First, there is no connection between sex and violence. The very use of the phrase "sex and violence" is deceptive and manipulative because it is a deliberate attempt to link two unrelated things that the alarmists have moral reservations about, which they hope they can cause other people to join them in. Second, while people are outraged over sex and violence, no one seems to be outraged by the superficiality of television. Television is a WASTELAND. A typical topic on a talk-show can be illustrated by a recent genuine promo that went: "SALSA: Do you dance to it or do you eat it?" While television news upholds the artificial confidence of the general public through coverage that shamelessly promotes the infallibility of the police and the President, few people recognize that the country is racked with social tensions caused by a thoroughly corrupt system of government. Instead, the public is distracted with campaigns to "clean up" television that openly seek to force the whole population to accept the personal religious standards of a few powerful individuals.

The fact is that there indeed IS too much violence on television. Violence is part of the American culture going back to the Revolution, and it is the great moral flaw of the republic. In reality, however, there is NO sex on television WHATSOEVER. There isn't even nudity permitted on American television. What there is is suggestions and innuendos and nothing more. Has anyone actually witnessed a full-fledged sex act on prime time television? No.

Recently the results of a "study" were released by a "family group" that claimed that there is more sex on television in the 1990's than there was in the 1970's. What the "report" failed to notice was that in the 1970's, television was openly dominated by censors. Words like "pregnant" were not allowed to be uttered on the public airwaves. A return to censorship should not be interpreted as a progressive measure by any rational people.

Furthermore the amount of overt violence on television is HORRIFIC. This violence is not by suggestion or innuendo, instead television is dominated by images of fights and murders and mayhem. While there is NO sex on television at all, there ARE murders, explosions, and beatings that are meticulously explicit. And for every producer who disclaims the influence of television to create real-life violence through copy-cat behavior, there are advertising salesmen swearing to their customers that the commercials they buy will influence the millions of television viewers to patronize their products.

The real problem we face is that those narrow-minded people who are hell-bent on demanding ratings standards, are really trying to restore the censorship of the past with themselves in control. They will decide for all of us what is true and what is not; and they will decide what is "decent" and "virtuous." While it will start out as a "voluntary guideline," it always ends up as a penal code, with violators going to jail and prison. We are in real danger today because the news and the media won't scrutinize the issues: They just go along and help prop up the powerful, using the "editorial function" as their justification for falsifying the news, confident that any popular resistance will be met with police power and punishment.

(CNS, 12/18/96)