Quotes / Moral Guardians

"Consueta vitia ferimus, nova reprendimus." ^note We tolerate the usual vices but blame new ones.

— Publilius Syrus

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Film — Live-Action

If any form of pleasure is exhibited,
Report to me and it shall be prohibited!
I'll put my foot down; so shall it be!
This is the land of the free!

— Groucho Marx, Duck Soup

"They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it is obscene."

— Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

"This is blasphemous literature! I'd rather Jessica be illiterate than to have her reading about defiant, perverse, Godless souls!"

— Jessica's Mother, Children of the Night

"My uncle Albert was balls-deep into Jesus. He thought Ricky Martin was heavy. He heard me cranking some Disemboweled Corpse and he hasn't slept for days."

— Brodie, Deathgasm

Literature

"Nearly all a poor bastard's desires are punishable by jail."

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

"Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow...always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them 'for their own good' — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it."

— The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

"WARNING:
The following chapter contains scenes that are so intense and horrific, they may not be suitable for viewing by people who can't take a joke.
If you are easily offended, or if you tend to blame all of society's evils on TV shows and cartoon characters, please run to your nearest supermarket and get a life. They're located in the "Get Real" section next to the clues.
Good luck!"

— Chapter 21: The Incredibly Graphic Violence Chapter (in Flip-O-Rama), Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

"There are people of so refined and delicate a nature, that they cannot bear the contemplation of such horrors... I did not, for these readers, abate one hole in the Dodger's coat, or one scrap of curl-paper in the girl's dishevelled hair. I have no faith in the delicacy which could not bear to look upon them. I have no desire to make proselytes among such people. I have no respect for their opinion, good or bad; did not covet their approval; and did not write for their amusement. I venture to say this without reserve, for I am not aware of any writer in our language having a respect for himself, or held in any respect by his posterity, who has ever descended to the taste of this fastidious class."

— From the prologue of Oliver Twist

Live-Action TV

"Freedom of speech is one thing, the word 'penis' is another."

— Bill, NewsRadio ("The Injury")

"You know what, it's okay. If Bill O'Reilly needs to have an enemy, he needs to feel persecuted, you know what, here's my Kwanzaa gift to him...I, Jon Stewart, hate Christmas, Christians, Jews, morality! And I will not rest until every year families gather to spend December 25th together at Osama's Homobortion Pot and Commie Jizzporium!"

— Jon Stewart

Music

If the Bible doesn't back it
Then it seems quite clear
Perhaps it was the devil
Who whispered in your ear

—"Guilt By Association", Steve Taylor

We're the morality Squad
Armed with the wrath of God!
My name is Granbo
And here's my holy hot-rod!
Freedom for all the people
Brave, true and strong
Freedom for all the people
Unless I think you're wrong!

—"The Morality Squad", GWAR

Tabletop Games

"If anything in this book offends you, please feel free to buy and burn as many copies as you like. Volume discounts are available."

— Stalking the Night Fantastic, Richard Tucholka

Theatre

Trouble, oh we got trouble!
Right here in River City!
With a capital 'T'
That rhymes with 'P',
And that stands for Pool!
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City, right here!
Gotta figure out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!

—"Ya Got Trouble", The Music Man

Video Games

"The only time your children should be playing "Doctor" is when you break the other one's arm! If we don't teach our kids that our bodies are filthy, disgustin' and dirty, that women are sin, and that emotions can be suppressed by cold showers, how in the hell are they supposed to grow up well-adjusted?!"

— Heartland Values with Nurse Bob, GTA Radio

Webcomics

"You're like the religious zealots who are burdened by their sad duty of decrying the obvious moral decay of each new generation...More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did."

— xkcd

Tycho: *Faux-Outrage* Did you know there's a mode in Duke Nukem where you slap a woman's bottom!?

Gabe: *Bored* Did you know there's a mode in Call of Duty where you murder, like, a million people? It's called Call of Duty.

— Penny Arcade, "One Of Many Possible Responses"

Web Original

family values: An abstract concept that is often made reference to by fundamentalist fuckmuppets as a way to condemn working mothers, gay people, single parents, sex education, and anything else that wasn't on Leave It to Beaver.

— Urban Dictionary

"I will admit that I too am something of an outrage addict...Yes, the world is full of outrageous things — acts of astonishing dishonesty. But outrage, or, I should say, other people’s outrage is really, really tedious."

— John Haggerty, "My Personal Fox News Nightmare: Inside a Month of Self-Induced Torture"

"WHAT IF I SEE MORE PENISES BECAUSE OF THIS?! WHAT THEN? THERE IS PENIS ON THIS COURT'S HANDS TODAY."

