The continued reference to Mary Cheney by the Dems

blatham wrote:

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It's not about the choices you want to make for your own parenting, it's about the choices you think the program should make for other people's parenting.
Yes.

Good night! who said that? Unbelievable! There you have it. In writing. Stick foot in mouth. My god! It's snowing outside.

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(Incidentally, I think I've figured how to get around the "just a kid in a family headed by a couple of moms, no big deal"/ "Er, we're showing this one in prime time because it's such a big deal" dichotomy by emphasizing the maple sugaring part. I told sozlet that there would be something on TV soon showing how maple syrup/ sugar is made, and she's excited about watching that. I'm not going to bring up anything beyond that, though will of course answer any questions she has... The reason though is because I think the "no big deal" part is one of the more powerful messages of the show.)

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(Thomas said that, Lola. No foot-sticking, rather the opposite.)

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Soz wrote

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I'm not saying that you can't turn the TV off -- fine. We're saying that it would be nice to have some sort of objective, general basis for statements like "it's not easily understood by very young children and you postpone these discussions" if you are applying them to EVERYONE -- which you are doing if you are using it as an argument for anything but turning the show off, yourself.

You must not have read the whole post my friend including the part about how it is nonproductive to turn the show off after it has already started. I don't need any basis for the way I prefer to rear my children any more than you need a basis for the way you prefer to rear yours.

It all comes down to that sticky wicket called compromise. When we do not agree, and neither of us is evil, why not look for a solution that meets the needs of both? It seems to me your local PBS station did just that. I heartily approve of the solution they came up with. It allows both of us to have what we want--you the opportunity to show the segment to your kids; me to delay that discussion for a later time.

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What I'm saying is you need a basis for the way you prefer OTHER people to raise their children, especially if your preference extends to actions that impact how other people raise their children -- such as taking a show off the air.

(As it happens, I do like to have a basis for the way I raise my child, and base my willingness to discuss the subject with my toddler at all in part on research that shows there is no harm and a great deal of good in doing so.)

But, yes, bottom line, if you heartily agree with what WOSU decided, no particular argument.

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Thomas wrote:

Lash wrote:
This is one post I reference. I just want to say that you can decide to postpone explaining to young children issues like homosexuality without personally having negative feelings about it.

Fair enough. And your opposition, as far as I could make out, had no problem with this so far. The problem was with the conclusion you drew, and which you just repeated. You didn't say, 'I prefer to postpone explaining homosexuality to young children, so I'll change the channel when PBS runs that episode.' You didn't say, 'I'll change the channel, and I'll reduce my donation to PBS because they broadcast fewer shows I want my children to watch.' You concluded:

Lash wrote:
I don't think a program geared for such young children should feature gay people who are identified as gay.

This appears to mean: 'I don't just want the choice not to watch that episode myself. I want the program to deny this choice to parents with other preferences than myself.' That was the part of your argument I had a problem with when I read it, and I suspect it's the part the others had a problem with too. It's not about the choices you want to make for your own parenting, it's about the choices you think the program should make for other people's parenting.

(Disclaimer: I didn't pay very much attention to this thread, so it's possible that I missed something relevant.)

Thomas-- There may be some here whose arguments and feelings about this are close to mine--but go further.

To clarify-- I am not one who would seek to have the show stopped. Just my personal opinion that it is inappropriate.

I would just utilize the on/off button, because I live in a small town where there have been nutty religious wars over cable TV. That lesson twenty years ago---(forever known as the Satan HBO debacle)---taught me about not foisting my personal views on others' lives. I am not for censorship. But, I would express my opinion--as we all are likely to do.

But, if control over what is featured on TV (and the resulting "moral" code)is a zero-sum--which it is--then your contingent is the one shaping how others raise their children. One has to win--one has to lose.

I have picked my side--which is not to mandate to others--but you have picked the other side, which forces your opinion and "moral code" on the airwaves. It should be said. The on/off button is only used by very attuned parents. Those who are not monitered are being fed your values. It may not make a hill of beans in Lesbo Sugartime--but there are other instances wherein I think it does have quite an effect.

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Lash wrote:

I have picked my side--which is not to mandate to others--but you have picked the other side, which forces your opinion and "moral code" on the airwaves. It should be said. The on/off button is only used by very attuned parents.

I don't think you are describing my stand fairly, and I have the posts to back it up. For example, when Blatham started his thread The anti-gay-marriage amendment is homophobic, I spent at least half of the thread arguing, against him, that it's a bad idea for gay marriage supporters like us to push our opinions through against unwilling fellow citizens. (If you don't feel like sorting through a 55 page thread, Blatham is here to read this and will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong.)

