Should We Dispose the Garbage?

“Freedom’s Curse” was a provocative article about the expletive language found in modern day culture. “Taboo words” were said to activate humans emotionally creating controversy over its use on television shows and movies. Expletive language has now become an innate feature of our modern day culture and people have adapted to its explicit nature to the point where people just expect it. The scholarly article, “Broadcast Indecency” from the CQ Researcher, argues about whether or not indecency is demoralizing American society and whether the FCC should regulate. According to the article, television “showed 6.7 scenes featuring topics related to sexuality every hour, and the average teenager watches three to four hours of television a day.” This demonstrates that children are habitually influenced by sexual content in their everyday lives. This constant influence is said to cause children to believe that “… ‘having sex is beneficial.’” Children are getting the false impression that everyone is having sex because they hear provocative words that were discussed in the article “Freedom’s Curse”. Although the effects of this exposure seem to be self evident, the statistics demonstrate that it’s not affecting our society as much as predicted. Statistics show that “…pregnancy rates among U.S. teenagers have dropped to the lowest level ever recorded, and fewer teenagers are having sex.” Maybe this new culture is informing children at a young age what is right and what is wrong causing them to prevent making the same mistakes as past generations.

The garbage and indecent activity shown in television and other media has caused great debate over whether or not it should be regulated and if it can. Over the past 10 years “… the FCC has received more than 308,000 complaints of indecent broadcasts…” People will always complain if their child has witnessed a provocative show, but the majority of people have begun to adapt to the culture. If the public really has a problem with it, then the “…public [is] free to turn off the TV or radio. They are not forced to own a television and watch shows with curse words. In the “Freedom’s Curse” article, the Supreme Court ruled Carlin’s words too filthy and decided to regulate. The question of whether the FCC is allowed to regulate remains an issue because the first amendment grants freedom of speech and the Supreme Court will most likely consider regulation unconstitutional. People, who are pro-regulation, make the argument that it will protect the youth from being exposed at an early age. According to the “Freedom’s Curse” article, “…over-the-air broadcasts are uninvited intruders into the home and can expose children to indecent language, harming their psychological and moral development.” Both articles make and argument that regulation is needed and the Family Research Council's Trueman said that we should regulate “‘Because (the first amendment’s) a freedom that turns into a slavery if we are no longer allowed to protect our children and instead enslave them in this culture we're developing.’” This statement is ironically true if you truly believe that modern media is playing “games” with our youth.

The article used was from the CQ Researcher and the link is http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2004041600&type=hitlist&num=0.