HR 3687 IH
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3687
To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the
punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 8, 2003
Mr. OSE (for himself and Mr. SMITH of Texas) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
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A BILL
To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the
punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1464 of title 18,
United States Code, is amended--
(1) by inserting `(a)' before `Whoever'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
`(b) As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to
language, includes the words `shit', `piss', `fuck', `cunt', `asshole', and
the phrases `cock sucker', `mother fucker', and `ass hole', compound use
(including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other
or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words
and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive
forms).'.
I had read that one already and could not help but notice the irony. I can
see why people would prefer not to have those words on the public airwaves.
They are considered offensive by most of society, and even by those who use
them. But while that's true in most cases, it's not true in all cases.
If those words were all so inherently offensive that they should never be
used, then they should not have appeared in that bill. The bill would have
ended up looking like the edited version above. The obvious problem with
that is that such a bill would serve no purpose. The authors of the bill
have recognized in writing that there are sometimes legitimate reasons for
using those words. The bill itself stands as an example. One cannot
discuss the issue without using those words.
As a result, this profanity-laden document now permeates the Internet. It
is probably part of the congressional record, and will be read on C/SPAN for
the whole nation to hear if that has not happened already. Yet the bill's
authors consider this acceptable. It's wrong for others, but not for them.
Suppose Howard Stern wanted to do a show on this very bill? Should he be
restricted from mentioning the core of what this bill is about? Can he have
an intelligent discussion of the issue without mentioning those words?
Should the government have the right to suppress this type of show?
There have been a variety of opinions on what constitutes protected free
speech. Some argue that our government should not restrict speech at all.
Most agree that there are reasonable limitations when it comes to disturbing
the peace, creating a (lack of) safety issue, or threatening somebody's life
or property. Then there is the arch conservative Robert Bork, whose views
were considered so extreme that it kept him off the Supreme Court, who once
argued that the founding fathers intended this freedom to apply only to
political speech. Yet if we apply this most restrictive right wing view,
it's still hard to make a case against Howard Stern or some other
commentator who wishes to discuss a bill that's before Congress. How much
better can one fit the definition of political speech than to discuss this
bill?
There is no question that this bill proves that there is an appropriate
context for all of these words. Yet our same government would have
precluded me from emailing a PDF of this bill to a high school student, and
I'm still not sure where those provisions of the Communications Decency Act
of 1996 stand.
As much as I find those words distasteful, our government has no business
prohibiting them without considering context. It's questionable whether
they should be doing this in any context. Broadcasters should come up with
voluntary guidelines and leave it up to their viewers to decide what to
watch. Al Gore had the right idea. Leave it up to me as a consumer to set
my TV to allow or disallow programming based on content. Once this
technology is widespread, networks can broadcast sheep having sex with
turtles while cursing in Arabic for all I care. If I have the ability to
decide for myself, and blocking it for my family is trivial, it's a
non-issue what the rest of the world wants to watch.
Certainly not me. I say we let Mr. Jesus decide what gets said and to whom.
jh
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! It said "gerund"! I'm scarred for life!
/the duck
(now off to salve her wounded psyche by websurfing for more of Janet's
jewelry)
--
Ellen "Miz Ducky" Brenner
mizducky "at" drizzle dot com
http://www.mizducky.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mizducky/
"Michael J. Ventura" <Ign...@squatmail.com> wrote in message
news:vfednerx_5n...@comcast.com...
"Hagrinas Mivali" <remove....@sbcglobal.net> wrote
> I had read that one already and could not help but notice the irony. I
can
> see why people would prefer not to have those words on the public
airwaves.
> They are considered offensive by most of society,
SOCIETY IS A LOAD OF HORSESHIT.
> There is no question that this bill proves that there is an appropriate
> context for all of these words.
It's all about contezt and has nothing whatsoever to do with the words
themselves, because WORDS CANNOT HURT YOU. How they are used can. The
thought behind them can. But THERE ARE NO BAD WORDS.
