I realize that. But when there’s an ABC Family Channel, something like half a dozen Nickelodeon channels and boatloads of similar fare, SmartAlx cannot sensibly argue there is less family friendly programming than there used to be. And that programming is usually clearly identified. Things may get edgy on the Sci Fi channel, but if SmartAlx had kids, he would know there are a lot of channels they can watch where they’re not going to see that kind of thing at any hour of the day. And that’s leaving aside the extrapolations about morality he is drawing from TV programming.
The impression I get is it doesn’t matter if there are a billion family-friendly channels. One GGW commercial on one of the not-billion ruins the whole television experience, and how dare you suggest Alx has to limit himself to just the billion? Whatareya, some kinda Nazi?
I feel a conundrum coming on. Can a god create a person so prissy that god’s own eyes can’t roll fast enough?
What? So, from your standpoint, a society that allows degradation and enslavement of blacks, forbids women from voting, and condones marital violence would be more morally righteous than the USA of today, because we have Girls Gone Wild commercials on TV. Because the things that Society 1 allows are not questions of morality.
Got it.
Jeez, the mistakes are coming so fast and furious I can’t even see them all. The Motion Picture Association of America does not rate TV shows, only movies - the reason should be obvious - but despite what SmartAlx says, sex is one of the criteria they consider. In fact you could say it’s the biggest - almost the ONLY thing they consider. It’s an old truism that you can have lots of violence in your movie and get away with a PG-13 rating, but just a little sex will result in an R.
The FCC’s TV guidelines include “D” for suggestive dialogue and “S” for sexual situations. The “L” notice, for strong or offensive language, would almost certainly include racial slurs.
[quote=“SmartAlx, post:351, topic:515156”]
I said that the issue isn’t with me but with REAL parents.
Is there more gratuitous sex in the world?
Is there more violence in the world?
Is there more profanity in the world?
People are more free today (and that’s certainly an improvement) but the free people are also more immoral.
QUOTE]
What about the REAL parents who find today’s moral standards quite fine or even a bit too puritancial, eh? Is there more gratuitous sex in the world? Probably not. Prostitution in the West has declined drastically since my grandparent’s generation. Pornography is slightly more accessible, but it is also possible to get reliable birth control and post an opinion in a newspaper without getting a visit from the local ward boss or political officer. Is there more violence in the world? Hell no, compare the current Mid East War to one week of WWII or the Civil War or the 30 Years War. Is there more profanity in the world? Depends in where you look for it. And the freedom to swear is finally allowed to women that only men enjoyed earlier. NCO’s in the current American military at least are less profane than those of previous generations. Your problem Axl is that free people can make choices you don’t like.
I don’t know about tattoos, but I’ve seen pasties for sale like that.
You keep saying that the Discovery Channel is going to go downhill. Why? Because you saw a GGW commercial on the Sci Fi channel – which, it has been pointed out to you, time and again, has never really been a family friendly channel. Comedy Central even less so!
BTW, why is it up to TV to babysit your kids? Or at least, to conform itself to YOUR specific morals?
And what the hell is wrong with the freaking Disney Channel?!?! Well, other than a lot of the shows suck.
(More sex? More violence? Ever hear of the “Roaring Twenties?”)
Disney doesn’t hate on the gays.
so he shouldn’t have a problem? or that he should keep it to himself?
and as long as we’re skirting the issue by citing the transgressions of our forefathers, why don’t we analogize the onslaught of graphic content, or “choices that free people make” to the rise of Nazi Germany, and Axl is the lone Jew shaking his head saying “i don’t like the looks of this.” ??
the heart of the matter is that media is pushing the moral envelope. cite all the slavery, poverty, wartime stats you want, but in the MEDIA there is certainly a moral decline. If not proportionately (which imo there is) then certainly a gross increase of smut out there for kids to get their grubby little hands on.
when did YOU grow up?
axl doesn’t have a problem with other people out there indulging their hedonistic whims. he just has a problem when it sloshes over to his house, and i agree. sex, drugs, and violence have been with us for a long, long time. however with the advent of cable tv and the internet, families are flooded with content and it’s hard to cope with. 15 years ago Married with Children was considered edgy programming which is tame, and lame compared to programming now.
