CunningLinguist,
Yes. I know that you think that the whole idea of what Americans find indecent is just hypocrisy. I am uncertain why you would think so.
Are you suggesting that anyone who thinks that something is indecent is a hypocrite? If you are suggesting that no behavior is indecent, and that anyone who thinks so is a hypocrite, then I suspect that you will always be a disappointed man. Standards of decency have existed throughout recorded history, exist now, and I daresay will exist long after you have passed into the great perhaps. Perhaps you are suggesting that what most people in this country think is indecent is hypocritical? If so, why? If you accept that this is a representative democracy, and those who write the laws represent the opinions of the majority, then I fail too see the hypocrisy.
Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake forced their values upon tens of millions of unsuspecting people who thought they were watching the halftime show of a football game. How many other football games this year included exposing women’s breasts during halftime? Do you honestly think that anyone – other than those who planned this feature – expected what they saw? How about the millions of children whose parents naively though that this football game would also include no nudity. Do the opinions of these millions of people count for nothing? The answer is yes. They count for a lot. They vote. They may not vote – or think – the way you or I would like, but they vote.
Incidentally, in the afternoon of Sunday April 18, 1999 the Reichstag was reopened for use by a liberal democratic government, and has continued to fill that function ever since. Liberals can’t dis the Germans any more, as they stood up to those damn cowboys in America over Iraq. As an interesting aside to this aside, the restoration of the Reichstag was by – you guessed it – a Brit, Sir Norman Foster! Talk about heaping irony on irony!
http://www.bundesbaugesellschaft.de/en/rtg.htm
You are wrong to assert that violence is not censored.
This week I, and 11 other citizens, sent a man to prison for anywhere between 20 to 25 years for attempted murder (.357 Magnum). I believe you are wrong when you say “is perfectly OK to show someone getting their brains blown out on the evening news”. Can you provide examples to substantiate your claim?
More than $2.5 billion - that's $2,500,000,000 - has been spent by private companies over the last 12 years to clean up toxic waste.
In 2000, 2 men were sentenced to 3 and 7 years in the state penitentiary here in Maryland when they were caught dumping commercial paint waste. The trial ruled that they had violated the criminal statutes of Maryland's toxic waste laws. Their convictions were upheld on appeal.
In 2001 (I THINK that was the year) the Supreme Court ruled that the absolute levels of chromium and mercury must be used by the EPA to assess the pollution levels in ground water.
You are wrong to suggest that it is generally considered otherwise.