ever more lurid and pornographic as it swirls the drain before passing into oblivion. Let it die a natural death without taking the First Amendment with it.
The First Amendment was not created to promulgate smut, It was created to protect citizens from the retaliation of governmental officials when such citizens might have criticized such officials or their policies. It was a rebuke of the English Law concept of Lèse-Majesté.
As the first Amendment never intended to protect smut or vile language or images, prohibiting such is not a violation of it.
Censorship will always come back to bite you, whether it's bogus claims of "hate speech" or the "it's for your own good" self-righteousness of the nanny-staters.
Censorship involves ideas. Prohibiting smut and foul language does not. It involves behavior, and the refusal of some to act in accordance with a minimal socially accepted standard.
It is always at root the refusal to acknowledge that if I want freedom of thought and expression for myself I must tolerate it in others even when I disagree with it. That's part of the price of freedom.
Again, this is a false equivalency. The very people who created the First Amendment would have locked up anyone who had the gall to claim it's protection for profanity. (They EXECUTED people convicted of Homosexual acts.) Profanity is not an "Idea" and it's not "speech." There is no useful content to be lost in it's absence from any reasoned debate. Any assertion of equality between Reason and Profanity simply elevates profanity and demeans reason.
What you’re missing with your sprint to Godwin is that if THAT were a common and popular program on TV we’d have much bigger problems than the FCC’s ability to arbitrarily fine it. TV is at most a symptom not the problem.
Moral inculcation begins at home and in the churches, not in the legislatures and the courts. We should have learned that painful lesson during Prohibition, but we did not.
Is, then, the Federal Government, it will be asked, destitute of every authority for restraining the licentiousness of the press, and for shielding itself against the libellous attacks which may be made on those who administer it?
The Constitution alone can answer this question. If no such power be expressly delegated, and if it be not both necessary and proper to carry into execution an express power--above all, if it be expressly forbidden, by a declaratory amendment to the Constitution--the answer must be, that the Federal Government is destitute of all such authority.
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions,Jan. 1800
We all like simple answers. You have turned to Madison for a simple answer, but have seemingly not given sufficient thought to whether or not it is a correct answer. I see two false equivalencies in your citation of Madison on this issue. The first is that you equate the "Press" as referred to by Madison as being the same thing as the Modern Media Entertainment industry. The second, is that you cite his essay regarding the unconstitutionality of the Sedition Act as proof that he was arguing in favor of profanity, due to the single inclusion of the word "licentiousness ." Other fallacies are your failure to notice that the regulation of Profanity and other such conduct of disturbing the peace, is not a Federal Issue, but rather is a State issue, and also the presumption that Madison alone speaks for all the Nation at this time in History.
I will point out that every one of the 13 Colonies had Laws against Blasphemy at the time of the U.S. Constitution. It can only be reasonable to believe that none of the State Legislatures who ratified it, saw the first Amendment as being in conflict with their existing laws, because they never regarded such a thing as being protected under the umbrella of "Freedom of Speech."
Indeed, people were convicted of Blasphemy in those days.
Do you know what is a positive feedback loop? If you do not, then I have just set you on the path to a piece of wisdom, and perhaps a better understanding of my point.
Positive feedback loops got nothing to do with it. Like so many people that gripe about what the entertainment industry does you’re missing the basic equation. They put a lot of stuff out there, some smutty, some not, some violent, some not, some stupid, some not. That which makes money they make more of, that which doesn’t they don’t. They don’t create the desire they fulfill it, people who want smutty stuff want it whether or not it’s being produced. There were lots of smutty perverted people finding way to “feed the need” long before TV, we’ve found pornographic cave paintings, people that want smut are gonna get smut even if they have to draw it in stone by torchlight.
If shows you find offensive are popular it’s not the shows fault, they just found themselves an audience. One that existed long before that show got invented.
I argue with drug addicts a lot. They keep using the word "Freedom" (when discussing drug usage) and "Prohibition" (when discussing drug availability) to lend a false sense of respectability to their behavior. In the same manner, you cite the word "Censorship" in an effort to make vulgarity respectable, by tacitly implying that it is the moral equivalent of the suppression of political ideas. It is not, and it is just a tactic to assert that it is.
