PTC clutches pearls; news at 11

Bleeped swear words: Threat or menace? Now with hilarious statistics!

Fish, barrel, I know, but it's the article comments that explode in wank proper, once bbbaldie opens the floodgates by siding with the PTC:

Not sure how many of you have actually raised children, but in my house in the 80's and 90's, I appreciated not having the foulest expletives on the TV shows my kids (and their parents) watched during primetime.

Ooh, sorry, you liberals, I know that our youngest kids shouldn't be shielded from the f-word, my apologies for offending you.

It's the typical "Exponential increase in swearing = DOWNFALL OF CIVILIZATION" wankery, mixed with the old chestnut "I don't want my kids to watch this, pervert" vs. "then change the channel, dumbass". But quite possibly the most concentrated source of WTF-ery in the whole thread is on page two from Harpua420:

This country will strangle itself on their "freedoms."

(This begs for some kind of '"scare quotes" make you more persuasive' tag.)

There's also some ouroboros-like reoccurring wank with atari030 when he refers back to his comments on last month's Ars article about the Parents Television Council (apparently this is His Thing - if you have an Ars account you can see through his profile that all but one of his posts are on the PTC articles); and an incredibly uncreative self-Godwinizing pro-PTC troll-sock created just for the occasion rears its ugly head at the end of page 4: selfrighteousliberalasshole (Joined: 16 Nov 2010 11:05 | Last visited: 16 Nov 2010 16:36 | Total posts: 1)

ETA: Finally reading atari030's older comments. My god, it's a lulz sundae with point-missing sprinkles smothered in NostalgiaVision sauce topped with a classic passive-aggressive flounce (which he immediately went back on as soon as another PTC article was posted, apparently):

• *Honestly, when one looks back in time in terms of overall generational 'well being' one tends to pick the 50's and possibly the 80's as very idealistic points in American life. Hmmmm, it also just so happens that those time periods were ones of very (50's) and fairly (80's) prudish standards compared to today. Outside of the knowledge-base gained and technological advancements, I can't say there have been any marked strides in our cultural development since then. In fact, I think we've taken a great many steps backwards and regressed.
• *
  "Also, your fear of the youth of today showing a lack of discipline and morals is almost identical to the writings of Plato. Yes, we've been going to hell in a handbasket since 400 BC! "
  If you want to compare my writings to that of Plato, I'll gladly accept that. Thanks, I appreciate the compliment.
• *in relative terms 80's MTV was like Howdy Doody. I think your parents will readily confirm my assertion.
• *
  "And parents in the 80's were complaining about the exact same thing. Their parents did the same. And their parents before them, and so on. Somehow society has managed not to implode upon itself. Do you not see the same pattern? "
  Sure I see the same pattern, but all that pattern tells me now that I'm older and that I have some perspective is that it's true. We're slowly getting worse and worse
• *If you lived through the 80's you'd see that there's no real comarison between what was on in the 80s and what is on now. It's foolish to even try and argue that they're somehow comparable. It's like night and day different.
  I suspect that you didn't experience the 80's directly otherwise you wouldn't even question what I'm saying.
• *Well, I'm out folks. There's only so much negativity one can take. Enjoy further discussions on these forums as I won't be.
  (....'Yay, the only guy that didn't agree with the rest of us left'....)

suggested tags:

think of the children, sockpuppets, godwin's, censorship, language, parents taking shit too seriously