Immoral TV

According to some blog I read, a Swedish parliament representative, Jan Emmanuel Johnason (Socialdemokraterna), was suggesting to tax "immoral" TV. That is, all kinds of reality TV, and general crap that is shown just to make money. The blogger agreed with this idea, but got a lot of comments on this blog. These mainly consisted of two objections in the following form:

A) "Aaarhghh - Retard! Who's going to decide what's immoral, stupid and not good?"

B) "You stupid socialist! Why should we tax everything. I don't want to pay a tax for retards that don't know how to use the on-off button on the TV"

OK, so I have problems with these. Firstly, (A) it isn't that hard to have a rather objective measure of what's educational TV and what's just stupid TV. We already have people who decide what rating movies get. It is possible to measure TV quality in a sense which is objective enough for fiscal use.

The second argument (B) is used very often when people complain about TV. Yes - I can turn off my TV if what is shown is crap. I can also stay home if the city I live in is not safe enough, I can choose to not to listen to the radio if it's crap too. I can even choose not to get an education, if the universities suck!

But the point is that there's potential. TV is a powerful media, and it can be used for something much more interesting, educational and intelligent that what is broadcasted now. It must be allowed to hope for, and work for something better than what is now!

So to sum up - I'm not really taking a stand when it comes to taxing poor TV - I'm just annoyed that people keep using this stupid argument of not participating when we don't like it. Yes, we can - but this kind of attitude is just a result of the general mind-numbing TV that we're crammed full of. My hat is off for those who want to change it!