Applying these considerations to the language used in the monologue as broadcast by respondent, the Commission concluded that certain words depicted sexual and excretory activities in a patently offensive manner, noted that they “were broadcast at a time when children were undoubtedly in the audience (i. e., in the early afternoon),” and that the prerecorded language, with these offensive words “repeated over and over,” was “deliberately broadcast.” Id., at 99. In summary, the Commission stated: “We therefore hold that the language as broadcast was indecent and prohibited by 18 U.S.C. [] 1464.” 6 Ibid.

Do these words look familiar to any of you?

They should. This is what I believe to be the central deciding paragraph of Federal Communications Commission vs. Pacifica Foundation (et al), often cited as the landmark modern decision of broadcasting censorship in America.

To try and shorten a very long story, George Carlin’s list of ‘Seven Dirty Words‘ was reproduced and broadcast over the air. A father was driving with his young son, when the radio station began the broadcast. Horrified at what was being played, the father complained directly to the FCC. The commission reviewed it and decided to admit the complaint, and filed a non-binding sanction on the Pacifica Foundation, saying essentially that the company would face charges and injunctions if it were complained about again.

This decision (made by a vote of 5-4) has become the precedent by which most forms of censorship are maintained in television and radio. As you can see in the blood-chilling paragraph at the beginning of this post, the Commission, a group of officials entrenched in the bureaucracy of American government and almost entirely unassailable by public opinion, decided that the language was ‘in manner patently offensive by its community’s contemporary standards.’

I have not read any part of the Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights, which states any American citizen’s Right Not To Be Offended. What need then for a nanny-system of checks on what you may or may not say in public? In fact - and you knew it was coming - the only part of either document I can see which in any way suggests itself to be relevant is the First Amendment, that which grants Americans the right to freely speak without the imposition of government controls.

As if it were not enough that the decision flies in the face of a core tenet of American values, they then ruled that the nature of the broadcast thereby made it subject to a law that made illegal such disseminations of ‘indecency.’

Government has no right nor reason to impose any sort of sanctions or penalties on voluntary things like radio and television, where convenient knobs exist which cause the offensive broadcasts to cease. The father and son in question were not being forced to listen to this broadcast. The hazy line, if it exists at all, is public, in-person displays, such as public nudity, where there is no lawful way to force an offensive thing to cease.

‘When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.’ - R. A. Heinlein

Government power should be as limited as is necessary to prevent the unlawful use of force between citizens or from outside threats, and to provide a forum by which civil and legal crimes can be redressed. Media censorship is never in the best interest of the public.

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