Choice: The Best of Reason

I’ve been enjoying Choice: The Best of Reason.  Reason magazine’s byline has always been Free Minds and Free Markets but perhaps it ought to be Free Minds, Free Markets and Fun.  Here’s Drew Carey (from long before Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction):

The government is really into ‘protecting people’.  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says you can’t broadcast certain words and certain pictures.  It says it’s protecting citizens.  But I’m sitting in my home with DirecTC and can watch whatever I want.  I can afford the best pornography – laser-disc porn!  The government’s not protecting me from anything.

All the government’s doing is discriminating against poor people.  It thinks poor people are like cows, that poor people can’t think straight: If we let them hear dirty words or see dirty pictures, there’s going to be madness!  If you’re poor and all you can afford is a 12-inch black-and-white TV and can’t pay for cable – you’re so protected.  You’d probably be happier if you could see some pornography, a pair of titties, once in a while on free TV.  But a pair of titties on free TV?  The government figures if you saw that, you’d just explode!