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Politics : Welcome to Slider's Dugout -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul ross who wrote (4911)	4/12/2007 5:04:49 PM
From: Gib Bogle	Respond to of 50511

You want to blame Woody Guthrie, but do you really think it is guilt that makes white kids want to listen to hip-hop? They strike me as remarkably guilt-free. The black "musicians" and the record companies have identified a very lucrative market, which they are able to exploit through the combination of two factors: a culture built around marketing and profit-making, and the legal protection of free speech. In my opinion the concept of "free speech" has been distorted a long way from what was originally intended, and the distortion has been commercially motivated. There is no simple answer to this problem. Should there be laws regulating song lyrics, to eliminate hateful, abusive and obscene expression? This isn't an issue that splits left and right. After all, laws on "hate speech" have been supported by the left and often opposed by the right. The opposition to censorship comes from civil libertarians (both left and right) and from business interests. Right-wingers tend to say that this is a family matter - parents must control their own children, and the government should keep out of it. Speaking as someone who doesn't identify himself as left or right, I just feel that any society that wants to preserve its culture has to pay a lot of attention to the raising of its children. From the outside, one gets the impression that the US culture has become so individualistic and profit-driven that child-rearing is being neglected. But to repeat, I don't see a simple fix.