So it appears thato ur fine friends in Congress are once again finding time in their busy schedules to determine what everyone else should and shouldn’t be seeing on television. Now a few of you might be thinking that the answer is fairly simple: everyone should see exactly what they want to see, and can turn the set off if something comes on which they don’t want to see. That makes sense to me as well, but luckily more intelligent voices are here to show us a better way. Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman:
Lovely logic. I am bowled over. However, before I run to get onboard with the new brand of censorship, my brain happened to dredge up some memories from about six years ago. It was then, as you may recall, that Congress passed legislation requiring that every TV set sold in America contain a V-Chip. The V-Chip allows parents to block out programming with ratings set at a certain level. This seems like fairly decent common sense, at least by Congressional standards. What my brain recalls, however, was how gaga various folks were over the powers of the V-Chip. The V-Chip would give us a weapon against indecency. It would put power in the hands of parents. It would allow children to be raised in a clean and healthy environment. If the V-Chip didn’t cure cancer, save the rhinoceros from extinction and protect planet Earth against incoming asteroids, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.
This brings up a question. If the V-Chip was such a wonderful tool with which to defeat indecency, then why do we still have indecency? Why are our lovely Senators and Representatives still on the case, battling tirelessly day and night to save the children from seeing things on a box in their living rooms? Could it be that all the hype about the wonders of the V-Chip six years ago was wrong, or at least exaggerated?
Then it came to me: we don’t need a V-Chip. What we need is an R-Chip.
Yes, that’s right. If we want our children to grow up in a clean and sanitary environment, free from pernicious influences, if we want them to become healthy and strong individuals, then what we need is a way to prevent them from seeing Republicans. To that end, I propose that all televisions should be required to contain the R-Chip. This will allows parents to block out programming above one of four levels:
TV-DI: Contains only Democrats and independents.
TV-M: Contains moderate Republicans.
TV-BAO: Contains Bush administration officials.
TV-TS: Contains Ted Stevens