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. . . think we can outlaw pornography. I do not have that in mind at all. But take 6 to 7 hours daily -- the average listening time, Senator, as I understand, by the youngsters of this particular porn rock and rock music and everything else of that kind. Well, let us say rock music and intersperse it with pornography. This is a matter of national concern, and it is something that we have got to give some kind of attention to within the constrictions of free speech.

So, I will be looking from the Sentator's standpoint, not just to bring pressures to try to see if there is some constritutional provisions to tax, but an approach that can be used by the Congress to limit this outrageous filth, suggestive violence, suicide, and everything else in the Lord's world that you would not think of. Certainly the writers and framers of our first amendment never perhaps heard this music in their time, never considered the broadcast airwaves and certainly that being piped into people's homes willy nilly over the air. I will be listening closely.

I am sorry -- we also have another Defense Appropriations markup -- that I must leave here shortly, but I will be in and out. It is not because I am not interested. I am very interested in trying our level best to limit and control as best we can, for the tender young ears of America, the porn rock that will be presented here. I have heard some of it, and I am sure you have.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Trible.

OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR TRIBLE

Senator TRIBLE. Mr. Chairman, a brief statement if I may. More than 2,300 years ago Plato recognized that music is a powerful force in our lives, that music forms character and therefore plays an important part in determining social and political issues. In Plato's words, "When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state change with them."

Perhaps Daniel O'Connell, the 18th-century Irish nationalist, expressed it best when he said, "Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

Our culture powerfully affects individual character. When we are constantly confronted by that which is coarse, we become coarsened. Repeated exposure to song lyrics describing rape, incest, sexual violence, and perversion is like sandpaper to the soul. It rubs raw one's sensibilities, resulting in a state of emotional numbness, in the words of George Will. One becomes literally demoralized.

Now, the subject [effects?] of suggestive [such?] lyrics on a [well-adjusted?] child may not be cataclysmic. Rather, the emotional damage is more subtle. The effect on a troubled child, however, can be disastrous, pushing that child over the emotional precipace [sic], and to the extent that individual attitudes are influenced, this becomes a very real social problem.

The linkage between experience, thought, and action necessarily leads to concern about the consequences for society, and it demands a response from each of us, not the self-appointed guardians of the national morality, as someone suggested, but as concerned citizens and leaders of a great and lasting republic.

To paraphrase John Donne, any man's death or harm diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. Likewise, we are all . . .

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