Look Where We Are Now

A man steps out onto a Western street. He is a law officer. We all know him; we all know he is a good guy. Off in the distance, another man steps out onto the street. We never know who he is, what he did, or why he deserves killing, because that’s just what is about to happen, and we all know it. The other man goes for his gun first – always – but the lawman draws his faster, the lawman’s weapon fires and the man in the distance falls. Every week, week after week, year after year the program starts with a man being shot down in the street. Everybody young and old see it, children matriculate watching it, and nobody thinks it’s a disgusting site; nobody screens the children from its influence on their young minds. Could you imagine that happening in this day and age on television? A family show that starts with a killing.

There was regulation but not against the sanitized killings on TV. We had a code of conduct for good American families. We had been told that Communists were out to take over and they were in our midst. The regulation was against anything that had a red taint. No one wanted to be called soft on Communism; no one wanted to be labeled “pinko”. Reputations were ruined and made with only a suggestion of being a “fellow traveler” to Communism. It could begin and end careers. We had to think alike or at least talk alike. We had a hero as a leader, he was the man who won WWII. What became of those children that grew up with unregulated killings and shooting poring out of that new wonder, TV, and into their developing minds that were trained to march lock step with what was consider the norm?

There was immoral behavior and it involved sex. There was fear that there too much sex on television and in movies. There was fear at the any suggestion of it on TV. To be acceptable, married couples slept in separate beds. Kids who grew up with parents that slept in the same bed, thought double beds must be exotic; you only see them on TV. The best policy was just to not mention sex in any way, shape, or form. The best way to learn was from your peers and those kids slightly older than you. What ever happen to those kids that grew up with puritan, old fashion attitudes about sex, the role of men and women toward one another, and toward homosexuality?

Let’s see:
They rose up in demonstrations and ended a war, they became the foot soldiers for an environmental movement, and fought for true equality of access and opportunity for those who had not received it up to then. They changed the attitude of sex as a filthy act done only for procreation. They broke down barriers to ways of thinking about ourselves and others. And then became parents and had the same worries for their children that their parents had about them. But the world seems wilder, with more evil influences and opportunities, more ways a child could warp his or her psyche. It was; it always has been; it always will.

Should the Democratic Party propose and support a more moral aspect in movies and TV? Of course they should, any reasonable person should. Because you believe in free markets on many levels does not mean you support any negative aspect that should arise because of this freedom. You work hard on a program that fights against such things but don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs because there is a little crap mixed in with those eggs. You clean up the crap, and thank your lucky stars you’ve found such a productive goose – and you protect the environment in which the goose lives so that she can continue to issue those prized eggs.

Democrats support freedom to choose and access for an abortion. They don’t support abortion. Abortion is a failure of proper planning, policy, and education. There are many liberals who strongly oppose abortion but just as strongly support the freedom of choice. And yet they have allowed others to charge that their support of individual freedom is to support abortion. They have allowed others to charge that their support for freedom of expression is support for immoral message in various media. Neither is true but they act as if they are on the defensive. They are dancing to the conservatives tune. They are playing in the conservatives’ ball field. Democrats should be deciding the debate not responding to the conservatives’ charges.

If you want to know if violence and immoral behavior on TV warps the development of children look at today’s adult population. Anyone over the age of sixty grew up with TV and movies. Look at how they turned out. There’s been winners and losers. There’s been successes and failures. Just like always. So it goes.