One man's piety is another man's obscenity. The left absolutely believes the Gospel to be obscene as do a large segment of the population. Allow an "obscenity exception" for censorship and whoever gets to define the terms will simply call whatever ideas and speech they dislike "obscene" and make it stick. Count on it.
The country has been around for a couple of hundred years. There has been seemingly little bad consequences from having banned vulgar and profane speech during that time. You now argue that we will be in grave danger if we don't continue doing what we have always done?
He and his employer were fined BIG money back in the day, because he said the phrase "black lesbians filled with lust."
He argued that all those words were said by dozens of shows all the time (though not in that particular order). He wanted the FCC to very specifically spell out what was and was not allowed.
But the FCC didn't want to do it, because they are the government and feel that they should be allowed to arbitrarily decide who they punish for whatever reason they decide to mete out the punishments.
This a good decision by the court.
If shows you find offensive are popular it’s not the shows fault, they just found themselves an audience. One that existed long before that show got invented.
You fault me for sprinting to Goodwin, yet you didn't understand the lesson of that point of History. Positive feedback has EVERYTHING to do with it. It is a self reinforcing preference cascade. Give it enough time, and any activity will eventually win acceptability with enough media support. (Including labeling and murdering your fellow citizens.)
You think my concern is offensiveness? My concern is not that something is offensive, it's that it spreads a meme into society. (That such behavior is okay.)
You can teach your children not to lie, and you can teach them not to steal. You can teach them that murder is wrong, and that they should deal with other people fairly. What you cannot do anything about is the fact that your neighbors are teaching their children the exact opposite, and thereby polluting your children with their vile doctrine.
I think I am wasting my time. If you don't understand the effects of positive feedback, you certainly don't understand any higher level of complexity regarding this issue. Television warps the norms of behavior. If it didn't, Advertisers wouldn't pay for it. The consumers drive the markets, but what you don't seem to understand is that the markets also drives the consumers.
I remember that scene very well. It was televised on a Monday night at just after 9pm central time. I was shocked that the network (ABC) took it as far as they did with the amount of skin that was shown. It almost has to be, to this day, the most revealing scene ever on American network TV.
I’m not complaining, because I think Charlotte Ross (the woman in the scene) is drop-dead gorgeous and looked fabulous in the scene, but television should not descend into a sea of nudity and profanity. That will do no one any good.
Yep! Because I'm married to one, we watch Russian TV almost exclusively in this house. Russian chicks are hot and I can't understand a word they're saying! It's kinda funny, Russian networks will bleep out Russian swear words but leave the ones in English. I'll hear "dirka dirka dirka M***ER F***ER!!! dirka dirka dirka..." and turn to my wife, "That, I understood!"
I understand the effects of positive feedback clearly better than you, because all you’re doing is turning people into victims of their own decisions. TV programs are not positive feedback loops. People that don’t want to see that stuff won’t, people that do want to want to even if it’s not available. That’s the thing you deliberately ignore.
As I mentioned, traditional broadcast technology is irrelevant as it will be dead within another decade at most. Information is now inherently transnational and the traditional "publisher's monopoly" is broken. Thus all laws regulating speech are now targeting individual speech rather than corporate entities and efforts to engage in such regulation must be transnational in scope which of course fosters the growth in "one world government" which is precisely the opposite of the decentralized view of government envisioned by the Framers. That's why it makes sense to oppose all such efforts. Let traditional TV die by its own hand. It's doing a fine job of it on its own. Just hit the off button or unplug it altogether. It's easier to do than most realize.
The more important ruling by the Supreme Court was in regard to the SEIU. The court ordered that opting out of the political contributions was not good enough and that the government union must ask that those who want to donate sign a card every year before the political portion of their dues will be collected.
The unions must have seen this ruling coming. I think that is the reason that they are having such fits over the Citizens United ruling. They see this as nullifying their political clout, while Citizens United re-inforced the political clout of corporations.
Now if there was just some way to end the crony partnerships between politicians and corporations.
