Why is Junk Food OK, But TV Smut Wrong?

Conservatives are OK with using government to protect children from smut on TV. So why not enlist government to ensure healthy eating in schools?

Michelle Obama on Deciding What Kids Eat: ‘We Can’t Just Leave it Up to The Parents'

That's the ominous headline on a CNS story about the new child nutrition bill signed into law today by President Obama.  You get the message right? The First Lady is an intrusive, verging on totalitarian busybody, who wants the federal government to seize power from parents.

But you get a very different message if you read the quote in full.

'Everywhere I go, fortunately, I meet parents who are working very hard to make sure that their kids are healthy,' said Mrs. Obama. 'They’re doing things like cutting down on desserts and trying to increase fruits and vegetables. They’re trying to teach their kids the kind of healthy habits that will stay with them for a lifetime.

'But when our kids spend so much of their time each day in school, and when many children get up to half their daily calories from school meals, it’s clear that we as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well,' Mrs. Obama said. 'We can’t just leave it up to the parents.  I think that parents have a right to expect that their efforts at home won’t be undone each day in the school cafeteria or in the vending machine in the hallway.  I think that our parents have a right to expect that their kids will be served fresh, healthy food that meets high nutritional standards.'

In other words: Mrs. Obama is not proposing to replace parents. She is proposing to support parents in the face of an environment that can subvert the parents' own goals when the parents are not physically present to enforce them.

This is a concept that CNS founder Brent Bozell is very able to recognize when it comes to something he cares about: smut on television.

Here is Bozell writing about the insufficiency of the v-chip back in 2005:

Parents continue to struggle nightly with the torrent of trash on the TV screen, and the executives at the top of the trash heap have come to Washington and tried to suggest they have found the magic pill that cures it all. It is the V-chip, they proclaim, mandated in every new television set to aid the parent in blocking out programming that's too sexual, too violent or too crude in its language. ...

The V-chip is touted by Hollywood as such a panacea that NBC has told the FCC it has no need to enforce anti-indecency regulations anymore, given that viewers have the option of using the V-chip to block channels they don't want coming into their homes. Who needs Washington to get involved when you have this trusty gadget, the Ronco Raunch Remover at your fingertips to handle those pesky shows?

If it sounds too simple and obvious -- it is. ... For starters, most parents have no idea how this V-chip works or know that their TV set even contains one. A survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that only 15 percent of parents they surveyed have used the V-chip. Many of the survey's respondents (39 percent) didn't realize that their new TV sets were equipped with a V-chip, while others (20 percent) knew they had a V-chip but haven't used it. ...

Parents are left in the lurch. There is no inter-network consistency in the ratings. There isn't even ratings consistency within each network. The TV ratings system is a perpetually broken promise, like a lemon car offered to the buyer as a souped-up sports coupe. The buyer must be wary of not just the TV product but also the broadcast TV pitchmen who pose as caring guardians of parental interests. That pose is as fictional as most of the shows these broadcasters air.

For those reasons, Bozell campaigned hard for the 2005 Federal Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act. The act imposed higher fines for violations of FCC decency rules. With broadcast decency, argues Bozell, it's not good enough to tell parents to "turn the TV off." Parents are not always in the room. Parents sometimes need help enforcing their own standards against businesses that profit from subverting those standards. And you know what? Bozell makes a very good point.

But here's what I don’t get: If it's a legitimate use of federal power to restrict private broadcasters to protect children, why isn't it much more legitimate for the federal government to act to ensure the healthfulness of federally funded meals in public schools? Bozell complains (reasonably!) against MTV being included in basic cable, so that MTV is for many consumers practically inescapable. Why isn't it equally reasonable for Michelle Obama to complain against soda and chip vending machines being placed in schools, making those items equally inescapable from a parental point of view?

Bozell is able to see that the Broadcasting Decency Enforcement Act was not a first step on a slippery slope that would end with the federal government entering my house and shredding my copy of Choderlos de Laclos. Yet Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin seem to be arguing that the new child nutrition bill is a first step on the road to a national ban on cookies and pies.

There are certainly valid reasons to oppose the new bill. It will cost $4.5 billion in its first year, only $2 billion of which is offset by corresponding budget cuts. I myself would only vote for a deficit-neutral version of the bill.

But to represent the principle behind the bill as an outrageous intrusion into personal freedom raises the question: Is Boston Legal really worse for kids than ready access to Doritos and Big Gulp sodas?