Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Boob jobs and freedom of speech

According to this article, the National Organization of Women (NOW) has been urging its members to complain to the FCC about a contest where a radio station gave away breast agumentation surgery.

In the "Breast Christmas Ever" contest, 13 women were awarded the procedure after writing essays to the stations explaining why they wanted larger breasts. A Tampa station claimed to receive more than 91,000 entries.

While maybe I agree with NOW that there are too many breast augmentation surgeries, I am outraged by NOW's desire to trample on the free speech rights of radio stations. The radio station wasn't doing anything illegal. Breast augmentation surgery is a legally authorized medical procedure, and radio stations always give stuff away to encourage greater listenership. Maybe the contest was in bad taste, but freedom of speech includes tasteless speech.

We see yet another example of liberal organizations paying only lip service to free speech.

Luckily for me, my breasts are naturally endowed with a nice size so I don't need to enter a contest like this.

5 comments:

Brant said...

You're right about NOW - they have, for years, insisted on enforcing their own idea of values. Either they try to legislate their ideas down your throat or they try to get someone else to do it for them.
The proper response? If you don't like something Clear Channel is doing, don't patronize them. If enough people agree with you, then they take an economic hit and either live with it and move on, or change their practices to try and win back the business.

The name "libertariangirl" caught my eye, b/c there are few (admitted) libertarians out there and I've finally come out of hte closet (as it were) as a libertarian myself... Great blog - sorry you're stuck in gov't.

brant
strayvoltage.blogspot.com

Publicola said...

LG,

I'm afraid you'll find examples of this kind of thing in many orgs from many differnet political backgrounds. It does seem that those on the left/socialist side of the spectrum are more commonly involved, but to be fair it's not a rarity on the right/conservative side.

"Luckily for me, my breasts are naturally endowed with a nice size so I don't need to enter a contest like this."

It's somewhat of an obligation in the blogosphere to provide proof of any claims made. :) (& yes I was mereley joking)

Unknown said...

If I may ask, what exactly would you recommend that NOW do to discourage the practice of breast augmentations? They've complained to the radio station, the radio station's parent company (Clear Channel), and the FCC (who regulates radio).

Do you have a better strategy?

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...curious...

Unknown said...

Heh, that should actually be pointed out: the feminazis are acting just like the bible thumpers...Is using "feminazi" in a conversation some sort of right-wing corollary of Godwin's Law?

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...neglicting my own blog...

fabdiva said...

I live in the listening area of the radio station that sponsored the contest, and I consider myself a modern woman - but I don't have a problem with plastic surgery. If the person in question has researched it and really feels it is necessary, who cares? As someone who called into the radio station said, NOW needs to focus on real issues like homelessness, domestic violence, etc.