<<You continue to act as if Canadian television broadcasts are indicative of those in the US; they're not. There is a reason why Canadians are breaking Canada's laws to get US television, but people in the US aren't breaking US laws to get Canadian television (mostly because it's against the law for Canadians to buy US television service, but it's not against the law for Americans to buy Canadian television service).>>
Well, that's true and I guess I'm somewhat at a disadvantage in discussing the specifics of what is or is not allowed into American homes. Particularly since we're talking about the kind of programs (current entertainment, sporting events) that I hardly watch anyway) and there are no kids left in the house. HOWEVER, I am sure that the basic principles that I relied on in making my point are still valid, even if I got some of the details wrong.
My premise is that America has a basic framework of near-absolute First Amendment values that are by far the highest in the world, but that within that framework there is a kind of commercially-based censorship that operates less efficiently than government censorship would, and can choke off, to varying degrees, but not to zero, the access that any individual or group has to the American public. (Think Dixie Chicks.) Some of these groups can fight their way back into the ratings, sometimes even inadvertently assisted by the very efforts made to ban them in the first place, but that doesn't negate the power or effect of the ban or attempted ban - - a lot of wasted energy was required just to overcome its effects.
My second premise has to do with content, and I base it on the example of NAMBLA - - the National Association for Man-Boy Love Affairs. This organization, if it still exists, promotes the ideas that adult males should be able to have lawful, non-violent, loving sexual relations with young boys of any age by Constitutional right, and that such relations would or at least could be mutually beneficial to the participants. I think it's reasonable to assume that NAMBLA's views are highly offensive to at least 99.99% of the American people (or any other people) and also that their right to express such views, offensive as they may be, are fully enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America. (to America's everlasting credit)
I would speculate that if any of America's top anchorpersons or commentators, Imus included, had ever suddenly converted to the NAMBLA point of view, and began holding forth publically, on or off the air, about the Constitutionally-guaranteed wonders of man-boy love and what great work NAMBLA was doing, and what an injustice it was to seven-year-old boys that their Constitutionally guaranteed rights to enjoy love and sex with older men were being trampled upon by a fascist police state and its Supreme Court stooges, his or her ass would be canned with a speed that would make the speed of light look stodgy and tired by comparison. Without in any way infringing upon any First Amendment rights.
My point being that there is and has always been an anti-hierarchy of values in the MSM, which renders ridiculous any post such as Modesty Blaise's, which bemoans a vanished "freedom" trashed in the Imus case, and that in that anti-hierarchy of values, homosexual pedophilia ranks at the very top, probably followed closely by pedophilia, "anti-Americanism," (i.e., any informed examination of America's REAL role in the world after WWII,) "Islamocommunopervofascism," disrespect for the troops, and, way down on the list, racism and sexism.
The real Imus debate was not about Imus, or even the First Amendment, but the hierarchy or anti-hierarchy and whether or not racism and sexism should rank closer or further from the NAMBLA level of repulsiveness in it. It was therefore a test of the real values of the American people. Which they passed with flying colours.