even the disney channel and nickelodeon programming have become less kid-friendly. When Britney Spears was on the MMC she was singing and dancing with Goofy and Mickey Mouse. Her kid sister’s show centered around ridiculous prepubescent love stories and got cancelled because she got knocked up. Nickelodeon used to be full of boogers and slime (edgy for the 90’s) is moving towards an older more “sophisticated” crowd with their programming.
the only shows i would feel comfortable watching with a kid would be either sports or nonfiction (history, food, nat geo, discovery, etc.)
I think you just killed this thread.
The nice thing about a moral decline is that you never, ever have to cite anything. You can just declare it over and over again, and that’s what.
In any case, who makes the media, and who watches the media? It’s people, isn’t it? So if people are now putting more racy programming on TV and killing and enslaving each other less, how is there a moral decline? There was no mass media until fairly recently, so why should morality be judged on such a limited basis?
He’s got about 100 posts in this thread that say otherwise.
Morality is how you treat people. The rest is commentary.
No, actually, I don’t have to admit that. Because I don’t think that it’s true, at least depending on what sort of a time line you’re looking at. Starting from when I was born (1975) the number of family friendly channels has increased exponentially. Off the top of my head, there’s Disney Channel, PBS, Pax, Discovery, and Nickelodeon. That’s more family friendly channels then there were channels, period, when I was growing up.
That doesn’t make my contention tenuous, because firstly, SciFi never marketed itself as family friendly, and has had shows exploring risque and mature themes for more than a decade now. And secondly, even if it had, the fact that one network decided to change its format doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly impossible to find family friendly fare on cable anymore. There is a sizable demand for programming that’s all ages appropriate. If one company gets out of that business, someone else will be waiting to take up their place in the market.
No, in point of fact, I think you should vote with your wallet. Don’t watch the SciFi channel. Spend your time and money on outlets that meet your moral standards. If there are enough people like you, those outlets will flourish, and other companies will be drawn to that market.
Morality isn’t slipping, so this is a moot point.
Then why is this a concern for you?
I’m sorry, but this is just patently ridiculous. Racism isn’t a moral issue? Sexism isn’t a moral issue? Slavery isn’t a moral issue? But profanity is?
Kid, you’ve got a severely cockeyed understanding of what morality is.
Well, no, it’s not. For one thing, “less violence” as compared to what time period? If we compare the state of the world today with, say, the state of the world in 1940, then there’s not even a fraction as much violence. If we just look at the stats for violent crime in the US over the last fifty years, there’s been a clear and mostly constant trend downwards.
I’m willing to grant sex and profanity being more common, but I don’t see these as particularly serious problems. Profanity isn’t even a moral issue, from where I’m sitting. Sex is more complicated, but I think on the whole, we have a much safer, saner attitude towards sex than has existed historically in this country heretofore. It does not, of course, well comport with “traditional” morality, but I’ve generally found traditional morality to be anything but when it comes to sex and gender issues.
I suppose so, if we use your peculiarly twisted concept of morality. But that’s the bitch about freedom, isn’t it? People are free to make decisions you don’t like. Including the decision to choose a moral system that doesn’t match your own.
You don’t have that right, either. Seriously, check the constitution and it’s various amendments. There is no right to freedom from other people’s morality. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Everyone has the right to choose their own moral system, and to talk about it as much as they want. That’s… well, that’s pretty much the entire point of this country. It might have been brought up at one point during your history classes.
Rights, generally speaking, are not things you invent on the spur of the moment to shore up a losing argument. They’re actually quite a bit more serious than that, and substituting, “That’s a violation of my rights!” for, “I don’t like that!” seriously erodes the meaning of the term, which does none of us any good.
I kept writing and re-writing a reply to Alx. But in the end, Miller’s last post sums it up.
We’re less violent, and more free with sexuality and language. All of which like good things to me.