— Drew Magary, "Scalia Smash!: Our Ragiest Supreme Court Justice"

"The football culture is obsessed with maturity. You’ll see that word tossed around on Twitter, and in draft reports, and all over pregame shows...the big red MATURITY siren goes off somewhere deep in the bowels of league headquarters, and Roger Goodell whips out his emergency suspension letter-writing pen.

I hate this. It’s like every football coach and fan out there is Papa Walton or something. The entire SPORT of football is immature. It’s grown men treating a sport like war, which is the most childish behavior possible."

— Deadspin, "Maturity is Horseshit"

"Now and then it seems that banning is all they can do. It's all they seem to want to do. That's the problem with a free nation: you can't make yourself significant by granting freedoms, so you spend your time looking for freedoms to restrict in the name of a greater good, and there's always a greater good."

— James Lileks, The Bleat, "Thursday, March 05"

"Now it is hard to keep these groups apart, but any organization with “Family” in their name is guaranteed to be, shall we say, over the top."

— Encyclopedia of American Loons on Bryan Fischer

"'Think of the Children!' being a slogan that almost completely forecloses any possibility of actually doing so. 'The children' are in the end a nebulously defined potential utopia severed from the lived experience of any actual people. They are non-existent but ideal citizens, defined by the very fact of their non-participation in sex or politics. When the child becomes an adult — i.e. an actual functioning citizen, they notably lose this aura of protection, rendering the ugly fallacy of this rhetoric clear."

— Dr. El Sandifer

"Wertham wasn’t the only anti-comics hysteric, but he was the first to do a whole book out of the subject, and his testimony formed the bulk of the anti-comics portion of the 1953 juvenile delinquency hearings that ended up crippling the industry. Wertham’s testimony, equal parts irate nonsense and also book tour promotional stop for Seduction, which had just come out, got half the mothers in the country terrified of just what comic books were doing to their poor, susceptible Leave It to Beaver 1950s kids. His testimony contained no scientific data, was based on no credible research, and willfully misrepresented the content of the comics he was using as examples, but he brought with him the veneer of a very respectable doctor fighting the good fight for the kids."

— Rick Worley on Seduction of the Innocent

"I was approached by several evangelical students who were gravely concerned that I might worship Satan and I'd better attend seminary quick before Beelzebub gets a devil set aside for me. I was even hauled before the principal and warned that I would be expelled for gambling (because of the funny-shaped dice) if I didn't stop bringing my devil books...Luckily we're beyond such crackpot theories now. Oh wait, people still think Harry Potter is turning kids into witches. Never mind."

— Noah Antwiler on Mazes and Monsters

"When our Alexis felt weird after hearing someone discuss an idea that did not conform to her personally held beliefs, she had no place to turn," said Arnold Stigmore, standing outside the $2 million space that reportedly features soothing music, neutral-colored walls, oversized floor cushions, fun board games, and a variety of snacks. "God forbid any of you, in your years at this institution, are ever confronted with an opinion you do not share. But if you are, you will have a refuge on this campus."

— The Onion, "Parents Dedicate New College Safe Space In Honor Of Daughter Who Felt Weird In Class Once"

"Kids, you can't see this, it's too much. Sure, you can see people getting blown up, eviscerated, and blood everywhere, but boobs?! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT?!"

— Markiplier playing HuniePop

"Naughty shows. There are a lot of naughty shows on TV, whether it's sex, language, violence or bad writing. And the truth, which no one at the Parents Television Council will ever admit, is that bad writing (and bad acting and bad direction, but mostly bad writing) trumps sex, language, and violence for making a show bad. The critics – the real ones as opposed to amateurs like me – laud a show like Dexter because of the writing and the acting and the directing. But of course the PTC doesn't care about the quality of stories. The PTC are a bunch of bean counters who enumerate the number of incidents of sexual content, expletives (deleted or not) and acts of violence. And it is of course the PTC which defines what constitutes a "violent act" or a "sexual encounter" or even tells us what an expletive is."

— Brent Mckee

Rockstar swiftly recalled, patched, and reissued the game, and the "Mature" rating was promptly restored, but if the history of moral panics has taught us anything, it's that complying with the moral panic is the least effective way to end it; it's showing weakness, isn't it? It's like saying to the frenzied shark, "If you promise not to bite all my arms and legs off, you can have this used tampon." Lawsuits got underway, Clinton introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act to federally enforce the ESRB ratings that would ultimately flounder like an armadillo in a ball pit, but it wasn't enough.

