Advances in the state of the art of television recording devices have brought the topic of sex and violence on late night television back to the table. Interested parties want to share their concerns.
The Debate
"I've had just about enough of this!" fulminates concerned parent Ethel Delauter, who seems purple with rage. "Our children's minds are being fed garbage on a daily basis by what they see on TV. Why just the other day I caught my kid watching a DVR recording from a late-night cartoon where a clown beat a hooker to death with a vodka bottle! We need to stop the sex and violence on TV entirely, and limit the networks to decent family programming during daytime hours."
"Why should everyone else pay the price for bad parenting?" bellows libertarian and free speech advocate Fleur Wong. "This government needs to get out of the business of designating what we can and cannot watch. The free market will adapt to the needs of the buyers, leaving parents to do their jobs and monitor what their kids watch. I paid good money for my TV - let ME choose what I want to see!"
"You folks are missin' your best bet," celebrity race car driver Klaus Chen whispers in your ear, while wearing a jumpsuit covered in product logos. "Us racers have lead the way towards makin' product placement the must-have advertising choice. Ain't no need to ban content they cain't stand. All you gotta do is hide the action behind a Microcosm computer or hold an Eckie-Ecola in front of the naughty bits, and nobody gets hurt. Them internet fellas done figured out how to throw ad banners in front of the stuff you want to see; just do the same thing on the teevee sets. Everybody wins!"
"You know, this gave me a fantastic idea," declares one of your advisors, grinning broadly. "So if I got this straight, children will change their behavior according to what they're exposed to on TV. So what we should do is put subliminal messages about our government in every program and commercial on TV during kid's viewing hours. That way children will stop the violence AND they'll be more inclined to serve our government when they grow up. GENIUS!"
I still can't decide. The first option is good because it (in essence) somewhat aligns with the government's ideology. That is, either a child turns on the TV and watches someone shake their butt, or they learn about some positive things. For example, family values or... Patriotism.
The advantage of the second option stems from the disadvantage of the first – it infringes on people's rights, and I also suspect there are hidden pitfalls (for example, it might turn out that the country's entire economy is heavily dependent on these programs, and the country's budget will lose trillions of dollars because of this; given previous cases, this is quite possible – in one of my states, I banned the use of the internet, and scientific and technological progress fell from 50 to 0 :confused:).
The fourth option is also a possibility. If it implies patriotic and other programs that instill a certain mindset in people, that's fine, but it's spoiled by the phrase about "subliminal messages."
