Lew Rockwell takes issue with America’s most-watched television network:
I just caught one of the famous CSI tv shows (anything to avoid the incarnation of Obama), this one CSI: Miami. The cops are hardworking, implacable, brilliant, and good looking. They operate out of offices and labs that are spotless, and equipped with the latest tech. They always get their man. The people they target are stupid, cowardly, and ugly or weird. Did the USSR broadcast any more cartoonish government “thrillers”? Thanks, CBS, for the Commie Statist Idiot propaganda.
It’s worse then even Lew may realize. Approximately 60% of the CBS prime-time schedule is occupied by shows glorifying federal, state and local police agencies. (And I’m not even counting pro-government “news” programs like 60 Minutes or the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.) The current lineup includes 12 such shows, including four programs devoted to the FBI alone:Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, Eleventh Hour and Numbers. Four more programs are based around city police departments (three CSI programs and Cold Case), two are dedicated to the military (NCIS and The Unit), one to a state investigation bureau (The Mentalist) and even one program about a Canadian police department (Flashpoint). Talk about diversity in programming!
For comparison’s sake, I looked at the CBS schedules from ten, 20 and 30 years ago. In 1978, CBS had a single program dedicated to government police – Hawaii Five-O. By 1988, there were two programs, and in 1998 there were four. To go from four to 12 police shows in a decade is pretty remarkable. Also, there were more private detective dramas in earlier decades, because apparently in those days, the government did not have a monopoly on truth and justice.
There’s a straightforward explanation for CBS’ actions: The network discovered its niche and replicated its programming accordingly. Some of this programming can be attributed to the government’s indirect control of television via the FCC, and to some extent, more libertarian-minded folks are simply turning away from television towards the Internet and other media. Still, it’s more then a little unnerving to think that in the 21st century, there’s such a high demand for what amounts to pro-government propaganda.
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I meant to suggest to Lew to watch the Shield. I’ll make it formal: all libertarians should watch the Shield. You really can’t have the ending that show has on any network channel.
I can’t believe you omitted Jack Bauer!
And there’s no beating around the bush when you have ABC trotting out Fatherla-, I mean Homeland Security USA!
You may not realize it, but the government has database systems and data-mining systems that can analyse purchases and spending habits and indirectly determin if someone is doing tax-evasion or not.
How far before this system is used to determin if we the people are conducting criminal activities or not ?
The fact that the government is ACTIVELY investigating against the people and always suspecting them of tax evasion is really perverse.
We are now all guilty until proven innocent.
I was somewhat unaware of the slow and insidious growth of propaganda in the media until I saw how Ron Paul was treated.
That is when I realized that there is a overlord aspiring for world monetary hegemony regardless of the costs. It is traceable to the historical occurrence of an unConstitutional coup and its actions are predictable.
The unConstitutional coup has fictitious wealth and illusory power but the equilibrium forces of the economy can and will wipe them off the face of the map. Our job is to make sure people know that the best replacement when the chaos arrives is classical liberalism!
In the late 80′s I had to stop by the CBS newsroom to pick up a bunch of “critical” docs for my employer ( a “respectable” leftwing entity). The fellow who was assembling the docs asked me to hang tight for a while. I looked around and, lo and behold, there was a full-sized painting of our buddy Lenin in some editor/producer’s office overlooking the newsfloor.
I asked the doc fellow if the editor has a goofy sense of humor. He looked at me, then looked at the picture, then looked at me and deadpanned: “no.”
I think Lew’s main problem here is that he saw “CSI: Miami,” which is the worst of the CSI franchise. The Vegas version is much better.
That said, there are still detective shows on TV. They’re just mostly on cable. USA Network has “Monk” and “Psych,” where the police are clueless bumblers who couldn’t solve anything without the brilliant P.I.s who help them.
I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that I generally avoid all of these cop procedural shows, while one of my favorite series is USA’s “Burn Notice.” It’s about an ex-government agent using his skills to help people, never depending on the police or government.
