Amarillo Nights presents BrassTacks - April 2003 by Max Steele

"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."

Penned by-
G. Washington, John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, Wm. Samuel-Johnson, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, Wm. Livingston, David Brearly, Wm. Paterson, Jonas Dayton, B. Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, Geo. Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouv Morris, Geo. Read, Gunning Bedford Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom, James McHenry, Dan of St Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, John Blair, James Madison Jr., Wm. Blount, Richard Dobbs-Spaight, Hu Williamson, J. Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth-Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler, William Few, Abraham Baldwin

Last month in the Amarillo Nights Forum we witnessed a true passion for our Constitution´s First Amendment, specifically: our freedom of speech. It´s a long story and it has since been resolved but it was enlightening to see such raw passion from a lot of Amarillo Nights readers.
The gist of it was: Censorship is un-Constitutional.
Ironically in the middle of last month´s controversy, Brock came in carrying some papers.
"Here", he said as he threw them at me, "Wanna rip someone apart for censorship? Read this".
I had been fighting tooth and nail with Brock about the censorship issue and was intrigued with what he had presented me with. In the papers was a report and petition from the PTC (Parents Television Council). I read all eight pages of the report and then re-read it again. It was a very interesting read. I´ll present to you what I have read, then YOU tell me what YOU think. I want your honest thoughts.
The following excerpts are taken directly from the PTC report written by Founder and President- L. Brent Bozell.
(I will occasionally inject my observations in blue text. Got it? Great. Let´s go.)

Dear Friend,
I think it´s time for us – me, you and the PTC´s 750,000+ Members – to take off the gloves.
You might want to get a calculator before you read the rest of this; you´ll understand later. Got that? 750,000+ members. Remember that.

Almost every PTC member I talk to is fed up with the incredibly offensive, indecent, and disgusting TV programming that is beamed into their living rooms.
Okay, already this gets good. Notice that out of the PTC´s 750,000+ members, ALMOST every member is fed up with television, NOT every member.
Almost though.

But there´s something almost nobody I talk to knows. Did you know that THERE´S A LAW AGAINST INDECENCY ON BROADCAST TELEVISION? That´s right! There´s a Federal law against indecency on broadcast TV between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M., when children might be watching. And it´s a law that´s being broken because the Federal government is allowing Hollywood to break the law! The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is legally charged with enforcing that law. And I´m absolutely furious that they are totally failing to live up to their legal obligation. You should be too! It´s time we demanded the FCC start enforcing the law. That´s why I urge you to sign and quickly return the enclosed "Petition to Enforce TV Decency" – and do so today.
Further on Bozell states…
I´ll go so far as to say that the FCC has been blind to Hollywood´s campaign to destroy, dismantle, unravel, and basically undo the traditional American family values that you and I hold dear.
The report continues stating various scenarios in which the FCC has ignored the pleas of the American people, while at the same time listing numerous FCC inadequacies and no achievements. The report also states that the FCC claims that since no one can truly define what "community standards" of decency are, how can they (The FCC) enforce it? So naturally, the PTC will attempt to define the standards of decency for us.

In the Fall of 2001, at the PTC we launched an unprecedented campaign into every community in the nation to take an "audit" of the American public´s attitudes about TV shows containing vile language, sexual innuendo, explicit sexual content, and ultra-violence. Our reason for conducting this nationwide audit was simple… Since the FCC had failed to define indecency, we would ask the American people.
Did anyone receive a copy of this audit? I didn´t. THIS, my friends is someone other than yourselves trying to decide what you can and can´t watch and/or listen to.
Okay, here come some numbers so have your calculators ready or at least your thinking caps on.
To date, we´ve distributed 1,501,546 copies of our "TV Community Standards Audit" to households across the country to help guide the FCC in defining "community standards" more accurately. And the American people responded – overwhelmingly. Most national polls you hear about on the news are based on the opinions of fewer than 2,000 people nationwide. The Parents Television Council´s "TV Community Standards Audit" heard from more than 128,112 Americans. So how did the FCC respond to our comprehensive audit of community standards? You guessed it. They didn´t. Didn´t respond at all.
(FCC) Chairman Powell chose to ignore us, and our sampling of over a million-and-a-half American families. Because they don´t want to enforce decency standards, period!
WRONG!
The FCC didn´t respond at all because out of 1,501,546 polls that the PTC distributed, they only received 128,112 back!
What happened to the other 1,373,434 audits?
Granted there maybe a slight difference as it is hard to define "over 128,112". Maybe it means 128,113? That would count I guess.
That´s about an 8.5% return on the PTC audits.
Let´s look at some more staggering numbers.
According to the most recent U.S Census Bureau poll, there are approximately 205,576,000 adults over the age of 18 in the United States.
That means that the PTC´s return on their audits represents 0.000623% of the United States consenting adult population.
128,112 "returned audits" is equivalent to about ¾ of the population of Amarillo.
The report goes on…

