Rant: Consumerism, Religious Hypocrisy and the Bastardization of the First Ammendment

Author's Note: this was originally published on my old LiveJournal in Dec 2005. As such, there are a few fleeting, dated references that sparked the initial writing. Rereading it now, it rings as perpetually true to me as it did then and my opinion still stands unchanged - which is why this is in the "rants" section and not the LJArchive. FWIW I recently canceled my cable TV account, and haven't bothered to hook up an OTA antenna.

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Have you ever found yourself suddenly stuck immobile, glued to an aisle floor in the supermarket staring agape at the shelf in front of you, lamenting the fact that holy crap there are too freaking many freaking flavors of freaking Pringles out there? (Or maybe it’s too many flavors of ice cream – because 31 33 infinity is not enough. Or the newly promiscuous Cheerios – sheesh, they've spawned like 8 different kinds now. There are enough new flavors of Oreos to give a diabetic Tourette’s syndrome (losing a foot will do that to ya, I guess). And everyone knows that God himself won’t unleash the second coming until someone invents the long sought-after Sour Cream & Dill-Bacon-Cilantro-Salsa-Cheddar Pork-Potato Poof-Ball. Rind. Twist. Thing... with exclamation points...

...Yep, that sounds like a proper culinary apocalypse to me).

As duty-bound consumers in the most horrifically capitalistic society the world has ever known, we’re taught to be grateful for the wide range of "choices" that confronts us every day.; this is what the American Ideal espouses more than anything. So if there’s anything that 230 years of experimentation, discovery, invention and progress have taught us (other than the fruits of said labor can be outsourced to China for pennies on the Yuan), it’s that a society can’t have too many kinds of potato chips, knitting mags, celebrity rags, TV networks, and septic-tank cleaners.

But really, does the world need yet another take on the greasy, salt-laden, pressed fatty starch disc? The 64-color box of Ketchup? Do we need five different monthly gun magazines if you’re not from Idaho, Montana or Texas? Three different televised court networks? The fucking entertainment for cats channel?

Responsible Americans know the answer to the following question: Does BooBerry turn your shit green?

So how ironic is it that right now the whole country is giddy on the edge of its seat, thanks to last week’s FCC opinion stating a viable case for requiring cable companies to offer channels 'a la carte'. Halle-frickin-lueja! we cried; Finally, we won’t have to pay for sifting past three channels of worthless CSPAN drivel just to watch monkeys fuck each other to snippy British narration on the discovery channel. Brandishing that tried-and-true politic It’s For The Children™ argument, FCC chief Kevin Martin appealed straight to the chewy nougat heart of sofa whales everywhere when he opined with regards to filtering out offensive content: “You can always turn the television off and of course block the channels you don't want, but why should you have to?"

Thank. Zarking. God! Finally, We the People of These Lethargic States will have even more self-accountability removed from our plates! Conservative-family-values-type organizations can banish all them thar Evil Godless Shows™ to straight-to-rental and pay-per-view hell! Gasp - can it really be true?

Well, no... because if there’s one thing that Americans are gullible for, it's Alleged Constitution Abuse. And thus Kyle McSlallow, head of the "National Cable & Telecommunications Association", promptly raised this spectre by saying that 'Cable a la Carte' is a “very dangerous idea” that would “threaten the First Amendment”. The simplified argument goes: if people have to pay for the channels they watch, many of the less popular ones will disappear, and you don’t want to infringe on First Amendment Rights.

Oh noes: the Violated First Amendment card! Forget the common sense of abandoning less-popular channels: perish the though of a world without MTV2! Without CSPAN 1 2 and 3! Without The Discovery-History-TLC-HGTV cluster-fumble of rehashed BBC imports! Without the Golf Channel and Food Network! Where Joe Sixpacks directly subsidize ESPN’s ludicrous NFL rights deal out of their own pockets! Do we really want a world like that? Ready? All together now: No! First Amendment! First Amendment!

But now wait a second, just who are they trying to kid? The last time I checked, the First Amendment was drafted to protect important things like an individual's right to worship any deity in any fashion (as long as it doesn't cause undue harm to another, which is where Satanism has a little problem) – not so some producer can find a home for tripe like The Simple Life 3. Not true, we're told, because everyone needs their own voice for their own interests. Specialty networks would never see the light of day because there’s not enough money to go around, which is really against Freedom of Choice and The First Amendment.

But on second thought, I suppose it’s fitting to use the First Amendment to defend our right for Televised Choice -just look at what it did for worship in this country. Simple Christianity (for example) was never good enough (here or anywhere else), so now you can choose your own adventure: there’s Adventist, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Eucharistic, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox, Protestant, Presbyterian, and the ever popular Churches of Blanky (that is, "Fill-in-the-blank", e.g. Churches of God, of Christ, of Christ Scientist, of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints aka Mormons, of etc). I know I’ve omitted quite a few, but I don’t have all day.

Suffice to say, the upshot is this: if the preacher / congregation / core message / ritual / hymnal / standing up / symbolism / perceived bigotry / music / _____ in a particular church really pisses you off one week, the chances are reasonably good that it’s just all wrong and not meant for you - so by all means, feel free to try another one until you find what you’re looking for, can wholeheartedly believe and know that everyone else has got it wrong. Feel free to do this at any time – who cares how much time you’ve already invested in one denomination? Maybe the others are on to something. People decry a lack of faith and value in this country but look: Changing churches is no more traumatic than trading your faithful Sour Cream & Onion Ruffles for the shiny new mistress of Sour Cream and Dill Lays, while flipping the channel from Animal Planet to Discovery Nature (ooh, elephants).

It’s the Great American Right to expect more TV, Pringles, and Churchin’ that Revolves Around You, never mind how it’s going to be paid for.

Now hey, don't get me wrong. I appreciate junk food variety, and while I rarely turn on the idiot box, I do sometimes enjoy programs on the very channels I made fun of. But really, are these things truly necessary? Are they a sacred right? Did the founding fathers have this out-of-control consumerism in mind when they braved conditions we can't fathom to set up shop for opportunity?

The "Truth and the Way and the Life" is all dependent on whom you listen to, and whether the ol' pew-based gossip mill is a-spinnin' this week.

But take my word for it – the Pork Potato Poof Ball will be the end of us all.