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[Elspode]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
They're picking on we deaf people.

Don't be upset, Bruce...fast forward 500 years or so, when the deaf have become more perfect and more highly-evolved due to the fact that they have only been able to absorb pure, family-friendly entertainment.

That's what will happen, right? I mean, that's the point, isn't it? If we protect all the deaf people from the bad stuff (like that Sanford and Son...have you ever seen such *filth*!?), then they will go on to be better citizens, living better lives, and therefore will be more successful, and raise offspring who are even more perfect, etc, until the deaf and their progeny rule the Earth....?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I suppose you're right, Els. And they can operate the Solient Green Machines and not hear the screams.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
They're picking on we deaf people.

The word "censor" appears six times in this article. I'm sorry, but this isn't censorship. The goverment isn't preventing the media outlets from providing closed captioning, they're just declining to help fund the closed captioning. Sure, the process to select which shows are granted goverment funds is pretty mind-bendingly dumb, but that's just the way the government operates.

So many people whip out the "censorship!" flag these days where it just plain isn't. If the government declines to pay a station money to add closed captioning to Bewitched, the station can pay for that themselves... it's not censorship. If a university removes a student's website from their servers because it's deemed inappropriate, that makes them close-minded, stick-in-the-mud fucktards; but they're within their rights, and nothing prevents the student from hosting the site elsewhere... it's not censorship. Declining to support somone's message is WAY different from making an effort to smother that message. Freedom of Speech guarantees that you can say what you like, but it doesn't guarantee that anyone is going to help you say it.

Playing the censorship card is like taking antibiotics... if either is used too liberally where it's not appropriate, it will lose it's effectiveness to the point of being worthless.

Alan's philosophy #51: Never assume something's sinister if it can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Ok, I'm done now.

[Whit]

Yank or Dixie?
      91% (Dixie). Is General Lee your father?
      That's right, not a bit of Yank here. I should probably make an obligatory southern expression but as it's after three in the mornin' I can't think of any.

[Happy Monkey]

Hmmm. I changed from "pillbug" (Great Lakes, northeast) to "sowbug" (midwest), and went from 50% to 61%. That seems off to me.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami
So many people whip out the "censorship!" flag these days where it just plain isn't.

Too many people give the government this free pass. If they tried to actually ban the showing of "Bewitched", they know they'd get smacked down. So they do some stupid petty thing to satisfy the Ashcrofts in their base, but still avoid nationwide derision. The prejudicial denial of money is one of two sneaky US forms of censorship. The other is putting pressure on a corporation to do it, then saying it wasn't the government, so it wasn't censorship.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami

So many people whip out the "censorship!" flag these days where it just plain isn't.

But HP, if the feds pick and choose what to fund, knowing full well if they don't fund it nobody will, isn't that censorship on the deaf? I agree it's not censorship on the media but what about the end user?

Oh, and 34%. Definite Yankee.

[jinx]

dude

39% Yankee.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
But HP, if the feds pick and choose what to fund, knowing full well if they don't fund it nobody will, isn't that censorship on the deaf? I agree it's not censorship on the media but what about the end user?

Well, stations get sponsors for closed captioning all the time, probably more often than the government pays for it. And in some cases, the stations just absorb the expense themselves.

I'm not agreeing with the government's actions, I think they've broken a few Stupid Barriers in their process of selecting which shows to support. And I definitely think the goverment uses its power to manipulate the media, to undesirable ends. I'm just pointing out that in this instance, there's no "censorship" that I can see. The government isn't forbidding stations from providing closed captioning, they're just not sponsoring it for certain programs anymore, programs which supposedly fall outside of the "educational, news or informational" category.

My disagreement is not really with the sentiment of the article, just with the language it uses. It's like a boy-that-cried-wolf thing... if too many people accuse the goverment of censorship where no real censorship is going on, it dilutes the anti-censorship argument. There is a problem with this government action, and it ought to be fixed, but I wouldn't call it "censorship." I highly doubt that Bewitched was denied money to pay for Closed Captioning because it contained some message the govenment is trying to squash... more likely the government is just doing a government-quality job of enforcing their "educational, news or informational" requirement, and making a futile effort to correct that.

I'm not big fan of the governemnt per se, but I don't think they're completely evil. Just mostly evil.

[wolf]

45% Yankee ... barely into the Yankee category. My primary language acquisition occured in the Midwest, which may account for this score.

What can I say. I'm a cracker at heart.

I like Springer, Baseball, and shotguns. I can tolerate NASCAR, if required, allthough prefer prorally to circle track when it comes to auto racing.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami
So many people whip out the "censorship!" flag these days where it just plain isn't.

Okay, it isn't censorship. It is discrimination, because they are choosing one type or quality of programming over another, based on some unknown and arbitrary set of values.

[Elspode]

Barely Dixie at 58%. I knew I was a hick, but at least now I've got some evidence.

[perth]

http://www.madville.com/corporate.php?id=6#guess

I have 23 so far.

[Cam]

40% Yankee. Depressing really.

[Elspode]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...tm?list1043111