Hip Hop&A G-rated culture

Yawn. Today the politicians discussed Internet Pornand Decency on Cable TV. Personally, I would've rather seen them discuss poverty, homelessness, unemployment, or the rising costs of health care. But hey, they have their priorities straight, so who am I to question them?

At times, it seems that politicians want to bring back to the culture of America a G-rated culture. Though the focus on the net porn seemed to be on child porn, I think that ultimately they want to try to just get rid of all porn on the net. How broad the definition of porn is going to be is anybody's guess. Could they slap on the porn label on a site with girls in bikinis? These self appointed moral vanguards might just end up doing that. I wouldn't have a problem with them doing away with some of the more extreme stuff on the net. The problem that I see is that they will make the definition so broad that fines will go to a site where a woman shows a little too much leg.

With the decency and cable TV thing, I think that ultimately there is a middle ground. I think the industry wants to maintain a standard of free expression. However, the other side of the debate is the people on this whole "protect the children" kick. One of the participants pointed out that if such an approach as eliminating everything deemed obscene is taken, then everybody, including adults, will have to be subject to a G-rated culture. This means that when the government is done eliminating all "indecency" (defined by them, of course), all of us will have to turn off the TV because the only thing that the whole "protect the children" crowd wants on TV is Barney, that annoying purple dinasour. And I hate Barney.

Don't get me wrong, Im all for protecting children against nasty TV shows and child porn, but I don't want this country to end up like China. There, they have succesfully stamped out net porn, and everything else for that matter. In this post 9/11 world, the whole cultural landscape and the power of the net has made it a really strange world that scares the puritanical types. This group of people represented by various special interest groups like the American Family Association wants the government to step in and censor whats on TV and whats on the net.

In the end, what will result will be a G-Rated culture. Where will hip-hop fit into that mix?