Last week, the House voted to raise indecency fines for broadcasters from $32,500 to $500,000, a 15 fold increase. With the size of the federal government rapidly spinning out of control on the watch of a supposedly conservative regime, we, the neo-liberals at 1115.org, decided to create an innovative market-based solution that will reduce the government interference, raise revenues and create swaths of programming time utterly devoid of any objectionable material.
The culture warriors who rail against lecherous radio hosts, semi-bare breasts, and homosexual kitchen utensils see indecency as polluting the airwaves, so we decided to use an approach that has already worked in fighting environmental pollution.
Cap-and-Trade has been in use since the late 80s and works by setting lower limits for each particular pollutant, issuing a series of emission credits and allowing credits to be traded between polluters. The lower overall limit ensures a cleaner environment and the tradable credits provide an incentive to cut emissions in order to sell them on the open market to companies unwilling or unable to clean up their plants.
This system was very successful in drastically curtailing acid rain, and with a few tweaks could easily reduce and contain anything that could potentially offend even James Dobson.
Applying Cap-and-Trade to broadcast media would allow networks for religious people (like PAX) and networks for old people (in the case of CBS) to sell credits to Fox and MTV. Stations could then advertise the number of credits bought or sold which would serve as notice to viewers and watchdogs.
Think about the possibilities: The Lifetime channel, which would be swimming in credits from re-run episodes of The Golden Girls, could make a lot of coin by offloading their credits to Fox for a special sweeps-week “lesbian experimentation” episode of The OC. Problem solved! Lifetime gets money to replace their weak ratings, and everyone else can enjoy the spectacle of Mischa Barton pretending to kiss another girl. Everyone wins, and no one needs to travel all the way to Coachella to watch celebrities make fools of themselves. MTV, with the help of The Discovery Channel, could finally air the ultimate episode of The Osbournes, where the swearing is unbleeped and unintelligible. And finally, thank heaven, basic cable channels will be able to air a version of Mallrats that isn’t neutered into incomprehension. Three cheers for market-based solutions!
But why stop there? The Cap-and-Trade technique has so many uses that it seems almost silly to limit it to power plants and television. Got caught lip-synching on live television? Just take a couple of celebrity points from your more-famous older sister, and suddenly you’re on the cover of Cosmopolitan.Did your stockholders finally find out you’ve been defrauding them? You’re covered, thanks to other businesses with a bit more ethics. And, of course, the political possibilities with a cap-and-trade system cannot be overstated.
People will complain about the bureaucracy that this type of system will need, They will say that it only shifts problems around, instead of solving them. Those people need to stop living in the past. As for us, we’re looking forward to the season finale of The Simple Life: Interns, where Paris and Nicole are moonlighting at the “world famous” Bunny Ranch(warning! NSFW!). God bless America.