This is the fifth and last image from the Pop-Up Bible Heroes book.

I am opposed to illegal immigration. If it is true that there are some jobs that Americans won’t do (e.g. picking lettuce), then we need to modify the law to solve that problem. (A guest-worker program might be the right approach for these types of jobs.)

However, for some of the jobs that illegals do (e.g., hotel maids and construction), I suspect that many Americans would be willing to do them, if they just paid a little better. The fact that there are so many illegals in those professions suppresses the wages that are paid to everyone.

(Pause here, while I wait to be flamed by both sides.)

There was an attempt to solve this problem back during the Reagan administration, but the big business lobbyists gutted enforcement of the law. The law provides for penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. For the most part, that provision has not been enforced, because big business likes hiring illegals. They work much cheaper.

Businesses that hire illegal immigrants have largely created this problem, and they are perpetuating it. Read this next sentence carefully:

Obviously, some illegal immigration would still occur. But the reason millions of immigrants illegally cross our borders is because they know they will be able to find work.

Until you stop the jobs, you won’t stop the immigrants! It’s really no more complicated than that.

The “Pro-Family” Approach

Conservatives of most stripes claim that they are pro-family. If they’re “pro-family” the way they are “pro-life” (advocating the death penalty and the Iraq war, to cite just two examples), then the family is in big trouble. And sure enough, here’s comes an example.

It is sometimes difficult to separate fundies from the larger group of conservatives. Although fundies’ main concern is banning abortion and creating a theocracy, they have hitched their wagon to the one group who pandered to them: neo-conservative Republicans. As a result, the fundies will back any crazy neocon idea. If the GOP is successful, the fundies will be rewarded with Supreme Court justices. Recent history shows this in action.

Illegal immigration seems somewhat outside the realm of what a fundie would be interested in, but I hear them squawk about it all the time. The various emails and “news reports” I get from them usually have an anti-immigrant diatribe or two thrown into the mix. That’s why it isn’t surprising to see this article editorial in the fundie news propaganda site One News Now:

‘Anchor baby’ subject of latest illegal alien riff

According to the Constitution, anybody born on American soil is automatically an American citizen. Personally, I think that provision is outdated in today’s world. Back in the days when it took two months to cross an ocean, that made sense. Not so today.

Anyway, illegal aliens enter the country, have babies who are American citizens, then use the baby’s residency status to try to stay in the country. That’s why they are called (at least by anti-immigrant people) “anchor babies”.

I haven’t decided yet where I stand on the issue of what to do about current anchor babies and their families, but I’m not the one claiming to be “pro-family”. Let’s just look at this article and see how pro-family the fundies really are:

An immigration reform activist says that a Mexican national who was deported from the United States last month has nobody to blame but herself that her eight-year-old son is still in the United States.

That seems like a rather cold statement from people who are supposed to be full of love.

Elvira Arellano, who broke into the country twice, was arrested for using a fake ID card to obtain employment.

Don’t you love their slanted language? Arellano “broke into the country” like a common burglar. She has come to rob you of your valuables! Hide the silverware! Hide the jewelry! Hide the Dale Earnhardt commemorative plate from the Franklin Mint! And she’s done it not once, but twice! She’s a serial offender, a career criminal!

Susan Tully of the Federation for American Immigration Reform says if Arellano really cared about her son, she would have taken him to Mexico.

So now they’re telling Arellano that she’s a terrible mother! That she doesn’t love her son! Did it ever occur to these nitwits that maybe Arellano left her son in this country precisely because she loves him? His opportunities are so much greater on this side of the border. What parent wouldn’t want that for their child? But as is typical with fundies, they know everything, and they know best. Their knowledge comes straight from God (who apparently hates Mexicans).

“She knew what our laws were before she came here, and it’s her choice to take her son with her.…,” explains Tully. “The advocates for illegal aliens like to say that our laws are breaking up families, but the fact is Elvira did this herself.”

The love! The empathy! The compassion! “Pro-family” my ass!

The Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries died last week. This is a good year for fallen fundies. As you recall, the Mother Of All Fundies (or substitute your favorite F-word), Jerry Falwell, died in May.

I didn’t write anything about DJK immediately, because his profile has been lower in the last couple of years. I’ve been concentrating on the oozing pus of the fundie world and not the infected scabs.

I was hoping that somebody would post an appropriately-cold eulogy on YouTube that I could link to (comparable to Christopher Hitchens’ brilliant savaging of Falwell’s legacy that I linked to last time). No such luck. If you type in the keywords of “James Kennedy Coral Ridge”, all you’ll get are five videos, only one of which is a eulogy. What’s funny about that is the guy doing the eulogy gets Kennedy’s name wrong! (James D. instead of D. James) Well, not all of his supporters are very bright.

I didn’t want DJK’s happy event to pass unmentioned, so I’ve been cruising the internet, looking for some interesting tidbits to grab for a quick eulogy.