> As much as I find those words distasteful, our government has no business
> prohibiting them without considering context.
At this point in history, our government has no business doing anything but
fixing the stupid shit they've already done. There are FAR more important
things to do with ANYONE'S time in this world than worrying about the usage
of the word "fuck." I'd start with figuring out why the fuck we're still
bombing the shit out of each other, why so many people are mentally fucked
up and can't get adequate help about it, and kicking George W. Bush the fuck
out of office and forcing him to work the night shift at a fucking BP
station. Oops, I just used the word "fuck" again. Oh well. Fuck it.
> It's questionable whether
> they should be doing this in any context.
At last we agree on something!
Broadcasters should come up with
> voluntary guidelines and leave it up to their viewers to decide what to
> watch.
Jesus H. Christ in a pastry dish! Are you fucking INSANE??? That might
actually MAKE SENSE, you lunatic!
> Al Gore had the right idea.
Right after he invented the Internet? Oh wait, he never actually said that.
He said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Oh wait, that wasn't
him either. Somebody else. Where was I?
Leave it up to me as a consumer to set
> my TV to allow or disallow programming based on content.
So I take it you aren't taping The Sopranos right now? Shit, I forgot to set
the VCR again.
> Once this
> technology is widespread, networks can broadcast sheep having sex with
> turtles while cursing in Arabic for all I care.
You say that as if there wasn't a channel out of the 50 bazillion on my
digital cable that isn't showing that already.
If I have the ability to
> decide for myself, and blocking it for my family is trivial, it's a
> non-issue what the rest of the world wants to watch.
Let's boil that down to the essence - IT'S A NON-ISSUE.
This isn't really about "society", it's about the weird shit we've built our
society on, which is mostly religion. Or a few really fucked-up religions.
There's plenty of religions in parts of the world where Bono hasn't toured
yet that aren't as fucking stupid as the ones Western "culture" has been
inflicted with. If you think this isn't about religion, let's take a look at
these words for a minute and what they mean literally. I'll use George
Carlin's list, because I'm already stealing a point from him, which is that
these words have to do with THE HUMAN BODY, which is something that most
religions really don't want to be bothered with. That nasty evil sinful
human body. How dare it get in our way of not having a good time! The human
body is DIRTY. It's EVIL. It's to be overcome. We don't even get one when
Uncle Jesus comes back and takes us all to hebbin'. We just float around and
stuff. Which would probably make it hard to go down those waterslides that
they were building at Christian theme parks back in the 80s, but that's
kinda getting off the point at hand now.
So anything to do with these evil bodies is naturally gonna present a
problem for people who don't like the bodies in the first place, right? Hey,
my body is evil too, but that has nothing to do with Satan and everything to
do with 34 years of eating Satanic food. Anyone want a bottle of Mean Green
Motherfucker hot sauce?
You know the words, sing along, kids!
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.
SHIT - The stuff that comes out of your ass. It comes out of EVERYONE'S ass.
Even if you're on a low-carb diet! Imagine that! How much ya wanna bet that
when Dr. Atkins fell over dead, he also SHIT himself? Excuse me, I'm having
a case of "richfuckingironyitis" right now.
PISS - The stuff that comes out of your male/female parts. Everybody has
those too. Sometimes we even trade them in for the opposite ones and put up
web pages about it. At any rate, everybody takes a piss sometimes. Even
Lorena Bobbit's ex-husband.