Benedict XVI Calls Christians to Rediscover Chastity
[Ecumenical] Lent through Eastertide - Divine Mercy Diary Exerpts: Purity
Modesty En Vogue [Another one of the virtues]"
I've yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to why some words for copulation and feces are "dirty" yet some are acceptable and still others are only "semi-dirty". Copulating, screwing and f------, all mean the exact same thing, but one is perfectly acceptable, one is mildly offensive, and the last is considered filthy.
The First Amendment includes 'speech' and 'press' in the same clause.* It is not credible to argue that Madison would have believed licentiousness of the press was protected, but not licentiousness of speech.
The second, is that you cite his essay regarding the unconstitutionality of the Sedition Act as proof that he was arguing in favor of profanity, due to the single inclusion of the word "licentiousness ."
Are you saying Madison didn't believe that the First A. protected licentiousness of the press because he only said it once?
...the regulation of Profanity and other such conduct of disturbing the peace, is not a Federal Issue, but rather is a State issue,
Yes! So why is the FCC regulating this rather than the states? And since you apparently support it, name the section of the Constitution you personally believe delegates that authority to fedgov.
...and also the presumption that Madison alone speaks for all the Nation at this time in History.
Now why would you say such a thing after arguing that Madison does not support my position?
* Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Two centuries after the bloodshed, too many people fail to realize the degree to which our Founders distrusted government. They sought to constrain it with both a federal constitution and their state constitutions.
I can't understand how those on the right can fear the First Amendment as much as the left fears the Second, and yet fail to see the pattern.
You are correct.
Robert Bork addressed this very topic:
“Libertarians join forces with modern liberals in opposing censorship, though libertarians are far from being modern liberals in other respects. For one thing, libertarians do no like the coercion that necessarily accompanies radical egalitarianism. But because both libertarians and modern liberals are oblivious to social reality, both demand radical personal autonomy in expression. That is one reason libertarians are not to be confused, as they often are, with conservatives. They are quasi- or semiconservatives. Nor are they to be confused with classical liberals, who considered restraints on individual autonomy to be essential.
The nature of the liberal and libertarian errors is easily seen in discussions of pornography. The leader of the explosion of pornographic videos, described admiringly by a competitor as the Ted Turner of the business, offers the usual defenses of decadence: ‘Adults have the right to see [pornography] if they want to. If it offends you, don’t buy it.’ Those statements neatly sum up both the errors and the (unintended) perniciousness of the alliance between libertarians and modern liberals with respect to popular culture.
Modern liberals employ the rhetoric of ‘rights’ incessantly, not only to delegitimate the idea of restraints on individuals by communities but to prevent discussion of the topic. Once something is announced, usually flatly or stridently, to be a right —whether pornography or abortion or what have you— discussion becomes difficult to impossible. Rights inhere in the person, are claimed to be absolute, and cannot be deminished or taken away by reason; in fact, reason that suggests the non-existence of an asserted right is viewed as a moral evil by the claimant. If there is to be anything that can be called a community, rather than an agglomeration of hedonists, the case for previously unrecognized individual freedoms (as well as some that have been previously recognized) must be thought through and argued, and “rights” cannot win every time. Why there is a right for adults to enjoy pornography remains unexplained and unexplainable.
The second bit of advice —’If it offends you, don’t buy it’ — is both lulling and destructive. Whether you buy it or not, you will be greatly affected by those who do. The aesthetic and moral environment in which you and your family live will be coarsened and degraded. Economists call the effects an activity has on others ‘externalities’; why so many of them do not understand the externalities here is a mystery. They understand quite well that a person who decides not to run a smelter will nevertheless be seriously affected if someone else runs one nearby.
Free market economists are particularly vulnerable to the libertarian virus. They know that free economic exchanges usually benefit both parties to them. But they mistake that general rule for a universal rule. Benefits do not invariably result from free market exchanges. When it comes to pornography or addictive drugs, libertarians all too often confuse the idea that markets should be free with the idea that everything should be available on the market. The first of those ideas rests on the efficacy of the free market in satisfying wants. The second ignores the question of which wants it is moral to satisfy. That is a question of an entirely different nature. I have heard economists say that, as economists, they do no deal with questions of morality. Quite right. But nobody is just an economist. Economists are also fathers and mothers, husbands or wives, voters citizens, members of communities. In these latter roles, they cannot avoid questions of morality.
