Enough with the censorship

In honor of Veteran's Day, ABC planned to show Saving Private Ryan tonight. Many affiliates, however, refused to show the program out of fears that they may be fined by the FCC over improper language that occurs during the movie (TV stations canceling 'Ryan' telecast). With the recent re-election of Bush and the vast number of voters citing "moral values" as being an important deciding factor in their vote, many affiliates opted to play it safe instead of pay tribute to our veterans with the stirring WWII film.Technically, the FCC does not censor stations-they only respond to complaints after a program has been aired.

This may not "technically" be censorship since fines are handed out after the fact, but anyone with common sense knows what is going on. Instead of launching a diatribe about the importance of free speech in a democracy (remember those liberties that we will die for?), lets examine the effect of censorship on the moral compass of people in our country.

There seems to be an infinite number of groups that claim to "defend" and "support" American families. These groups yell and scream about the importance of keeping our airways free of the F-word and our super bowl half-time shows nipple-free. What the religious right of our country and those in favor of family values want with such cleansing of media outlets is to move the responsibility of raising well-balanced children from parents to media executives, movie producers, and artists. Here's a novel concept: instead of blaming Janet Jackson’s nipple for everything that is wrong with our children, chastise the lack of parenting going on in our country. Maybe if parents taught their kids about taboo topics such as the human body, evil curse words, drugs, and violence we wouldn't have to worry about what smut our children come across on the internet and TV.

I fully recognize that today's parents match an unprecedented challenge when trying to control what their children see. From the dark and dirty boundless depths of the Internet to 900 TV channels of sexually enticing programming, parents have their hands full. But herein lies the point. We can never control everything our children see. They are bound to eventually come across a naked body in a movie or on their computers. Eventually, they will learn about cigarettes, beer, and marijuana from their friends. Movies and television shows will bring to them and glorify shockingly grotesque acts of violence. The key is not to put blindfolds on our children, but rather to get to them before someone else does. The decision parents have is simple: would you rather have your child learn about sex from you or britney spears?

This problem in our country is running wild. If you can't succeed as a parent (and I recognize that it is not easy to raise a well balanced child in today's world), blame the media. If someone shoots kids in their school, blame the movie's the person watched or the music they listened to. Blame everyone except yourself. The concept of personal responsibility, which is central to ethical action, is startlingly absent from moral discussion in our country. We assume that morality ends with censoring "bad" content from being aired or telling our kids “no!” but not teaching them why. If our country wants to regain its moral compass, we need to rediscover personal responsibility. What our children need is not to say prayers before school starts or be banned from the Internet, but they need for someone to teach them responsibility. That responsibility importantly starts with not hiding the world from them.