In the case of TV broadcasting, I think it's important to remember the asymmetry of the situation. If a TV station broadcasts something some people like and others deem offensive, the offended side always has the option of using the 'off' switch. You are right to say that many won't, but it's their choice. On the other hand, if the TV station decides not to broadcast it, the people who would have liked it have no button on their TVs that would bring the show back on the air. That's why I strongly prefer to err on the side of broadcasting controversial TV programs, and why think the burden of proof should be on those who think the broadcast ought not happen. And I would take the same stand if the show were about a commune of communists, or a clan of fundamentalist shiites, or other people whose ideology I disapprove of.

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Thomas wrote:

In the case of TV broadcasting, I think it's important to remember the asymmetry of the situation. If a TV station broadcasts something some people like and others deem offensive, the offended side always has the option of using the 'off' switch. You are right to say that many won't, but it's their choice. On the other hand, if the TV station decides not to broadcast it, the people who would have liked it have no button on their TVs that would bring the show back on the air.

Pretty much. Nutshell.

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Thomas wrote

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In the case of TV broadcasting, I think it's important to remember the asymmetry of the situation. If a TV station broadcasts something some people like and others deem offensive, the offended side always has the option of using the 'off' switch. You are right to say that many won't, but it's their choice. On the other hand, if the TV station decides not to broadcast it, the people who would have liked it have no button on their TVs that would bring the show back on the air.

This is reasonable but incomplete I think. Some years ago, some vandals went to a video store and rented some Disney movies suitable for very young children, inserted some hard core porn in the middle of each, and returned them to the store. The parents who subsequently rented the movies had no idea of course, sat their children in front of the TV with what they believed was 100% safe stuff. One mother found herself in the awkward position of having to deal with a wild sex scene with all the guests at her five-year-old's birthday party. Is there anything wrong with 'hard core sex' between consenting adults? Of course not. Is it appropriate for five-year-olds? Not in my book. But once it's out there, how do you unring that bell?

Now take this principle to daytime chldren's program on television. The parents trust and deem appropriate a regularly scheduled program and that becomes part of the family routine. But the programmers unexpectedly insert an episode that many parents would consider inappropriate for young children. You don't know what's coming and once its there on the screen, whether or not you turn off the program at that point, you're going to have the discussion with your children that you intended to delay for a later, more appropriate time.

So the ones funding that program agree with the parents that the subject matter is not appropriate for young children and do not want their 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" on it. Since they hold the purse strings, they have the right to get the product they are paying for. They're in no way saying others should not pay for it or that it cannot be shown. But in this case they have the right to get the conservative bang for their buck.

Solution. Give parents the opportunity to preview the program during adult time, tape it, and show it to their children if they find it approrpriate.
Nobody's values are forced n anybody and nobody who wants to see it is denied the program.

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Let's see. In one case, we have a PBS program. By the so-far undisputed account of Sozobe, it routinely exposes children to families very different from their own, and routinely conveys an underlying message that it's okay to be very different from one another. One day, there's an episode in which the foreground action shows how maple syrup is made, and the background shows two mothers holding hands. In the other case, we have a video store which routinely rents out Walt Disney films. One day, it accidentally rents out hard core porn inserted into one of the Disney films, to which it forms a rather stark contrast.

Evidently you think the analogy of both cases is close enough to guide PBS's decision whether and when to show the program. I, by contrast, see the two cases as different enough in degree to be different in kind. In my view, the PBS episode is much better comparable to the racially integrated Sesame Street in the 60s, and to Kermit singing "It's not easy being green". Racism, like sex, is no doubt hard for some parents to talk about with their children. Would you conclude that therefore, Sesame Street ought not have shown racially integrated episodes in the South in the 60s, and that Kermit ought not have sung this song? Your arguments in the PBS case do seem to imply this conclusion.

On the proper analogy for the case, I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree. But I, too, can live with the practical resolution of the problem by Sozobe's PBS station.

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But Thomas, the issue is not whose values are the "right" values or even who has the most reasonable point of view. The issue is whether 1) parents should be able to express their opinions about what is appropriate in publically funded children's programming, and 2) whether the one paying for the program has the right to exercise editorial control over the content.

On the first issue, I guarantee you with quite a great degree of certainty, that if the program in question was somehow showing a politically incorrect point of view--homosexuals may be exposed to greater risk of certain kinds of disease; black people are rarely proficient at competitive swimming, etc. etc. etc. or any other subject like that, however true--the wails and complaints would be loud and far reaching that this is not what children should be shown and the goverment is insensitive and meddling to be paying for it. I would agree, this is not what young children should be shown. Conversely, the views of parents on other subjects should also be factored into the mix even though you do not share their views.