FUCK - The reason you are HERE. Your parents FUCKED. Your dad took his
hairy, undersized penis (it has to be undersized, all those spammers say
NONE of us is big enough) and inserted it into your mother's vagina. Then he
did some other stuff, so did she, then some goo came out, and nine months
later YOU came along. And if you are offended by my description of this, you
are WEIRD. Because unless you were born in a test tube or your mother hung
out in gardens with angels and rode a donkey to Bethlehem, this is EXACTLY
what your parents did. And they even ENJOYED it. Unless of course they were
Christians, because every good Christian knows that you don't enjoy sex. You
don't even think about it. Never. Try that for a while. No, really. Try not
thinking about sex for a while. I'm not talking to the women now, because
women are really weird and never ever think about sex ever (unless they're
on an overrated HBO show) and only MEN think about sex all the time. At
least that's what women tell us, but they're full of that stuff from the
first word, just like we are when we say "No, honey! I wasn't looking at
that chick's ass!" Anyway guys, try not thinking about sex for more than
five minutes. I dare you. Your head hurts now, doesn't it? Thought so.
CUNT - Anyone who would try to stop a really cool tribute band from
performing Zappa songs. Oh wait, that's not right. Or maybe it is. Actually,
a "cunt" is that thing your dad stuck his weiner in. Get over it.
COCKSUCKER - God's gift to mankind. How anyone could possibly ever be
offended by the idea of cocks being sucked is absolutely beyond my
comprehension. Go ahead and outlaw "fuck" and "shit" if you must, but
"cocksucker" is your friend. And remember, friends don't use teeth. Ouch!
MOTHERFUCKER - Your dad.
TITS - Things that WE ALL HAVE SO STOP THIS STUPID BULLSHIT ABOUT JANET
JACKSON YOU GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKING CUNT FUCK PISS SHIT!
See my point? These words in their literal meaning are about things that are
ESSENTIAL TO HUMAN LIFE. If nobody fucked, nobody would exist. If nobody
shit or pissed, we'd all explode and somebody would have a really lousy
cleanup job ahead of them. Cocksucking may not seem essential to some
people, but they are WRONG. Tits may not be essential, but they sure are a
hell of a lot of fun.
I was going to go into a really long and far more serious (and extremely
pissed off) rant, but I'm having so much fun I better stop now. Like anyone
cares. By the way, I wrote this while listening to Robert Fripp's Exposure,
which somehow makes it all the more fuckin' funny to me.
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuck,
Dougie
I see...For example, you could say that Alan White, the drummer who replaced
*Bill* Bruford in Yes, played on "The *Gates* of Delirium", and there's
absolutely nothing wrong with that sentence unless you remove all the words
not surrounded by asterisks...Gotcha
> By the way, I wrote this while listening to Robert Fripp's Exposure,
> which somehow makes it all the more fuckin' funny to me.
My transfer?
ftss, transferrin' a whole new way these days, or at least learnin' how...
> > It's all about [context] and has nothing whatsoever to do with the words
> > themselves, because WORDS CANNOT HURT YOU. How they are used can. The
> > thought behind them can. But THERE ARE NO BAD WORDS.
>
> I see...For example, you could say that Alan White, the drummer who
replaced
> *Bill* Bruford in Yes, played on "The *Gates* of Delirium", and there's
> absolutely nothing wrong with that sentence unless you remove all the
words
> not surrounded by asterisks...Gotcha
If you used those words in the context of the guy who came up with my
goddamn motherfucking piece of worthless shit operating system being tossed
into a hole full of rabid AIDS-infected pit bulls armed with Charlton
Heston's leftovers and having just watched a particularly bad episode of
<insert name of incredibly irritating reality TV show here> , then no, they
are not bad words. In fact, they make me pretty fuckin' happy. Context,
baby. Fuckin' context.
> > By the way, I wrote this while listening to Robert Fripp's Exposure,
> > which somehow makes it all the more fuckin' funny to me.
>
> My transfer?
> ftss, transferrin' a whole new way these days, or at least learnin' how...
Actually, MP3s from the official CD, but I was listening to your lovely
transfer of that lovely original vinyl mix just a couple days ago. You DO
rule, you know.
She asked me to wait in the hallway,
Dougie
Since I have to watch my language, I just want to say to Mr. Ose that you
suck. I can't say that you are a [rooster] sucker, but I can still say suck
my dick, and I can still talk about tits.
scumbag baby, scumbag
jh