The FCC Won't Let Profanity Be?

Interesting Supreme Court case coming this fall:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday stepped
into a legal fight over the use of curse words on the airwaves, the
high court's first major case on broadcast indecency in 30 years.

The case concerns a Federal Communications Commission policy
that allows for fines against broadcasters for so-called "fleeting
expletives," one-time uses of the F-word or its close cousins.

Fox Broadcasting Co., along with ABC, CBS and NBC, challenged
the new policy after the commission said broadcasts of entertainment
awards shows in 2002 and 2003 were indecent because of profanity
uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie.

A federal appeals court said the new policy was invalid and could
violate the First Amendment.

No fines were issued in the incidents, but the FCC could impose
fines for future violations of the policy.

So tell me how do you think the Supreme Court should rule? Here's the Reno v. ACLU
that deals with decency and freedom of speech. I sympathized with both sides of
the issue. On one you want to protect people's first amendment rights. However, I
agree with those who criticize that we live in a media saturated culture and what's
being transmitted seems to get worse every year. Every moral boundary to what
can be said and shown in television, movies, etc. erodes every year. So what are we
to do?

Here's a video of someone who openly likes to defy the FCC (content warning):

'Indoctrinate U' trailer

This is my running theme for this week.

Newspaper Editor Won't Resign Over Profound Editorial

Some people just won't give up. The editor of the Rocky Mountain
Collegian, J. David McSwane, who managed to come up with an
articulate and oh so original four-word editorial (Taser This. F***
Bush) won't step down.

You know what really gets me mad about this case is that this
journalism student couldn't find anything else to fill up the empty
space. He's claiming he did it to start a discussion about free
speech. I call this bull crap (pardon my language). He did it because
none of his busy student writers found the time to come up with
something. As someone who has edited the opinion section for my
school online newspaper I know it's hard but surely there were
other avenues he could have taken.

Also, I've had it with people using the First Amendment to hide behind
when explaining their poor decision making. It has absolutely nothing
to do with free speech. I've said this all before. Hey Mr. McSwane, you
could've rehashed a former opinion you've stated and applied to a new
current event like I just did and printed that. Instead, you went with the
least creative and unoriginal route and went with something offensive.

Freedom of Speech and Craziness

MSNBC has announced that it dropped
Don Imus because of his racial remarks last week.
Last week I commented on Amanda Congdon's
blog about this controversial sculpture.
I think my remarks go well with the Don Imus
situation.
Here is what I wrote (edited):

I am disgusted that our society is abusing free speech. Yes,
we have the legal right to say practically anything (even hate
speech) but that doesn't make it morally right. Let’s not take
words and speech so lightly.

Words can hurt others.
Words can divide.
Words can incite hate and violence.
Words can belittle.
Words can be abusive and can stay with us the rest of our lives.

So words are protected by the First Amendment but that doesn’t
stop them from having harmful effects. And when people simply
dismiss this stuff as “art” and say “they have free speech,” I find it
irritating. Shouldn’t artists be held responsible and accountable for
their work and the public at large? Or are they above reproach? Now
that we live in the digital age we must be more careful about the things
we say because everything has a trail online. I’m not saying to walk on
egg shells, I’m just saying to be responsible and not abuse our inherent
freedoms.

Update: Imus now fired from CBS Radio also.