by Chris Basten

  Our society is so predictable. I knew a lot of people were going to be outraged. I initially wasn't going to write about it but the absurdity that has come about because of it must be addressed. There are dozens of articles already written about it and most of them are not good. Of course, I'm talking about the pious response to the Super Bowl halftime show.

In case you missed it, Janet Jackson, a singer who hasn't done anything worthwhile in years, bared one of her breasts on national TV. While the exposure was unnecessary, I highly doubt our children will become spoiled goods like the ultra-Conservatives are now worrying about. It was a piece of fat with a nipple on the end of it. It might have poked an eye out but I don't think the world will come to an end because of it.

You wouldn't know this from all of the worrywart Conservatives, though. I appreciate their opinions but I find their views about the event to be blown way out of proportion. Rebecca Hagelin wrote one of the oddest pieces about it. She states that, "Janet Jackson...declared war on America's families, and it's time to fight back." I don't see her logic in this but, hey, she's entitled to her opinion. Several other Conservative writers got into the booby-patrol act, as well. Some of them even used the incident to further their view that America is a moral wasteland. How women's breasts account for society's moral downfall, I'll never know. I'm just glad she didn't show her penis. We never would have heard the end of that one.

Janet Jackson's "revelation," whether planned or unplanned, does not concern me in the least, however. What concerns me the most about the Super Bowl halftime show is the vast amount of support for its investigation by (who else?) the moral authority themselves-our federal government. The FCC promises to launch an investigation into the incident as if it was a Presidential assassination or something. For gosh sakes, people, the government wastes enough of our money! We don't need the State chasing breast-bearers and the washed up entertainers who flash them. Enough conservative groups have launched their own campaigns to write letters to MTV and CBS about their revulsion. We don't need the government threatening them with force and heavy fines.

But the government is all about satisfying the few at the expense of many. Janet Jackson didn't hurt anyone physically or harm anyone's property but the Feds are going in to scour CBS and MTV for information. What they think they are going to find is beyond me. Someone tell me where the moral outrage is in the coercion of the FCC telling networks what they can and cannot show? Instead of letting viewers decide through their own free will, the government relies on force to make the networks appease special interest groups who don't like breasts being shown on TV. Even though we can choose to change the channel or stop watching the idiot box altogether, the State thinks it will protect us from a woman's breasts being shown altogether by flashing FCC badges and threatening everyone with fines for not doing what it says.

The support for any kind of federal intrusion is of great concern. If we think it is part of the government's responsibility to 'protect' our children from things we deem morally repugnant, we're not seeing the whole picture. The government already tries to do this to no avail. The State sucks mountains of dollars from our wallets and forces our children into public schools to get less than adequate educations. Furthermore, they do a grand-spanking job of intruding into custody battles and poorly managed social work programs. Surely, a breast on national television is not the worst thing a child can be exposed to.

If parents and "pro-family" organizations were really consistent, they would have pleaded with the FCC to stop showing war footage of Iraq during family time as well. I heard little, if any, pleas for this. It goes to show you where our priorities are. Back in the beginning of 2003, we seemed to have few qualms about showing a third-world country getting plastered with "bunker blasters" during the 5:30 pm national news when most families sit down to pray before dinner. But this war was advertised to us by President Bush as moral, so then it must have been ok to show to America's families and children. I'm just glad that none of those poor, mangled, peasant women in Iraq had the audacity to show one of their breasts when the media went in to view the carnage. That would have been awful.