That’s just it – it’s not about YOUR children. They’re NOT your children. So who are you to dictate how they are being raised – at least so far as these “influences.” You have YET to show that this is so.
(That by seeing GGW commercials, kids will be “taken in by temptation”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean)
In the mean time, when the commercial comes on, flip the channel. Don’t like it? Too bad. You’re coming off like Big Brother here.
(FWIW, I find GGW incredibly annoying, but I usually just roll my eyes and change the channel for a minute or so)
That’s not Bryan’s position, though. He’s not saying that TV should be all immoral shows, and if you don’t like it, you don’t get to have any TV. That is, in point of fact, your position. You’re the one arguing that all television should be held to your personal standard of morality. That’s the absolutist position in this argument. The other side of this argument is nowhere near as extremist as yours - no one is demanding that all television be nothing but hard core pornography. Rather, the position you’re arguing against is to allow people to make their own choices. People who want hard core pornography should have access to hard core pornography, people who want stuff that’s a little racy, but not explicit, can have that, and people who want stuff that has no sex in it at all can have stuff that has no sex in it at all. Everyone gets what they want.
Except… that’s not what you want, is it? What’s getting your goat is that there are people out there who dare to have different wants than you do, and you have, in an inexplicable (though hardly innovative) twist of logic, decided that not being able to force other people to be like you is an infringement on your personal freedoms. If the only way for you to be completely free is to substantially reduce the freedoms of everyone around you, I think you need to seriously question if you understand what the concept of a free society actually means.
You’re wrong. That’s not what we are GETTING. What we are getting is naked girls* on a very popular TV channel on a weekend afternoon.
Actually what’s getting my goat is that people ignore the negative effects they are having on society. It’s at best a whole “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em” attitude.
*Albeit censored… now… but the behavior is not censored by any stretch of the imagination. In fact the slutty behavior is glorified. How many girls on those commercials scream “I love girls gone wild!” I don’t know, but I have heard them say those very words before I had a chance to flip the channel. So girls (especially those who were raised in disfunctional households) are more likely to think that girls are supposed to act that way when they get older. The drunk girls on the videos sure seem to be having a blast! Right? Well, maybe that is what is supposed to pass as fun when they turn 18… whoops… 16… Didn’t that Joe guy go to jail for having underage girls in his videos?)
So write a letter to the station to have the commercial put on later hours. (I admit, I am a wee surprised that it’s on so early. Usually I only see those stupid things on late night TV)
They probably do love GGW. And they probably are having a blast, since they are hot, stupid, drunk, and getting tons of attention. (And… probably getting laid!) I don’t understand why you’re taking this commercial as some kind of categorical manifesto- if you can see through it, others can too. It’s still there though, because TV is there, and one of the top things people like to see on TV is sexy people. It is the degree of examination that is getting you.
Not that I support exploiting the under-aged. I don’t. I don’t particularly support censoring people’s behavior either. In this case, it is showing off, nothing more.
Are you going to respond to Buddhism For Kids, or not?
Without knowing much about Buddhism I’m not inclined to announce my opinion about it. My answer to your question is, “I don’t know.”
But from what I know Buddhism is inwardly focused and I believe that we should be outwardly focused… towards other people, rather than inwardly focused on ourselves. After all cooperation is why society began in the first place.
I’d like to clarify that my intention is not to tell everybody what to do with their sex lives but rather to refrain from fostering an environment that encourages irresponsible sex, especially sex that is ignores the possibility of pregnancy.
No, that is what we’re getting. There’s a thousand different channels out there. Some of them have stuff you don’t like. Some of them have stuff you do like. Instead of just watching the channels you like, and ignoring the channels you don’t, you want to make all the channels show only stuff you like, without regard to what anyone else wants.
And then you complain that we are infringing on your rights.
We’re not ignoring them, we’re just putting them in their proper context. The sexual permissiveness that began in the late '60s and early '70s has some drawbacks, sure. It also has it’s advantages. In my opinion, those advantages vastly outweigh the drawbacks. Obviously, you disagree. Which is fine - except, again, you’re using that disagreement as an excuse to deprive me of my ability to make my own choices in life. I can’t be allowed to watch sex on television, because you think it’s bad for me. What I want is, apparently, not a part of this equation.
Wait… you’re saying that an advertisement for a commercial product… features people… talking about how much they like the product? Holy shit! How long has this been going on? Someone alert the media!
So sex is fine, but only if the people involved are hoping to get preggers? I mean, your position seems to be that if you’re not ready to be a parent, you shouldn’t have sex. Any form of birth control short of 100% will potentially have some unplanned pregnancies occur. And apparently, even if there was 100% effective contraception, you’d still be generally against sex between people not intending to get knocked up.
And more importantly, society should pretend sex isn’t a major portion of people’s lives just in case impressionable people happen to be around? Heaven forbid you get a glimpse of a sexual situation.
We’ve come pretty far a society and people are more and more comfortable expressing themselves and their sexuality. You see it reflected in society, media and the arts because it’s a reflection of who we are. And so far, all you’ve done is complain and try to drag us all kicking and screaming back the wrong way through the sexual revolution without ever really saying why the current model is a bad thing beyond your premise that you don’t like it.