Still brimming with huffy energy and not wanting to admit that this was all rooted in general frustration at losing control of a changing world and having nothing else to do all day but pick the kids up from soccer practice and shag the pool cleaner, the moral guardians extended their rage to Rockstar's next title, Bully, a slightly quaint game about a rascally schoolboy, which they decided, sight unseen, was some kind of loving tribute to the Columbine murderers. In perhaps the most hilarious episode of the time, a group apparently unironically calling themselves the "Peaceoholics" organized a protest at Rockstar's headquarters, even issuing a list of demands, which is worth googling if you can do with a laugh, because their demands basically amount to "immediately sabotage your own business and admit responsibility for all human suffering and wrongdoing". I can't seem to find any information on what the Peaceoholics were threatening to do if their demands weren't met; presumably, they were going to get real fucking peaceful on these motherfuckers.

— Yahtzee, The Hot Coffee Controversy

"So yeah, the 'Talking Angela' app was stripped of anything that made it unique, all due to a hoax and mass hysteria. Well done, parents! You did it! You saved the children!"

— Diamondbolt, "MORE OLD MOBILE GAMES!"

"I simply refuse to poison my Cristian children's precious minds with lascivious tales of daughters getting their father drunk and have sex with him (Genesis 19:30-38) - or harlots lusting after penises that are the size of donkeys' (Ezekiel 23:20). It is, however, excellent for cracking nuts and slapping bottoms"

— Deven Green's (in her "Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian" persona) satirical Amazon review◊ on the King James Bible

Western Animation

"If you're watching a TV show, and you decide to take your values from that, you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves.

(looks directly at the audience)

Yeeeeah."

— Peter Griffin, Family Guy.

"Call me a "killjoy", but I think that because this is not to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it."

— Marge, The Simpsons ("The Great Wife Hope")

"WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!"

— Helen Lovejoy, The Simpsons

(...)The smut we must stop,
The trash we must smash,
The laughter and fun
Must all be undone.
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!

"Blame Canada", South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Real Life

"Ask yourselves if this is the kind of book you would wish your wife or servants to read."

— From the court hearing against Lady Chatterley's Lover

"There are those who so dislike the nude that they find something indecent in the naked truth."

— Francis Herbert Bradley

"Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves...There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man."

— Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

"There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue."

— Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

"It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies."

— C. S. Lewis

"The lust to standardize and regulate extends to the most trivial minutia of everyday life."

— H. L. Mencken

"I like a moral problem so much better than a real problem."

— Dr. Elaine May

"I agree with the minority of Christians who eschew Christian rock as 'the music of the devil', although not for the same reasons: it is immaterial whether Christian rock substitutes 'Jesus Christ' for 'Peggy Sue', permitting its listeners to associate putatively Christian music with secular music with implied sexual content. It is diabolical...it is a form of idolatry."

— David "Spengler" P. Goldman, American Idolatry

"I don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them! Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates!"

— Richard Nixon on All in the Family, White House tape transcripts (1971)

"If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?"

— Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

"But let's be clear about the kind of effect the Holy Spirit's Voice has on us. When He speaks to your heart, you don't end up feeling beat down, discouraged, and hopelessly flawed...If it feels like someone is shoveling wet cement onto your back and you're feeling more and more burdened with every word you read, then you're not hearing from the Holy Spirit. You're hearing from that nasty old deceiver Satan, or one of his many sordid friends."

— Religious blogger Anna Diehl

"The quest for control is convoluted. If another person is thinking incorrectly, it's already too late: we need to intervene earlier, to stop dangerous ideas at their source, before they go viral and take root in the fertile darkness of an unenlightened mind. The pop culture discourse in 2020 is remarkably haunted by the specter of the Cultural Idiot, an ultra-impressionable boogeyman nobody ever seems to have met but who we're sure exists. He's out there somewhere, just waiting for someone to drop an ideological engine into the empty chassis of his brain. He will read this book, watch that film, and get the Wrong Idea About Things."

— Kat Rosenfield, "What We Sacrifice To Be Seen"

"For decades, American moral crusaders have tried to keep material away from the young in the name of protecting them. True to our Puritan roots, violence always seems to get a pass, while sex is shameful and not to be discussed. What’s telling about (Mayor Pro Tempore Gracey) Van Der Mark and her fellow travelers is that their ire is coming in an era when children’s and young adult literature is more ethnically diverse and more accepting of sexual and gender identities than ever."

— Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, "Column: Huntington Beach wants to keep ‘obscene’ books away from children. Good luck"

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