I’m a free speecher and I know enough to keep my kids away from vulgar and explicit broadcasts, so I think parents have to be the guardians of the radio dials and TV remotes — to the best of their abilities. But I also agree with the move by Congress to increase fines from the FCC for “graphic and explicit material” over the free airwaves (not pay, like cable and satellite TV and radio).

I just can’t sign on to statements like those by Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh. Boortz, as reported in USA Today:

“Hosts such as (Howard) Stern have been operating for years without ‘violating anyone’s right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness,’ he says, ‘and we haven’t seen the moral fiber of the country collapse.'”

Yes we have, Neal. More Boortz:

“The average child can sit back and watch, what, 150 murders on TV in the course of a week, and 15 or 20 rapes. But when somebody on the radio describes a sexual function, all of a sudden that kid is doomed?”

Straw man, Neal. I would venture to say that a strong majority of parents who have a problem with the sexual description on radio isn’t letting his kid watch all that garbage on TV in a week. Rush Limbaugh says the same thing as Boortz, in the L.A. Times:

“Howard Stern is not the problem. He is Romper Room compared to what we can watch in prime time every night on TV. The difference is that the garbage on TV wins Emmys. The real hypocrisy here is saying we need to regulate radio, but we can’t have standards on television if it arrives in your home via cable or satellite.”

Howard Stern is a big part of the problem, and he is not Romper Room compared to prime time TV. He belongs on pay television or radio which is more controllable for parents than the open, free airwaves.

A Chicago radio host, Mancow Miller, who was recently fined says:

“What’s naughty to an 18-year-old guy who has been raised on MTV and South Park is going to be a lot different than what’s naughty to somebody sitting in a government office somewhere.”

He’s making the case that this 18-year-old should define the standards of decency?

Harvard analyst Alex Jones: “We seem to be saying something has got to be done, but we also seem in this society to have a very hard time governing ourselves by declining to support certain stuff.”

We can govern ourselves just fine, which is what we are doing through the FCC. Let the “certain stuff” be supported, if it can be, on the pay airwaves. I get the feeling the vulgarity-peddlers are worried that their garbage won’t sell when people have to pay for it. I agree the FCC may need to more clearly outline what is a violation. But Howard Stern is a violation of even these vaguest of guidelines.

And can we please stop hearing these arguments?:

“The U.S. is at war, the unemployment situation is grave, people can’t afford prescriptions, Social Security is faltering, and Congress and the FCC are focused on breasts and dirty words,” says University of Missouri journalism professor Tom McPhail in USA Today. “Making demons out of the Howard (Stern)s of this world is not a classy move by the most powerful nation on earth. There are more important public policy matters.”

And David Brudnoy of WBZ in Boston:

“The government ought to deal with things like protecting us from al-Qaeda and making sure the economy works. It’s like the church going against same-sex marriages instead of dealing with abusive priests.”

At the price government comes to us, I think it can do what it’s supposed to do and get out of what it’s not supposed to do. I believe that includes maintaining a civilized public domain where we don’t have to worry about children straying into salacious territory without protections.

And while we’re at it, billboards need to be addressed also — same premise.