Nah. I’ll pass. I disagree with your premise, your foundation and your worldview. Sex is good, enjoyable and a fairly important part of relationships. Contraception has made it a lot less risky and that’s a good thing. As the efficiency increases, all the better. If 8 million people having protected sex results in a quarter million pregnancies, I’m OK with that. Or at least, I’m much more comfortable with that the puritan anti-sexual attitude that you seem to be advocating.
Really? You’ll have to excuse me if I’ve gotten the opposite impression from your posts:
In any case, where is your evidence that the “attitude” that “society” has about sex is directly responsible for the unplanned pregnancy “problem” in the USA?
Yes, I believe you did. You say that people can have channels that don’t have sex in them, but really they can’t! They think they have a safe channel. It’s been safe for over 10 years! But one Sunday afternoon they turn on the TV and see that their favorite channel is showing a girls gone wild commercial!
There are standards that we come to rely upon for our television viewing. We have grouwn accustomed to expect this certain standard as family friendly. Some channels have fewer standards, but to receive those channels, you have to add them to your list. The standards that are in place are for the sake of family values. At certain hours of the day when children tend to watch TV images that portray sex are discouraged, especially on channels that attract young people. The sci-fi channel is one of the channels that a lot of young teens and pre-teens watch on a regular basis. Comedy Central too. And my point was that many channels that we come to rely on as safe for children are becoming less and less safe.
10 years can pass by pretty quick if you don’t pay attention. And yet a lot of changes can manifest in those 10 years. You might remember a channel being safe, say the Discovery Channel. There’s a lot of fun programming on there. Great for kids. Well, if you get busy, like, maybe you become a new parent, you no longer have time to watch those channels. You don’t know that those channels might be changing to include more and more objectionable material. 10 years later your kid is 10 years old and starts to like a TV show, say for example Mythbusters. Love that show! Currently they don’t have immoral commercials during Mythbusters but what if they do show them 10 years down the road? If my son wants to watch Mythbusters and knows I care about the shows he watches he’ll ask me because he’s a good boy. I remember that the Discovery Channel was very family friendly when I watched Mythbusters back in 2009. “Sure Timmy! You can watch it! Discovery Channel is safe!” But what I don’t know (because I’ve been too busy raising Timmy) is that standards of morality have slipped over the past 10 years and they have started showing commercials that I don’t want my kids to see.
Of course I as a parent would be a bit more careful and I would watch it with him. I’m illustrating the more common family of today. I think we all know that morality is vanishing but most people don’t put 2 and 2 together when they are in a situation like the one I described above. We take things for granted so your standard father is going to let Timmy watch Mythbusters in 2019 and lo and behold he discovers, contrary to what Daddy told him, that Girls LOOVE to take their shirts and panties off in front of hundreds of horny guys.
Please understand that I’m not complaining about the TV programming itself. I can of course complain to the network and if they get enough complaints they’ll get rid of the commercials I don’t like. But that’s beside the issue. If I was making an argument about global warming, I might point to the thermometer to indicate that it is warmer now than it was 10 years ago. TV is similar. It acts as a sort of barometer. Only 2 decades ago you couldn’t say any swear word on TV, not even at 2 AM. Now they will say the F-word on a regular basis. At least they’ll still bleep it out during prime time, but I have heard them used in the middle of the night. How long before we hear the F-word on one of the 3 big network channels during prime time? 5 years? 10 years? Next week? It will happen one day because our western culture is becoming more decadent. But again, the swear words on TV aren’t the issue. They point to the issue: the declining morality in our culture.
You know, it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. Couldn’t we have both? Just keep your decadence from creeping into my family friendly places like the Sci Fi channel. If anyone is treading on anyone’s rights, it’s the sexually permissive people treading on people who care about traditional morality. And you all aren’t theorizing about it as I am. You are ACTUALLY DOING IT, all in the name of free speech. I could watch the Sci Fi channel 5 years ago without any fear of being exposed to this trash. But now I can’t. So what has changed? My life. NOW I either have to suck it up and change the channel or buy a TIVO. So you tell me… WHO is treading upon whom?
You’re putting too many words in my mouth. Really. I keep telling you and you keep going back to the same thing. The GGW issue is a symptom of the problem that I am talking about, not the problem itself. Keep your feet off of MY rights.
Who made you the boss of the SciFi channel? I never watch it, so I can’t comment much, but Comedy Central has NEVER been a wholesome channel, no matter how much you like some of their shows.
Comedy Central has consistently featured stand-up comedians who have four letter words bleeped out. The have had South Park on the air for what, ten years? and that is the most kid-friendly show out there. They were home to the Man Show which worshiped boobs and beer. Comedy Central has always had an edgy place, as far as basic cable goes.
The idea that Comedy Central suddenly became fascinated with boobs, and you’re offended by it and want it to stop, belies the fact that they’ve been fascinated with boobs for 17 plus years now.
If you can’t accept a fleeting moment of listening to four letter words being bleeped out, or risque pictures being shown on screen, then Comedy Central isn’t for you. Your television certainly has a feature to delete channels you do not like, use it. However, you saying you like the channel, but it ought to change to suit your tastes, is like me buying the Wall Street Journal and complaining there’s too much business news in it. If you find the product so unacceptable, don’t give it your patronage.
