"I'm solid as a sailor's wang on fuckin' shore leave!"

That phrase was just uttered on prime time television here in Australia. Not premium cable, or pay-per-view, or even basic cable, but over-the-air television. Channel 1 to be exact, at about 9:10 PM. It was during a scene in a political drama. That show was rated "M" for "mature."

One political operative, a man, was asking another, a woman, if she could be counted on in an impending crisis situation. "Are you solid?!"he yelled at her. "I'm solid as a sailor's wang on fuckin' shore leave!" was her reply. That was about the (seriously) 50th time the word "fuck" was said during the first 10 minutes of the show.

You can't say things like that on over-the-air television in America. The Federal Communications Commission will fine you upwards of $350,000 each time you say something like "fuck" or "shit" on TV. I don't know about you, but I can't afford that.

Isn't that interesting? How do you explain that difference between Australia and America? Aren't we (Americans) supposed to be "free"?

As a Doctor of Jurisprudence and a licensed attorney, I did a bunch of fancy book learnin' on this. There's this law, you might have heard of it, it's the First Amendment to our Constitution. It says, "Congress shall make no law ...  abridging the freedom of speech."

And yet, there it is, a law -- an FCC regulation, to be exact -- abridging the freedom of speech. Weird. If you go back and read the entire First Amendment, indeed the entire US Constitution, there's no exception to this rule. There's nothing like, "...unless it's a really bad word, which might make some people upset." It's just a very simple rule: The government has no authority to make a law abridging the freedom of speech.

So how does this figure?

To understand this, we have to take a step back. You know how conservatives frequently complain about "liberal activist judges" who "make law, instead of interpreting law"? Most recently, Newt Swingrich was using that little rallying cry to foment enthusiasm amongst his "freedom-loving" supporters. And lots of other Republican have leveled this complaint, specifically in regard to Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that the Federal government lacks authority to outlaw abortion.

Well, "judicial activism" is the reason why you can't say "fuck" on TV in America! Except the "activist judges" who "made law, instead of interpreting law" were conservatives. Conservatives on the Supreme Court during the 1960s and 70s didn't like people using words that make the baby Jesus cry, so despite the crystal clear rule that the government cannot regulate free speech, they made up a rule that says "obscenity" is not part of "free speech" and so the government can prohibit "bad" words if the "average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the word (or words) is "obscene." That rule came out of another 1973 Supreme Court decision, Miller v California.

If you're thinking that sounds like a pretty difficult rule to interpret and thus enforce, you're right. The clear rule in the Constitution is now a squishy one that basically says the government can prohibit whatever the average person would find offensive. Admittedly, it's slightly more complicated than that, but that's basically it.

This intellectual turd from the Supreme Court is epitomized by Justice Stewart's offhand remark about how difficult it was for the Court to decide what constitutes (illegal) pornography. "I know it when I see it," he said. And he would know. Justice Stewart and the rest of the Justices spent hours watching pornography (seriously), strictly for research purposes of course, while deciding the 1964 case Jacobellis v Ohio. They eventually decided all that boning they saw was illegal and thus could not be viewed by the likes of you. Thank Jeebus for the Internet, amirite?

Anyway, next time some Republican starts complaining about "lib'rul activist judges," or some redneck starts belting out "God Bless America" ("...where at least I know I'm free..."), you can ask, "If we're so free, how come we can't say 'fuck' on TV?" It even rhymes. So maybe you can work it into the song, or something.