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“If television broadcasts can expose children to the real risk of harmful exposure to indecent materials, even in their own home and without parental consent, there is a problem the government can address,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court. (according to a report at MSNBC.com on May 22)

I didn't read the whole story, but I gather from the first few lines that Congress passed a law sometime back that was supposed to place limits on when and how broadcasters of pornography can do what they do. The Supreme Court didn't like this and ruled (5-4) that the law is unconstitutional.

To be quite honest, the law and the Supreme Court's thoughts about it aren't of great interest to me, but I do find Judge Kennedy's words intriguing. It's not so much the inept writing  (note how "expose" and "exposure" are deployed with such clumsiness in the same sentence), but what I'd like to know is this: How, pray tell, could any television broadcast expose children to indecent materials "even in their own home and without parental consent"?

I suppose it's theoretically possible for a teenager to go out and buy a television, sneak it into the house and hide it somewhere in his room, arrange for cable service to be installed secretly and for the bills to be sent to someone else's home so his parents won't know about them... then with the volume turned way down low he might watch pornography, or vulgar comedies, or glorifications of violence and fear. No need to have the Playboy channel for that; any network station will do quite nicely, at just about any time of day. But really, such theoretical possibilities are very nearly absurd. It just doesn't figure that a normal adult can be indefinitely kept ignorant of the fact that there is a television with cable service in the house.

Here's television for you: a man purchases a big, mean, uncontrollable dog -- picture a rotweiller, only bigger, with a gnawing brain disease and violent mood swings, jaws like iron and the personality of a timber wolf. The man puts this wonderful pet in a central place in his home, fixed to the wall with a heavy chain -- to keep the children safe, of course. Thereafter, the man gripes self-righteously about what an ill-tempered, dangerous dog he's got in his living room, and when a politician proposes a law that would require such dogs to have a bit of a sedative during daylight hours, the man is all in favor. "Of course! Sedatives! What we need is government supplied dog sedatives to keep our children safe..."

The man, of course, is a fool. When he really begins to be concerned for his children's safety he'll shoot the damn dog in the head and drag its filthy carcass into the street to be picked up with the rest of the garbage. And from that day on it will make no difference to him whether or not Congress prescribes sedatives for mean, indoor dogs, nor will it make any difference if the Supreme Court thinks it's unconstitutional for Congress to prescribe sedatives for mean, indoor dogs.

"Without parental consent," said the judge. Who is he talking about? Does he imagine that millions of children are hiding televisions in their closets and under their beds? Does he think tens of millions of adults paying cable bills have no knowledge of what they're paying for? Is it his idea that television is an indispensable household appliance, in the same category as a reading light or an indoor toilet? Is television entertainment like water -- are we vulnerable to suppliers because we have to have it? 

Now, it's annoying that our Supreme Court is hostile to common decency, but while the Court can do things to ensure that television broadcasting is corrupt and degrading, it can't force you to keep a television in your home. This isn't Orwell's 1984. You can turn it off, cancel the cable service, yank out the wires... It won't bite you. The Supreme Court won't send a policeman around to find out why you've unplugged your tube. 

It would be interesting to know what the judge thinks "consent" looks like. Does he really think consent is something that happens when someone -- adult or child -- is flipping through channels with the remote? Is consent a decision made at some vague time after you decide to step to one side so a television set can pass through an open door into your home?

A single moment of "consent" may be difficult to identify, but however consent happens and wherever it leads, with television it clearly begins at the outer walls of the place where you live. All that broadcasting has to be received and displayed by a box, and it requires some kind of consent for that box to get inside your walls. When you go to bed tonight, if there's a television tube glowing somewhere in your home, don't pretend you haven't consented.

Whatever the government does or doesn't do about television broadcasting is irrelevant to parents who are concerned about their children. Make no mistake about it, the presence of a television in your home, if there is one, is not an accident. It's there because you put it there and you are responsible for it's impact on your family -- not the Supreme Court, not Congress, not the broadcasters. You can whine about it, or you can take responsibility and deal with it. 

One word of caution: if you decide to deal with it, don't hurt your back. Television sets can be quite heavy. If your TV is too heavy for you to lift it into a dumpster by yourself, get a neighbor to help you.

Peter Barry 3/22/2000

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