Quote Of The Day

Kevin Drum on loud commercials:

This is an issue, like the Do Not Call registry, that transcends politics. I don’t really care whether volume regulations are liberal or conservative or trample the Bill of Rights or whatever. I just want the noise to stop. If it takes jackboots to stop it, then so be it.

Like Kevin, I am annoyed by loud commercials. Especially after the wife and the kids go to sleep and I’m trying to watch a TV program at just high enough of a volume that I can hear it, and thus need to keep the remote in my hand to turn the volume down during commercials. It can get a bit maddening, and if I’m too slow with the volume down button (or fast forward, since I have a DVR), I can end up with a very angry wife.

But here’s the difference. I can’t believe it transcends politics. Because despite what Kevin Drum says, even if we can agree that this is a nasty practice that serves nobody and it’s right for government to stop it, there’s one problem. Once the jackboots have stomped these nefarious advertisers, those who wear jackboots won’t just take them off and go back to their business. Give a politician a tool, he’ll find a use for it. You can never tell when they’ll turn on poker players, grandmothers, or pastors. The one thing you can be sure of is that they’ll never put the jackboots away.

Especially not when they get their rocks off with jackboots like these:

The