http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGYDxJmXCE8

I love this country/rock song by Steve Earle. I always feel better when I play it loud.

Lyrics below :

I used to listen to the radio
And I dont' guess they're listenin' to me no more
Well they talk too much but that's okay
I don't understand a single word they say
Piss and moan about the immigrants
But don't say nothin' about the President
A democracy don't work that way
I can say anything I wanna say

So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin' in the motherfuckin' USA

People tell me that I'm paranoid
And I admit I'm gettin' pretty nervous, boy
It just gets tougher everyday
To sit around and watch it while it slips away
Been called a traitor and a patriot
Call me anything you want to but
Just don't forget your history
Dirty Lenny died so we could all be free

So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin' in the motherfuckin' USA

F U C K F U CK

Fuck the fcc

Fuck the FBI

Fuck the CIA

Living in the motherfucking USA.

There is the first RUB you and I agree on.

But what both you and Beyond seem to miss, is that the founders WERE for competition, but if the First Amendment is any indication of their intent, I find it hard for the private sector to be immune to the same anti monopoly principle, otherwise the highest bidder is enough.

Because, o illiterate wannabe conservative, the 1st Amendment only protects POLITICAL speech.

The content of protected 1st Amendment activities are ... protected.

Try lying under oath.  If you have an absolute Free Speech right, lying under oath is protected speech.  There's your answer -- there is no absolute right to "free speech".

 One thing you are right about Furry is that the right to free speech (even political or religious) is not absolute. Nor is any other right in the bill of rights. As a practical matter, government does have some restrictions. What constitutional rights get is the government has to pass a higher standard to justify passing a law that affects that right. I never claimed the right was absolute,  however, being that freedom of speech is a specifically enumerated right the court should exercise "strict scrutiny" whenever it is infringed which means the government must have a compelling governmental interest, the law must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest and the law must be the least restrictive means for achieving that interest. 

 I do argue that the government does not have a compelling enough interest to curtail cuss words on television, where it does have a compelling interest to pass laws punishing people for lying under oath in a court room. Obviously, if people could lie at whim without being punished in court proceedings that would significantly hamper the government in one of its main duties so I would describe that as a compelling governmental interest. I fail to see such a compelling interest in this case. 

Wow, your argument is so stunningly insightful I guess you win. I guess only Supreme Court justices are allowed to have opinions and the rest of us should shut the fuck up and listen to our leaders. What was I thinking? That I lived in a country where regular bumpkins like me could spout our opinions?!? I'm just going to go back to my cabin in the woods and let my intellectual superiors run the country without comment from me.  

Well, goodbye everyone. Since most of my time on this board has been devoted to speaking out about what the elite in DC are doing, I guess there isn't much a point in me posting here. I'm just going to go join the rest of the sheeple, keep my mouth shut and let the leaders lead me wherever they want without thinking for myself like a good little...theist. 

I didn't say you don't get to have an OPINION, you illiterate f*ck, only that you don't get to DECIDE.

Skipping the argument, I'm always up for disbanding the FCC. Permanently.

     Ditto.

And again, how does your reply have any relevance whatsoever to what I said? Your posts in this thread have been nothing but trolling and irrelevant attacks. The only thing you have that is even an attempt at an argument was your first post attempting to claim that only political speech is protected which was easily demonstrated as complete bullshit by only relying on a single bookmark in my browser. Seriously, if you are going to challenge me at least make me go two or three bookmarks deep, or if you have a really intelligent argument you can make me do a brand new google search.  

Illiterate? Really? That the best you got? You should leave such trolling up to Vastet, he is much better at condescending insults than you. Go take some lessons and try the insults again. Better yet, offer an actual legitimate point if you believe there is a good argument for why profanity should be excluded from first amendment protection. I'll admit there are some plausible arguments, you have not offered any of them.  

Yeah the whole thing started when you said

Which I took the reasonable interpretation to be that you were saying I should STFU since I don't get to decide. If you didn't mean that, fine. Move on, it isn't relevant anyway. If you didn't mean that I should STFU, then your statement is completely pointless- which is fine, I support your right to write completely pointless things, I do it myself from time to time. In the future you can assume the 100% of everything I write is my opinion, I never pretend to dictate to anyone, claim I am smarter than anyone or claim to know the Truth. If I am providing a fact I will link to original sources because I don't expect anyone to take my word for anything on the internet. I simply offer my opinion and provide as much evidence as I can to support it, it is up to the reader to determine whether or not I am right. So pointing out that I don't get to decide is pointless because everyone already knows that... moving on.   

Exactly which ruling are you agreeing with? Obviously you did not read the Supreme Court decision because the Court did not rule on the issue of censoring profanity. The issue of whether or not profanity is protected on network television is a question that will have to be answered by lower courts first and will probably find its way back to SCOTUS in the next decade or two. You are agreeing with a ruling that doesn't exist, that takes talent, if by "illiterate" you mean I can't read things that have not been written yet I guess I am illiterate. The bottom line is that whether the FCC's power to censor language is constitutional remains an undecided issue at the Supreme Court level, probably because the justices don't agree enough to create a majority opinion that decides it conclusively. Must be some illiterate rubes like me on the court. 

The Court has not ruled one way or the other, which was the basis of my criticism in my OP, I believe they should address the issue and obviously I hope they decide it my way. Right now the only precedent is the decision made by the Second Circuit Court which did determine that the FCC regulation violated first amendment protection because it was too vague, although explicitly left open the possibility that the FCC could make a policy that could pass constitutional muster. 

As far as your assertion that public airwaves can be censored because they are public, does that also mean that speech on a public sidewalk can be censored? How about in a place of business open to the public? On private property when the speech can reasonably be expected to be heard in a public area? What about the internet? Can speech on the internet be censored? It is public. Exactly where do you draw the line and under what justification? If the government can censor any speech anywhere in public, I hope we could agree that would be a very scary thing. So is it the governments power to censor anything they think is inappropriate, or is there something special about cuss words that leave them open to censorship while saying "Obama is a loser" is not? 

Thanks for playing, please try again. 

I have, any specific rulings I should look up? You can't even get the beliefs right, on this particular issue the conservatives on the court tend to be the ones against my position. FFS if you are going to accuse me of being ignorant at least get your facts right in the preceding sentence. For the most part it is the conservative group that is anti profanity and anti obscenity. Virtually every SCOTUS case on the subject has dealt with pornography and none has issued a decision on fleeting expletives. The major decision on profanity over public airwaves being FCC v. Pacifica, a 5 to 4 decision that several justices on the Court today have directly suggested should be revisited. But even that ruling was very narrow as Justice Stevens noted in the majority opinion,

This opinion is the reason why there are warnings before certain tv shows and racier material is aired late night because its basis for a compelling government interest was not simply because the airways were public, the compelling government interest was to protect children from offensive material. It does not support the outright blanket censorship that the FCC rules have today. Indeed, two justices of the majority wrote a separate concurrence (Justices Powell & Blackmun) 

IOW, Justice Powell argued that the FCC had the power to regulate time and place of certain content, not to ban the content outright. He again brought up this point towards the end of his opinion,

Thanks for playing, please try again. Try coming with some facts next time.