A good site is Right Wing Watch, which is run by People for the American Way. They have a few of DJK’s quotes in a brief article about DJK’s demise (They also have a longer article they wrote just a week earlier.). Here are a couple that jump out at me:

As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society. We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government… our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors — in short, over every aspect and institution of human society. (Christian Science Monitor, 3/16/2005)

Many fundies claim that they are not trying to create a theocracy. I think the above quote puts a lie to that assertion.

If homosexuals win the right to “marry,” expect further similarly argued claims challenging legal barriers to polygamy, bestiality, and child marriage. (Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, 10/2003)

That quote is part of the ongoing slippery-slope claim that I refuted in an earlier article. As I said then, when you hear this, don’t let it go unchallenged.

Kennedy’s most recent crime was a video called Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, which falsely claims that Charles Darwin caused Adolf Hitler to murder six million Jews.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a letter to the editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The letter was written by Larry D. Pate of Oakland Park, FL:

The death of controversial minister the Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy just a few months after the passing of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, signals the beginning of the end of a shameful era in American Christian fundamentalism.

Kennedy, like Falwell, was nothing less than a modern reincarnation of Elmer Gantry, peddling a snake oil of mass fear and hysteria, suppression of human rights, defiance of constitutional rights, disparagement of science, revisionist history, and Christian nationalism. If these are biblical values, the republic is more secure as the secular humanist state that both men sanctimoniously decried. While sympathizing with their families, their demise is nothing short of fortunate funerals for those of us who remain and seek to mitigate their legacies of bigotry, theological irresponsibility and spiritual violence.

In our last installment, we looked at a report by the Parents Television Council that described how offended they were about network television. So offended, in fact, that they sat there and counted every incident on every show that pissed them off.

Today I want to examine their findings in greater depth. Maybe this will give us some insight into what makes these people tick.

Inappropriate Content in the Family Hour – OVERVIEW

There is no such thing as a “Family Hour”, so it’s impossible to have inappropriate content there. It’s pretty easy to get a report to say what you want when you get to make up the criteria.

Overall, only 10.6% of the 208 episodes were free of violent and sexual content and foul language.

If the PTC fundies are so offended by TV that they can only find 10% of it that isn’t offensive, one thing is obvious: These people shouldn’t own televisions.

Worst Network

This is interesting. The network with some of the best shows is the network that they hate the most! Hmmm… I wonder if there’s a connection…

Language

Here’s where the report gets really interesting. These people are so offended by foul language that they blush when broadcasters bleep the word “damn”! So what does the PTC do? They release a vulgar report! Here’s a fine table about language:

It seems to me that if you want to avoid being offended, you shouldn’t read the PTC’s report!

Sexual Content

This section doesn’t say much (other than how offended by all of it they are), but it includes over a page of examples of all the steamy and raunchy things they saw. They really seem to savor the retelling.

Violence

Just like the last section, this is mostly examples, which go on at great length. I do agree with them that violence on TV is a problem, but I feel that it is parental responsibility that should come into play here, not government responsibility.

Conclusion

Here they just gripe all over again about how bad it is. And they don’t want to hear about any solutions that don’t involve government regulation:

Though they have promoted multi-million dollar campaigns to highlight parental controls based on content ratings and the V-chip, parents have found such tools useless. As shown in previously published Parents Television Council studies, the TV ratings are confusing to parents and are applied inconsistently by the networks.

So because the system didn’t work flawlessly out the gate, we should just scrap the whole thing? And how stupid are these parents, anyway? Their children spend over three hours per day watching television, and they can’t be bothered to take ten minutes once to read how the ratings work and how to activate the v-chip? Considering how influential television can be to a developing mind, any parent who doesn’t take the time to learn about the ratings system and the v-chip is negligent.

In the remainder of this section, the PTC claims it is the obligation of parents to pressure the broadcasters and the government to clean up television.

No, it’s not. It’s the obligation of the parents who mindlessly agree with the PTC report to clean up their own parenting skills.

Self-appointed guardian of the public morals, the Parents Television Council, has just issued a report which concludes that you have no right to watch what you want. You only have the right to watch what they want you to watch.

They’ve just released the results of a study of TV offensiveness, and boy, are they offended!

They’re hung up on something that they call “The Family Hour”. It’s the time slot of 8:00 to 9:00 PM (7:00 to 9:00 PM on Sundays). They’re acting like this is some sort of holy time period that should be limited to only showing programs like Father Knows Best and My Little Margie.

They’re pissing into the wind, however. There is no such thing as a Family Hour, and there hasn’t been for 30 years. Back in the 1970s, there was something called the Family Viewing Hour, but it only lasted two years. Some Activist Judge™ overturned it, because the FCC overstepped its authority when they implemented it. Apparently the PTC (Pinheads That Censor) never got the memo, and they’ve been acting like it’s still in force.