In fact, two other original series on USA, Monk and Psych, also buck the statist trend. Monk is a PI that has to help the police with most every case, and Shawn Spencer of Psych could be a great police detective but prefers to be self-employed. And all three are much more entertaining than any Law & Order or CSI.
Wait, Lew watches TV “programming?”
Must be the minarchist in him.
Yep. And at the same time, when they have those criminology documentary on, a constant is that the murderers pretty much all get away because public servant police officers couldn’t respect basic procedures and screwed up bad somewhere.
I second The Shield. To get an approximation of The Shield, take the Denzel Washington movie, Training Day, and make it into a series. Both were based on the real life crimes of LA’s Rampart squad. It is frightening the lengths the characters go.
I also recommend The Wire as well. It’s about the drug war in Baltimore. In it, almost no crime is curtailed, politicians are only there to cover themselves and get re-elected, and pretty much everybody (including the drug dealers) are corrupted. There was one very interesting story arc where a police chief worked out an agreement with the dealers to “legalize” drugs an uninhabited area of the city. Great series, great stories.
Re: Private Investigators that are great. Check out the Nero Wolfe series and the old british Poirot series, very good but under appreciated.
I used to watch Jane Doe on the Hallmark Channel. You know, the quintessential “hockey mom” who takes on big bad corporate goons and international terrorists while the kids are at school. Every time somebody kidnaps a nuclear scientist, she is right there to bring the bad guys to justice and save the country.
It’s ridiculous. She is sweet, intelligent, and patriotic. She walks into deadly confrontations unarmed and always walks away unscathed. She simply adores her husband and children. Her relationship with her male bosses never becomes inappropriate, even though nobody is watching and they can do whatever they want.
In one show, her teenage kids are learning about the economy and investments. They invest in a corporation using her online portfolio. Meanwhile, she is assigned to take down that same corporation for unethical activities. Ultimately, she loses thousands of dollars of her own money.
Yeah, right. We know that in real life, the government and the corporations are in each other’s back pockets.
I am eternally disturbed by this kind of “programming”.
I think Lew may have caught a quick glimpse of the truth here. This garbage is the last desperate gasp of a dying institution. Like their more blatant twin, tv “news”, they scramble to serve a former market that has been turned into a large niche.
“apparently in those days, the government did not have a monopoly on truth and justice.”
I think it was more the case that in those days the protagonist had to be a “private” cop for the networks get away with having him go around beating up suspects, breaking into people’s houses, bugging phones, and so on. Nowadays it’s acceptable for regular police to be depicted doing these things so there is no longer any need for the private eye genre.
I agree with what “shaneinwy” says.
David Bratton’s comment got me thinking: the PI was the scout, to get the audience accustomed to thinking “Thank God he’s a PI and can beat up suspects, break into houses, do whatever it takes to get the job done!” Then, once that is firmly ensconced in the collective TV-viewing consciousness, you introduce the regular cops who just cannot win UNLESS they do what the PI did (just make sure no-one reminds the audience it’s illegal). The tv shows then find themselves killing two birds with one stone: championing private enterprise AND more power to the State police.
Bring back the A-Team !!
A great article and insightful comments. CSI Miami also shows us who the State thinks are the real enemies of this country: homegrown, usually white, “terrists.” And who do these terrists terrorize? Non-white people and illegal aliens. (You don’t have to be white to be a terrorist on CSI Miami, but you do have to be an American.)
Lt. Horatio Caine (David Caruso) gave a warning to all homegrowns: “We will get you. One animal at a time.”
Lew, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a TV show is just a TV show.
Of course the Wire is also an amazing show.
Veronica Mars was also a decent detective show. Veronica helps her father who was forced out of his job as police chief and became a PI. The police are portrayed as incompetent through almost the whole series, oh and Kristen Bell is delightful.
24 is more debateable. They follow a particular kind of public choice where the leaders (except David Palmer) are all corrupt, but the man on the street (Jack Bauer) is almost always portrayed in a decent light.
I agree with Kent. This kind of story telling has been around for hundreds of years. Corruption and violence are ensconced within the human condition. Just remember that the bad guys are usually trying to kill someone or steal something.