But, just for a lark, go back and read the first page of this thread, and come back here. it’s amazing the little ride we’ve gone on here. And thus far, all we have is ‘get off my lawn’ variety stereotypes about how good it used to be while ignoring the evidence to the contrary.
False:
And just so you don’t think the issue is unwanted pregnancies that result from people having sex:
So, no. SmartAlx absolutely does want to tell everyone else what to do with their sex lives, regardless of whether or not it affects him. Even as justification is nullified and premise debunked, he staunchly adheres to his stance against premarital sex. One can only wonder why.
I can think of one reason we shouldn’t make this analogy: it’s incredibly stupid. I can also think of a reason why you, in particular, shouldn’t make this analogy: because the only way to make this analogy work is to cast Alx as the Nazis. The Nazis, after all, presented themselves as the champions of “traditional morality,” and they strongly emphasized the importance of cleaning up the arts and media to prevent the corruption of innocent Germans. Which is basically the position you and Alx have staked out for yourselves.
So, really, probably better to leave the Nazis out of the conversation entirely, because bringing them up isn’t doing you any favors.
Surprisingly enough, given how you opened this post, you’ve actually hit on a decent point. This stuff has always been out there. In the past, it was a lot easier to isolate yourself from things you didn’t like, because throughout most of the country, there was no way to access these things in the first place. Now, with the level of interconnectedness afforded by modern technology, it’s very easy to expose yourself to a wealth of different ideas from around the world. Folks like Alx want to have their cake, and eat it too. They want to be able to use this technology to communicate around the world, but they don’t want it to include anything outside their comfort zone. What they want, in effect, is to make the whole world just like their little corner of it. Which sort of defeats the purpose of being connected to the larger world, really.
I am so entering that in the ‘best one liner of the year’ award.
You need to show young women that children are an EXTENSION of who they are. I have seen these teens, especially from the city, they know there have no future, except through their kids. Kids will get them enough food, shelter and medical care. For instance in Illinois you can get medicaid if your a mother, but if you’re childless you cannot. Two exact same women, same health, one gets free medical care, dental care, etc, one does not. Why? 'Cause she has kids.
The fact is some of these kids have no future, except minimum wage, they can achieve more, but they don’t know how to go about doing it, and no one cares to show them or more importantly show them and INSIST they stay the course.
As long as kids see babies as a “way out” of their problems this is part of the problem.
As for men, well they simply do not care. I’ve worked with teens and the overall attitude is “So what if she gets pregnant, it’s her problem.” I try to impress “Sorry, fella for the next 18 years it’ll also be your problem” Even with gay youth, the boys don’t see HIV as big enough of an issue to use a condom. If a lifelong illness that you take daily meds to control isn’t going to scare them a child isn’t gonna matter much to them either.
Oversimplified, but based around a nugget of truth…
The more people you have sex with the weaker this bond becomes when you do marry.
[/QUOTE]
…this, I have never seen demonstrated by any scientific publication ever. Cite?
Oh, btw, I find THIS ad far, FAR more offensive than GGW, and I see it a hell of a lot more frequently.
I mean, who the hell drinks something that’s been on the floor and squeezed out of a mop? And do people REALLY push spilled ketchup under the fucking fridge, rather than just wipe it up with a wet rag? WTF???
Ugh!
Talk about teaching your children bad habits!
I was raised by a single mother, and a hippie single mother at that, and I did quite well, thank you. Even though Mom gave me Our Bodies, Ourselves at age nine and let me read stuff from her her porn stash when I stumbled across it at 14.
I must admit that I do routinely get taken in by temptations to buy more books than I’ve budgeted for, and to eat sushi for lunch rather than the nice cheap rice pilaf baggies I’ve stashed at lab. Otherwise, I’ve been pretty good on this resisting temptation stuff.
- JR Brown, non-drinking, non-smoking, non-drug-using, book-reading, classical-music-listening, dog-loving, PhD-owning, blue-state left-wing pro-choice liberal, porn-reading, single childless gal who supports premarital and nonmarital sex and single motherhood for properly prepared, consenting adults, nanny-nanny-boo-boo.