Periodically, the PTC issues another report screaming about how awful things are. Unfortunately, the PTC is one of the most effective and powerful pressure groups operating today. They’re responsible for almost all of the decency complaints that the FCC receives. Their pressure is responsible for the FCC’s crackdown on every little perceived indecency event on radio and TV.

Here’s their result at a glance:

Now let’s look at the report:

Traditionally known as the Family Hour, the 8 p.m. time slot was once a place for programming the whole family could enjoy.

By “traditionally”, they mean for a period of two years back in the 1970s.

As shown in the Parents Television Council’s previous studies of television content between 1999 and 2001, the Family Hour became increasingly lewd, profane and violent by the turn of the decade. Things are no better today. The steady stream of violence and death, sexual innuendo and crass words continue unabated.

Sweet! (BTW, the correct grammar is “The steady stream … continues unabated.” Maybe if they stopped watching so much TV, they’d have time to learn English.)

While mild expletives like “damn” and “crap” are declining in use, broadcasters are increasing the frequency of harsher language obscured by bleeps or partial editing.

So what are they saying? They want those words to not be bleeped?

For example, according to Nielsen Media Research, on Sunday, November 12, at 8:30 p.m., over 2 million children were in the viewing audience for an episode of the animated program American Dad on Fox which contained 37 instances of violence, foul language and sexual content in a show less than 30 minutes long.

Now we come to the crux of it. If children are watching American Dad, that’s the fault of their parents. It’s not the fault of Fox or the Liberal Media™ or Activist Judges™ or Hillary™. The program is clearly rated TV-14. All modern televisions, cable boxes, satellite receivers, and Tivos have V-Chips or similar parental controls.

Parents, who are immediately responsible for the welfare of their own children…

Finally! A sensible statement coming from these twits. Thank you for admitting that it is parents’ responsibility.

…can no longer count on the Family Hour to provide a safe haven.

By “no longer”, they mean for the last 30 years.

They cannot rely on a deeply-flawed content ratings system to help them monitor what their children watch.

It’s a fundamentally sound system. Any problems are minor and can be fixed with some industry tweaks. The system is not “deeply-flawed”. I don’t know where they’re getting their information. Oh, that’s right. They pull it out of their asses!

The American public is overwhelmingly concerned about this trend…. Other surveys have shown that parents would welcome more government regulation to rein in television content.

They don’t cite which survey yielded those results, and they don’t even say how many said that.

However, through responsible self-regulation, the entertainment industry might eliminate the need for further legislative or regulatory action.

Oh. For a minute there, I thought they were going to say “through responsible parenting, there is no need for further legislative or regulatory action.” Silly me.

Senators Joe Lieberman ([Republicans for Lieberman]-Conn.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), both PTC Advisory Board Members…

Well there’s a freakin’ surprise! Joe Lieberman on the wrong side of the issues again!

…launched an effort to bring back the traditional Family Hour.

Blah, blah, blah. Let’s skip down a bit.

The PTC appealed to advertisers to stop underwriting adult-oriented programming during the Family Hour.

Really? They “appealed”? ‘Twas merely a polite request. Or maybe it was boycott! Quit trying to hide your poisonous actions and agenda, PTC.

Here they explain that they looked at three different two-week periods during the 2006–2007 TV season. They looked at “all six networks”. They’re including some sort of piece of crap network called MyNetworkTV that I’ve never heard of. It’s owned by Fox, so I’m sure they included it to bump up the offensiveness of their results.

All programming was recorded and then viewed by trained content analysts.

They’re so offended by this stuff that they train themselves on it! “Bob! I didn’t see a big enough look of shock on your face when Peter Griffin said ‘boobie’!”

For each scene within a program, the analyst coded every instance of foul language, violence, and sexual content.

Yes, they sit there and count and categorize every single instance. And if they think they missed one, they back up the recording and watch it again!

Foul language was coded for specific words uttered in programming and certain related euphemisms — such as the word “screw” when used as a euphemism for “fuck.”

Heaven forbid if the networks actually try to tone down the language!

Also coded were bleeped and otherwise obscured language…

Even if it isn’t broadcast, it still counts!

…including words that were partially obscured but identifiable, as well as words that were bleeped but could not be definitively determined by context or lip-reading.

That’s right. These people are so obsessed over dirty words that they have to bring in lip readers!

Analysts recorded all incidents of verbal and visual sexual material, including sexual references; anatomical references in a sexual context; allusions to specific sex acts like anal, oral, and kinky or fetishistic behavior; visual depictions of sex acts; sexually suggestive gestures; strippers; suggestive dancing; nudity and various forms of implied or pixilated nudity.

Make up your own jokes. This is pathetic.

Various forms of violent content were monitored, including … supernatural violence….

No! Not supernatural violence! That means we can’t broadcast any Bible stories!

Anyway, that’s the build-up to their results. Tomorrow, we look at what they actually found. Stay tuned!