On the second point, editorial content is routinely monitored and controlled by private sector sponsors, and if programmers do not wish to meet the expectations or preferences of those paying for the program, they will usually lose a sponsor. Many a program has been dropped from the airways because it could not find a sponsor to sponsor it. This is not censorship. This is business. No less is true of a government entity that is paying for a program intended for a certain end and monitoring such program to be sure they are getting what they are paying for.

You may not agree that the program deviates from its intended purpose and I may not agree that the program deviates from its intended purpose, but tolerance has to go both ways or it is not tolerance at all but is quite something else.

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Foxfyre wrote:

But Thomas, the issue is not whose values are the "right" values or even who has the most reasonable point of view. The issue is whether 1) parents should be able to express their opinions about what is appropriate in publically funded children's programming, and 2) whether the one paying for the program has the right to exercise editorial control over the content.

Maybe so, but those are not the issues you addressed in the post I was responding to. The issue you addressed was whether, for purposes of TV programming, exposing children to a same-sex couple holding hands is comparable with exposing children to hard-core porn. Your position was that it is, if I understood it correctly. Please don't blame me for responding to the issue you have actually talked about, and not to the issue that maybe you ought to have talked about.

Foxfyre wrote:

On the first issue, I guarantee you with quite a great degree of certainty, that if the program in question was somehow showing a politically incorrect point of view--homosexuals may be exposed to greater risk of certain kinds of disease; black people are rarely proficient at competitive swimming, etc. etc. etc. or any other subject like that, however true--the wails and complaints would be loud and far reaching [...]

This may well be. And I would have opposed that just as much, because two wrongs don't make a right. But in the context of this debate, I haven't seen anyone deny a parent the right to express their opinion on the issue. Only some people who claimed that their opinion is flawed, which is a very different thing.

Foxfyre wrote:

On the second point,

I agree with you that government may well have the right to reduce its subsidies if it doesn't like to subsidize the episode. It would have also have had the right to cut its subsidies in response to Kermit's "It's not easy being green". That's why I'd prefer it if PBS increased the privately funded share of its budget from about 80% to 100%, and get Uncle Sam out of it. But even if governments have the right to do this, it's still lousy policy -- a policy of imposing conservative political correctness, which I disdain just as much as imposing liberal political correctness.

But you said that the merits of our opinions are not the issue, and I respect if you don't want to discuss them further.

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Respectfully Thomas, you are drawing conclusions that I said something I did not say. I did not in any way compare a same sex couple holding hands with hard core porn. I suggest you read again what I wrote and see what I was saying about not being able to 'unring a bell' which is the whole point and has been the whole point since I got involved in this discussion, and is the point I believe that Lash and JW have made since this whole discussion started.

If your opinion is that you have been denied the opportunity to see a program you wished to see, then indeed that opinion was not the issue I was addressing other than to say that it is not other people's responsibility to see that you get to see the program. If it is important to you, I am sure you will forward a contribution to your local PBS station along with a request that it be used to fund that particular program.

I really thought you of all people would not be unable to see the point through all the many examples that have been posted.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Respectfully Thomas, you are drawing conclusions that I said something I did not say. I did not in any way compare a same sex couple holding hands with hard core porn. I suggest you read again what I wrote and see what I was saying about not being able to 'unring a bell' which is the whole point and has been the whole point since I got involved in this discussion, and is the point I believe that Lash and JW have made since this whole discussion started.

Understood. And the same logic applies to the racially integrated Sesame Street in the 60s too. Is it your position that this "unring the bell" problem should also have caused PBS not to broadcast the program? That the government would have been justified in withholding contributions for that reason? My point is, I have no problem with the principle you are advancing, but even sound principles lead to flawed conclusions if you apply them to factual misconceptions. And I think that's what you did.

Foxfyre wrote:

If your opinion is that you have been denied the opportunity to see a program you wished to see, then indeed that opinion was not the issue I was addressing other than to say that it is not other people's responsibility to see that you get to see the program.

No. But when you try to advance your interests as a parent at a cost to other viewers, it is your responsibility to consider that the other viewers may not want to pay that cost -- and that the cost to them may outweigh the benefit to you.

Foxfyre wrote:

If it is important to you, I am sure you will forward a contribution to your local PBS station along with a request that it be used to fund that particular program.

