free speech and music
Paging Mr. Zappa Where's Frank Zappa when you need him? The last time U.S. senators took to wagging their fingers at media executives and threatening legal restrictions if pop culture didn't get just a bit less ... well ... popular, Zappa shook his finger right back. He unleashed a torrent of righteous outrage at the assembled politicos and their busybody wives -- and he even looked cool doing it. One of the political wives to feel Zappa's wrath was Tipper Gore, whose hubby, Al, is currently laying into media executives as the Democratic candidate for president. Along with running-mate Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gore threatened restrictive legislation within six months if the entertainment industry didn't stop
" That earlier cultural jihad was drawn up short when the Federal Commission on Pornography and Obscenity failed to find any real connection between risque entertainment and violent kids. And Frank Zappa is no longer among us to out-outrage the culture warriors. That's quite a line-up of would-be saviors of America's young innocents (if you can find any). After all, look as you might, you won't find an unless-it-makes-the-kids-jittery exception to the First Amendment. they become teenagers, to be realistic; all bets are off after that. As Wired implied, this isn't a purely Democratic show by any means. " The hefty tome is a potboiler of a study suggesting that (gasp!) youth culture is in fact sold to youth. And as Freedom Forum writes in its guide to the legal ins and outs of commercial speech, "[i]t is interesting to note that advertising which promotes the sale or patronage of other speech -- such as books and movies -- is regularly treated as noncommercial and thus fully protected. Since Frank Zappa is no longer around to make the suggestion, I'll do it for him: If you don't care for what popular culture has to offer, just turn the TV off. " Touting a study of its own, the mushy middle of the finger-wagging tag-team is occupied by the bureaucrats of the Federal Trade Commission. Referring to the proposed "Media Violence Labeling Act of 2000" (co-sponsored by Sen. Lord knows, sixteen-year-old boys need powerful inducement to lure them away from chick flicks at the multiplex. Among them is Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum, who turned a curious eye to Sen.
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Acceptance Essays
