Richard Huff, TV columnist for the New York Daily News, has a very entertaining column today entitled "Your Kids, Your Cable, Your Problem." It's basically an open letter to the parents of America who are calling for cable regulation or censorship.
"Stop looking for outside help from Congress or watchdog groups to clean up, clear up and make safe the programming your kids watch," he argues. "If parents want to have a handle on what their kids watch, well, then, they've got to take control of the situation. Sorry, that's the truth. Stop looking for someone else to blame."
Huff makes a powerful case for parental responsibility over government nannyism and points out that if we give up and let the government play the role of surrogate parent, we will be making a serious mistake:
"The idea of limiting channel lineups is as crazy as the arguments being made to clean up TV in general. It's born of the same mentality that requires the producers of a commercial with a car climbing the side of a building to warn viewers not to try it themselves.Here's my advice: Get all the programming you can for the price you can afford. Give yourself options. And if you're seriously concerned about blocking content, take control and use the tools at hand.
The last thing you want is for someone else to make those decisions for you."
Amen brother!