The externalities of depictions of violence and pornography are clear. To complaints about those products being on the market, libertarians respond with something like ‘Just hit the remote control and change channels on your TV set.’ But, like the person who chooses not to run a smelter while others do, you, your family, and your neighbors will be affected by the people who do not change the channel, who do rent the pornographic videos, who do read alt.sex.stories. As film critic Michael Medved put it: ‘ To say that if you don’t like the popular culture, then turn it off, is like saying if you don’t like the smog, stop breathing. . . .There are Amish kids in Pennsylvania who know about Madonna.’ And their parents can do nothing about it.
Can there be any doubt that as pornography and depictions of violence become increasingly popular and increasingly accessible, attitudes about marriage, fidelity, divorce, obligations to children, the use of force, and permissible public behavior and language will change? Or that with the changes in attitudes will come changes in conduct, both public and private? We have seen those changes already and they are continuing. Advocates of liberal arts education assure us that those studies improve character. Can it be that only uplifting reading affects character and the most degrading reading has no effects whatever? ‘Don’t buy it’ and ‘change the channel,’ however intended, are effectively advice to accept a degenerating culture and its consequences.
The obstacles to censorship of pornographic and viloence-filled materials are, of course, enormous. Radical individualism in such matters is now pervasive even among sedate, upper middle-class people. At a dinner I sat next to a retired Army general who was no a senior corporate executive. The subject of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs came up. This most conventional of dinner companions said casually that people ought to be allowed to see whatever they wanted to see. It would seem to follow that others ought to be allowed to do whatever some want to see.... Any serious attempt to root out the worst in our popular culture may be doomed unless the judiciary comes to understand that the First Amendment was adopted for good reasons, and those reasons did not include the furtherance of radical personal autonomy.” -— Robert Bork, Slouching Toward Gomorrah.
Foul language and filth will expand.
Dittos, my FRiend,
Yoiu are correct, but the ruling still addresses the FCC’s ability to fine Networks for content they has no control over, and the Netwrok was able to prove that shot was left in by error. Albeit i think they lied, but how to prove otherwise?
I can see arguing that in a scene with 20 people talking at once, you missed a forbidden word. It never crossed my mind that they were claiming not to have noticed that Charlotte Ross was naked and taking up the center third of the screen. It's a stupid lie, but perhaps their lawyer was able to pull it off. In the real world though, any man alive who watched that scene without noticing is in desperate need of eye surgery and should not be permitted to drive while blind.
“it’s about letting horrid ideas creep into the minds of our neighbors”
Yes, absolutely we MUST use government power! Otherwise horrid ideas we don’t agree with will creep into the minds of our neighbors!
We cannot have our neighbors thinking bad thoughts - or watching programming with bad language - or naughty bits exposed - or things that question the government - or that are contrary to civil society - or things that might be blasphemous! OH NO!
I mean, next thing you know they may think they have freedom or something!
You are just not getting my point, and I am at a loss as how to explain it to you in a simpler fashion. The issue is not *ME* watching the show, the issue is OTHER PEOPLE watching the show, and learning from it to hate me and mine.
You can keep prattling on about how you understand what is "Positive Feedback", but you clearly do not. Television is not the same thing as "speech". It is capable of manipulating the mind of a viewer in a manner that no speech is capable of, and it can steer the social standard in whatever direction it's Programmers dictate. It has slowly eroded the normal societal standards regarding Homosexuality, and it is slowly painting those of us who do not accept the New Doctrine of Communism\Atheism\Relative Morality as enemies of the state. We are becoming the "New Jews", and they are stirring sentiment for an eventual Kristallnacht. (Remember Homeland security labeling us as potential terrorists in that document they circulated amongst themselves?)
One of the things which was protecting us was the previously accepted standard that certain things are proper and certain things are taboo. Every erosion of the standards of a civil society moves us an inch closer to social destruction. You just can't see it because you don't have a high enough vantage point.
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.
--Edmund Burke
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.