More Repression of Free Speech
The denial of reality by so called “advocate groups” is sinking to increasingly subterranean depths in their pressuring of TV and film studios to ban things from the screen that they don’t like. Today it’s smoking. Tomorrow, pizza?
The biggest studios are usually like-minded when it comes to what is fit to portray on screen. But they have become divided lately in confronting one of the entertainment industry’s touchiest issues: smoking in movies that reach the young.
Under pressure from an antismoking lobby unsatisfied by a promise that the industry’s trade group made in May to consider tobacco use as a factor in film ratings, the six largest studio owners have been patching together individual responses to those who want cigarettes out of films rated G, PG or PG-13.
Smoking opponents view the result as surprising progress toward a virtual ban on tobacco images in all but films with R or NC-17 ratings.
Yet Hollywood is also waking to the realization that a committed band of advocates is rapidly changing what is permissible in the movies. And that precedent could embolden other groups campaigning to rid movies of portrayals of gun use, trans-fat consumption or other behavior that can be proved harmful to the public.
“It’s a chilling idea,” said Bill Condon, who wrote and directed “Dreamgirls” for the DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures units of Viacom.
This is the kind of crypto-fascism we should be concerned about. Because it doesn’t involve laws being passed, just the pressuring of the few corporations that control an industry into walking lock step with some ideology.
Our society has become increasingly under the sway of tiny pressure groups who dictate what’s acceptable. These groups are largely made of extremists. And they are managing to get laws passed that are stifling our liberties.
In New York city the mayor passed a law banning trans-fats. When major cities or states enact such laws it emboldens other political hacks to follow suit, thinking it will make them look like effective do-gooders. But in each case, it removes choices from people’s lives.
They always start with things most people agree with. Like smoking. Smoking is bad for you. Therefore, who is going to complain if it gets banned. Only smokers. And they’ve effectively, slowly made smokers pariahs. Forcing them to smoke in limited areas like Jews penned in a Ghetto. And we all know what they did to the Jews after they penned them in.
Once they get their way with one thing, don’t think they’ll stop there. The self righteous always have an axe to grind. Another freedom they want taken away from others. What seems mild at first becomes serious over time.
I remember when no smoking areas were a suggestion. Wait’ll you starting having to pay high taxes on junk food and then have to go to certain parts of town to get a hamburger because of zoning laws. Don’t laugh.
UPDATE: Hugging banned at a school. Stuff you never imagined is getting banned all over the place. We live in an epidemic of intolerance.
What is happening to our country??!!?!?! They came for the smokers and no-one spoke up….then they came for the fast food eaters and no-one spoke up…..what’s your vice? Don’t worry, they’ll get to you eventually! My America is slipping out of our hands. The politicians, the MSM & special interest groups have us by the short hairs, ya know?!?! I’m afraid a generation is coming who will not even understand Liberty or Freedom.
Posted by on 10/03 at 02:20 AMAt some point I believe there will be a backlash. It will take awhile. Prohibition lasted 13 years. But eventually, it fell.
Posted by on 10/03 at 08:06 AM
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