What are we, Europeans? I think not!

The Smoking Gun has an interesting sample collection of letters sent to the FCC in response to the BoobyBowl incident. One of my favorites, as a practitioner of warped humor is this one which concludes with:

What are we, Europeans? I think not!

In the end, I think this letter best reflects my views on the subject. Despite growing up in an environment where sex was a four letter word, I think the whole Make Love, Not War! ethos of the sixties rubbed off on me. When it comes to being a parent and being concerned about the factors influencing my children, I have a lot less problems with them seeing nudity than I do with most of the daily television fare we consider 'normal' (note that I don't advocate an FCC war on violence, I actually know how to turn the TV off if I don't like it).

If anything from this years insipid super bowl show bothered me, it was the weird relationship to our nations flag. I don't know why exactly, but I see it as a binary issue. Either respect it or abuse it (I served in the military to protect your right to abuse the flag if you feel the need, but do it right damn it!) Doing weird things with the stars and stripes bugs me (and I'm guilty as hell too, in some family album somewhere there is a picture of me at around 14 wearing a stars and stripes Speedo and tossing aside a stars and stripes beach hat). The seventies were all about commercializing national fervor and we've never gotten past that in some ways.

George Carlin said something recently that seemed right to me (and I paraphrase here); "If you don't get offended every so often, free speech isn't working." He went on to point out that the PC movement folks were equally, if not more culpable in extending an environment in which certain things could not be said. In the end, both ends of the 'correctness' spectrum are wrong and bent on seeing that we all pay the price.