[CS-FSLUG] TOTAL control over ALL media, including the Net!! It's coming!!

[EnzoAeneas]

No it is not uniquely American, but it does present a serious problem in our
country.

Allowing the government to control content gets into 1st Amendment issues,
but not allowing the government some say means that the people often times
will have no say in the content that is sent over their airwaves and other
transmission media.

A perfect example is seen in television; programs that would have never seen
the light of day 30 years ago are "mainstream" now. Commercials on all sorts
of adult topics are show when children may be watching television and even
on children's cable/satellite television channels. The opposite spectrum to
this is and was seen in Communist and Facist nations where the government
threatened imprisonment or death for expressing views that were "against the
State."

The way I see it, the only way that I can see to balance these using the
government is to force content providers to actively engage in electronic
filtering systems. First steps towards this were the mandating of V-Chips in
all televisions and television rating systems. The next would be to require
that all content have a rating including service messages, commercials, and
broadcaster's show previews. Beyond this, greater information
(meta-information) about the topic and content of these broadcast items
should be provided to allow methods similar to those being used to filter
Internet traffic. Since digital television seems to be on its way no matter
how misguided, it should be trivial to attach extra information about
content to television.
Similarly, radio can do some of the same, even without digital transmission,
just as the V-Chip is currently able to do. But that, my friends, would
require an enormous amount of public support as our government rarely does
anything that is completely in our best interest.

As for the Fairness Doctrine, I believe that broadcast media is the wrong
place to apply this kind of thinking. Such as doctrine is politically
motivated and therefore should be applied to the political forum. If we
really want honesty from our public officials, then they need to be required
to provide proof and evidence of what they are saying instead of just
spouting off at the mouth. Whether this evidence is in the form of
statistics, figures, spreadsheets of collated data from GAO or FDA, FAA, FCC
(you get the idea), or scripture from the Bible, the evidence needs to be
presented. I'll go one step further: our government commands billions, yeah
even trillions of dollars to fund its own functions; why can't this money be
put into systems that would track not only votes and attendance, but also
opinions and reasoning on every item in every bill from every one who voted
on it, for or against, complete with links and evidence. Our Justices are
expected to do so, especially in the Supreme Court. Why shouldn't our
Legislators, even our Executive, be required to do so as well. I mean, if
you can't explain in writing to your constituents your decisions on an issue
with more than just fear-mongering, rhetoric, and empty promises, then how
much do you really believe in your position?


Alas, I think that I have rambled again. Sorry

--Kevin

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find it interesting that you worry about government control over
content,
> when the government's job is supposed to be to represent the interest of
the
> people; however, for decades your media, be it radio, TV, or printed, was
> always controlled by big businesses who have time and time again proven
that
> they don't care about anyone but the upper class citizens.
>
> Is this uniquely American?
>
> _______________________________________________
> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
> Christiansource at ofb.biz
> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ofb.biz/pipermail/christiansource_ofb.biz/attachments/20090304/6dbbd83d/attachment.htm>