Then the FCC came up with another evasion. They claimed that no one was really complaining anyway. We couldn´t believe it, and decided to look into it. And what we found was predictable: the FCC had made the complaint process so difficult, it was virtually impossible to file a valid complaint!
Just out of curiosity, I went to the FCC web page (www.fcc.gov). Guess what? On the VERY FIRST PAGE there is a link that says in plain English, "File A Complaint". I clicked on it and here´s what I found… A way to email a complaint (fccinfo@fcc.gov), a way to fax a complaint (202-418-0232), a way to phone-in a complaint (Toll Free: 1-888-CALL-FCC), or you can mail in your complaints. All of this information was just one click away. Wow. How is this supposed to be difficult? I don´t get it. Of course we have to take into account that these people complaining to the FCC may not be computer literate. So I telephoned "Directory Assistance" and asked for the FCC number. Yep. They gave it to me! They are even "TTY Equipped" for the hard of hearing! Now it´s one thing to be computer illiterate, but to be telephone illiterate? C’mon!
(Man, I never thought I´d see the day I defended a Government institution.)

That´s why the PTC stepped in – again. This past year the PTC took steps to help America’s families hurdle the FCC´s overly burdensome citizen complaint process. Since then, the resulting difference in the volume of FCC complaints has been phenomenal! In less than a year, with the PTC´s help, the FCC was bombarded with 22,184 individual indecency complaints from families across the country. But no… The FCC found nothing indecent about a single one of the complaints!
(Sigh.)
AGAIN with the numbers…
Compare the 22,184 complaints to the 205.5 million consenting TV-watching and radio-listening adults in this country; it’s a huge margin there my friends. The report goes on and on for a few more pages citing such television shows as "Will & Grace" and "Boston Public".
(Ironic that they should mention Will & Grace. One night I was hanging out with Brock and his 12-year old son. Will & Grace came on and Brock told his son that he didn´t want him to watch it. Then he turned the channel. Now THAT´S parenting.)
Anyway, here´s where Bozell gets to his point…

But besides signing your Petition, I´m also asking you to support this critically important PTC project financially as well.
Oh, of course!
Here´s Why Your Gift Will Make A Difference: there´s no way we can make this happen without sending millions of letters like this one to decent, responsible families like yours in every state of the union. This alone will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The costs of running this program will be enormous. To do all we´ve proposed will cost the PTC over $650,000.
And that´s $650,000 the PTC doesn´t have. It would be very sad if we were to come up short merely because not enough PTC members and other decent and morally responsible people like you pitched in.
I swear I´m not making this up! Money! He wants money!
His suggested minimum "gift" is $25.
He says the PTC needs at least $650,000.
The PTC is supposedly 750,000 members strong.
So that means that he could have $750,000 if JUST his current "members" donated a buck!
That means that Bozell´s PTC could stand to make a cool $18,750,000 if just his "members" sent the minimum donation of $25.
(And, if it matters, those donations are "tax deductible!")
Something´s fishy about this whole thing.
This guy is a CROOK!
Okay, enough with the blue text.....

Now. If L. Brent Bozell and his PTC are so concerned with the TV shows, they ought to naught watch them. Don´t let their children watch them. Plain and simple, turn off the TV or put it on PAX or The Disney Channel! In his letter, Bozell refers to the readers as "decent, responsible families". If they are indeed responsible, they should monitor their children better and not let them be baby-sat by the TV. Yes TV is filled with sex and violence; we all know that. But so is the real world. If you don´t want your kids to watch a sexual innuendo-based sitcom, don´t let them. Those shows are not made for children; they are made for consenting adults.
At the time of this writing, the PTC´s number one worst show on television is "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". The name of this show says it all doesn´t it? How could you not know it´d be a violent show?

But I digress,
I think a better question is: How could you not know what your children are watching?
Always remember folks......Responsibility good. Censorship BAD!
And THAT´S the stuff dreams are made of.

See you guys next month!