Word: chips
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While we tend to associate the promotion of "family values" in the political arena with conservative Republican sound bytes such as the infamous Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown debacle, Clinton's support of the V chip does not mark the first time that Democrats have urged families to monitor their children's exposure to the more-provocative aspects of the entertainment industry...
...Republican Senate, ironically putting aside usual objections to government involvement in favor of promoting the family, included support for the V chip in a recent telecommunications bill. While few would argue with the need for parents to protect their young children from the harms of the world, the publicity surrounding Clinton's endorsement of the Senate promotion of the V chip reveals a number of underlying problems...
...weakest arguments for the V chip in general is that it allows network television to offer more adult programming, since adults will be able to weed out what they do not want their children to view. Parents seem to want the best of all worlds. Rather than some cable television packages in which parents may chose note to subscribe to entire channels, or limit these channels to certain times of the day, they can avoid having to block out an entire network affiliate. Selective restriction seems to be a good compromise...
However, there are strong practical objections to the V chip. At worst, it elicits cries of censorship. At best, the task of both defining what constitutes violence and getting broadcasters to agree to a potentially self-defeating high violence rating seems both enormous and unrealistic. Further, assigning an objectionable level of violence rather than allowing parents to guide what their children watch on a program-by-program basis may prove that viewing will become more arbitrary instead of less...
...Gore's campaign for labeling albums shows, many of these so-called acts of "parental responsibility" simply create yet another forbidden fruit for children. The "cool" kids, the ones who buy the restricted CDs and sneak into R movies, will inevitably find their V chip and dismantle it, or change its level. The homes of the "cool" parents who do not use a V chip, or who set theirs to a lower level, will be sought as hangouts...