Ban TV!
That’s my new goal.
Rep. Jeff Kropf, Rep. Phil Barnhart, Sen. Bill Morrissette and Sen. Roger Beyer, I implore you to work on some legislation this next session to eliminate the evil TV from Oregonian homes.
I ask the same thing of the City Council. Bob McIntyre, Jim Gourley, Craig Fentiman, Tim McQueary, Dick Hill, Jessica Coward and Jim Bean, please get those abominations out of our homes, out of our bars and out of our lives forever. Make a city ordinance if our legislature can’t figure it out.
Television promotes sin.
Television is evil. It rots children’s brains. It rots adult brains. It may be the most destructive thing ever invented by mankind. Just take a look at the programming.
Homosexuals run rampant on family sitcoms. Foul language is barely filtered. Only the worst vulgarities are controlled, and barely at that.
Janet Jackson’s boob on national television ? The horror, especially when I’m never sure if I’m looking at her or Michael.
Commercials advertise women’s stuff, things that may not be appropriate for young children, especially boys, to see. Come to think of it, I don’t want to see it either. Bleach.
Other commercials tell men to take this drug or that to make or maintain an (one of those things we shouldn’t talk about). They warn that if the (one of those things we shouldn’t talk about) lasts more than four hours the man should call his doctor.
In bars, sports is often on a TV screen, promoting the ingestion of unhealthy amounts of liquor and beer.
But that’s not even all of it.
Television promotes social decay.
There’s just the plain danger of baking the brain. Outside of a couple of excellent educational channels, which are years ahead of the socialist Public Broadcasting System, television rarely requires its viewer to think. Science fiction is coming along nicely but so much of it is just brain candy too.
Television requires no interaction of any kind and no reason to engage the brain.
It creates couch potatoes.
Prove me wrong if you want to keep your TV.
Many persons are capable of responsible TV watching. I am among them. Alone among the endless parade of drivel is Stargate: SG-1 and its promising spinoff, Stargate: Atlantis. I watch those shows alone. They’re in their winter break right now, so I don’t watch TV at all.
Alas, the good of society must come before the pleasure of responsible TV watchers. Essentially, one segment of society is ruining it for the rest because they cannot watch TV responsibly.
Because of this delinquent, out-of-control element, I seek a ban on TV.
This element comes away from their TV each night even more stupid than before. They know little of real substance and parrot sound bites to explain their views. For the children, it stunts their ability to think and correspondingly their ability to learn.
This inability to think (not derived solely from the television set) is allowing broken ideas, like socialism, to continue.
Lack of thinking also can lead to drug use, which in turn, can lead to other criminal behavior.
But, someone will ask, “what about my rights to do as I choose in my own home?”
I must answer that this is for the good of our community and our society. Sometimes we must put the good of society ahead of individual rights so that we can all get along with each other and function together.
All right. Yes, you got it. I’m just kidding.
Our City Council isn’t though. It’s got a law on the books, as does our state, prohibiting commercial gambling.
Frank Chau over at T&M pizza wants to establish a regular poker tournament, and he’s asking the council to adopt an ordinance to allow it, a step the state statutes allow. Chau won’t be allowed to profit directly from the games, but he will sell beer and pizza and make piles and piles of money, I hope.
One thing stands in the way. The council doesn’t appear to be that interested in allowing it; but most members of the council were interested in hearing more information then possibly considering an ordinance to allow the gambling.
Councilmen Hill and McIntyre don’t want to open the door for this vice in Sweet Home.
Bean says the state poker machines are different from social gambling because it benefits government agencies. Bean’s a Republican. He should know better than to say this. The state making money on vice is no more virtuous than a business making money on it. In fact, it is less virtuous. Then again, perhaps under the TV ban, the state can raise revenues as the sole broadcast advertising outlet through Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Fentiman, while willing to consider the request, says he doesn’t care what people do in their own private homes, and gambling tournaments of this type are apparently perfectly legal in private homes. I wonder, as always, why a business owner is not allowed the same consideration in his own business that I am in my own home.
Fentiman’s insurance business is his, and he should be allowed to light up a stogie or run a tournament himself if he chooses. The rest of us do not have to shop there if we don’t like it; and no one is required to eat at T&M Pizza if we don’t like gambling.
The objections raised in council and committee seemed to center around sinful nature of gambling. A second objection suggested that it would be detrimental for our community, perhaps leading to some sort of criminal behavior, like fighting or drunken driving.
On the matter of the morality of gambling, it’s none of our business as a community or society. If gambling is a sin, then it remains an issue between the individual and God ? Not the individual, God and the City Council or the City of Sweet Home. If someone wants to throw away their hard-earned money, it’s not my problem nor is it the City Council’s; but let’s prohibit losing gamblers from receiving any state or federal welfare dollars because their welfare is, again, none of the people’s business.
On the possibility of criminal activity associated with gambling, again, what gamblers do is none of our business unless these gamblers do commit some kind of crime. In that case, we respond appropriately and arrest and punish the criminal. Still, it seems unlikely that these gamblers could be any worse than those inhabiting the dens of inequity that we still permit within our city limits, the taverns.
Those who will oppose Chau’s request might consider following their rationale in other areas too, like television. Some might say I’m being absurd, that TV isn’t the same thing; but this is not one of those absurd analogies I enjoy using just for fun. Aspects of modern TV truly are a destructive force in our society, promoting sin, mental laziness and even possibly criminal behavior; but television, no doubt, has redeeming qualities for responsible users.
The only thing absurd about banning TV is the same thing that makes the gambling ban absurd.