I don’t think this is unrelated to the decaying of the television audience. Television is a medium that thrives on a single, emotionally-driven storyline (even on “news” programming.) People with an interest in being presented with new ideas, or facts which they can interpret themselves have abandoned television and moved on. Television caters to the remaining sheep who look to a paternalistic government to take care of them.
Some interesting alternatives –
Showtime’s Dexter – a show about a serial killer who works for the Miami PD as a blood spatter expert. Few people in the PD suspect him, and he focuses on killing “bad people” that the police can’t catch. In short, it’s the success of vigilantism.
BBC’s Robin Hood – Robin Hood is always great if you don’t like the Tax Man. BBC’s version features a Sheriff that is not incompetent – rather he’s truly evil (Road to Serfdom anyone?). His “right hand man” Guy of Gisborne isn’t evil, but follows a twisted form of morality – twisted by the lust for power and political position. King Richard, though good, is absent from England, and is easily fooled.
Just a few options that are a little bit less glorifying of the State.
If we’re doing recommendations, I highly recommend “Breaking Bad.” It’s about a high school chemistry teacher who gets terminal lung cancer and decides to start manufacturing (really high-quality) crystal meth to support his family after his death. It’s quite anti-state.
I second that! Breaking Bad is a brilliant depiction of the (black) market outfoxing the prohibitionist state.
My other favorite is Mad Men (also from AMC) which is, among many other things that make it great, an Ayn Randian celebration of the advertising business in the 60′s.
I agree with Mr. Engelhardt as well. Dexter is another great show about working around the state to provide the security/justice it fails to.
I guess the pattern makes sense: the shows that have more mature writing also have themes that are more libertarian, while cop-dramas are… well, cop-dramas.
Also, has anyone noticed the tag line for the new show, Boardwalk Empire?
It’s something like: “when booze was illegal, outlaws were kings.”
They’re pointing out what economists have always said; that prohibition creates black markets, and is the real cause of gang violence.
Maybe soon we can have a show that says “When credit was expanded, capital was wasted on malinvestments.”
I have relatives who watch Law And Order. I think the Law And Order DA, played by the guy who is the pitchman for TD Ameritrade, is a bigger thug than the people he prosecutes.
Then again that is the show that fired Michael Moriarty because he thought setting children on fire wasn’t such a good idea.
I plan on writing a blog post discussing the “state” of Australian prime time television (pun intended).
There are plenty of cop shows, many such as CSI and L&O imported from the US, and a few homegrown ones that are on par with the US ones in terms of production quality and plotlines. We also get “the Bill” from the UK. I don’t watch any of this crap, mainly because it bores me to tears and gets me worked up just before bedtime.
“Underbelly” dramatized the gang wars in Melbourne in the late 90′s. Despite the bad guys being portrayed as morons (which they probably were in real life), the cops couldn’t catch them until they had all basically killed each other off, mainly due to lack of evidence. It was entertaining, and another installment about the drug trade in the 70′s is starting soon.
What I find far more disturbing is the “COPS”-like documentary shows, of which there seems to be a new one every season (and the old ones don’t get cancelled). Here are some samples:
Border Security – Seriously. They film people going through customs, make various violators look like idiots, and of course show the officers as stern but caring, for the good of Australia.
CoastWatch – While there are plenty of lifeguard shows along the same vein, this isn’t one of them. The tagline: “Millions of dollars of fishing stocks at stake”. They go around harassing recreational fishermen, confiscating boats for fishing over the quota. Stern but caring.
I can’t remember the title, but there’s a new one where they dramatize a car accident then show the path to recovery for the mangled survivor.
Of course, the commercial breaks in between these and every other prime time program are filled with by my rough estimate 30-50% government sponsored PSA’s. These are often shocking – A kid gets hit by a train and fades away (Look both ways, mate!), A family gets into a car accident, with blood flying everywhere (Buckle Up, mate!), first-person perspective of a drunk teenager getting hit by a car (go easy on the grog, mate!).
So if the government is buying 30-50% of the commercial time slots, and their officials are the prime-time stars, who owns the media?
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