As it happens, I already am forwarding a (very modest) monthly contribution to thirteen.org, which I regard as my home channel until I actually move to the US. I trust my station, so see no need to attatch strings to my contribution.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Respectfully Thomas, you are drawing conclusions that I said something I did not say. I did not in any way compare a same sex couple holding hands with hard core porn. I suggest you read again what I wrote and see what I was saying about not being able to 'unring a bell' which is the whole point and has been the whole point since I got involved in this discussion, and is the point I believe that Lash and JW have made since this whole discussion started.

Understood. And the same logic applies to the racially integrated Sesame Street in the 60s too. Is it your position that this "unring the bell" problem should also have caused PBS not to broadcast the program? That the government would have been justified in withholding contributions for that reason? My point is, I have no problem with the principle you are advancing, but even sound principles lead to flawed conclusions if you apply them to factual misconceptions. And I think that's what you did.

Foxfyre wrote:

If your opinion is that you have been denied the opportunity to see a program you wished to see, then indeed that opinion was not the issue I was addressing other than to say that it is not other people's responsibility to see that you get to see the program.

No. But when you try to advance your interests as a parent at a cost to other viewers, it is your responsibility to consider that the other viewers may not want to pay that cost -- and that the cost to them may outweigh the benefit to you.

Foxfyre wrote:

If it is important to you, I am sure you will forward a contribution to your local PBS station along with a request that it be used to fund that particular program.

As it happens, I already am forwarding a (very modest) monthly contribution to thirteen.org, which I regard as my home channel until I actually move to the US. I trust my station, so see no need to attach strings to my contribution.

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thomas wrote

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the same logic applies to the racially integrated Sesame Street in the 60s too. Is it your position that this "unring the bell" problem should also have caused PBS not to broadcast the program? That the government would have been justified in withholding contributions for that reason? My point is, I have no problem with the principle you are advancing, but even sound principles lead to flawed conclusions if you apply them to factual misconceptions. And I think that's what you did.

Actually I see these as two different things. One has to do with race which is out there for all the see at all ages; the other has to do with sex that young children may be kept innocent of until a more appropriate age. The equal rights amendment had already been passed and ratified at the time Sesame Street aired those programs; however, had large numbers of parents objected (they didn't), I am quite sure that would have affected the funding for Sesame Street. To me the only flawed conclusion here is attempted to link unrelated things involving separate principles.

thomas wrote

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No. But when you try to advance your interests as a parent at a cost to other viewers, it is your responsibility to consider that the other viewers may not want to pay that cost -- and that the cost to them may outweigh the benefit to you.

Agreed. So those who wanted the program aired should be the ones to pay for it; not the ones who objected. Yes? And, that is the way it went down.

thomas wrote

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As it happens, I already am forwarding a (very modest) monthly contribution to thirteen.org, which I regard as my home channel until I actually move to the US. I trust my station, so see no need to attach strings to my contribution.

And that completely misses the point of my suggestion. Smile

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http://home.att.net/~jbcole/humor/headgaymuppet.gif

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Almost twenty-five years ago Lynne Cheney wrote a novel centered on a lesbian love affair set against the backdrop of life on the Western frontier. It was published in 1981, through a Canadian publisher and never released in the United States. 1981 was also the year her husband, now Vice-President of the US, was a brand-new Congressman from Wyoming.

While the Second Lady's books on history get prominent play in her official White House biography, there's no mention of "Sisters", a decidedly feminist, pro-lesbian screed. When the Canadian book publisher announced plans to rerelease the book, which has long been out of print, it received a call from Lynne Cheney's lawyer.

Alas, "Sisters" exists now only in used bookstores and on the Internet in excerpts posted to the White House parody website www.whitehouse.org.

Whether her novel still exists in Mrs. Cheney's heart remains an open question.

This is the same Lynne Cheney who exclaimed to John Kerry:

"How DARE you call my lesbian daughter a lesbian in public?!?"

THere is seemingly no end, and no fathomable depth, to the hypocrisy Republicans will both practice and overlook among themselves.

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Thomas and Fox--

Really enjoyed your conversation. I think, even through a few miunderstandings--you both spoke to the differing opinions better than they had been addressed before. Its not so bad disagreeing, as long as you feel you are understood.

PDid--

Lynne Cheney didn't say any such thing.

She (and obviously many others, considering Kerry's numbers went down after he mentioned Cheney's sexual orientation) was angry because he used her daughter, and bashed lesbianism, for political points.

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Lash wrote:

PDid--

Lynne Cheney didn't say any such thing.

She (and obviously many others, considering Kerry's numbers went down after he mentioned Cheney's sexual orientation) was angry because he used her daughter, and bashed lesbianism, for political points.

You figured out your conditions so we can bet yet?

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The continued reference to Mary Cheney by the Dems

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