Government Subsidized Political Protest
Posted by Moonage on 22 Jul 2005 | Tagged as: National Politics
Over on The Motley Fool, we had a lengthy debate over public funding of the arts. My contention was art is in the value of the beholder, I don’t like the idea of the government telling me what I have to accept as art, or not. Saraswati1, an artist, took the contention that just about everything is art and therefore needs to be supported. According to her, you can’t let the private sector support art or it will all go away. I still totally disagree with that. I mentioned a couple of works of art that never would have survived in the private sector, and was only done because the artists were subsidized by the government and therefore had no motivation to appeal to the public at large.
Today, I have even more good examples to illustrate my point:
According to the California Arts Council, this is art. According to Moon, this is nothing but political opinion presented by an artist.
The question I raised in the lengthy debate was why should I be forced to pay someone else to insult me by way of my values? Why isn’t the California Arts Council paying me to express my opinion? I can do it in bizarre enough way to call it art. I’ll take a crayon, scribble my message, and call it something arty like "PUBLIC FUNDING OF POLITICAL EXPRESSION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL IN MAUVE".
This ain’t art folks. This is nothing but a vehicle for the California Arts Council to express their political views. It’s got to stop.
1 Comment »
on 23 Jul 2005 at 12:25 am 1.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Can anyone explain to me why there is a need for public funding of the arts?
There are more endowments than you can shake a stick at for this crap. Why should I personally (thru my tax dollars)have to pay for something that is not only tasteless, but quite offensive to me?
Freedom of expression should be exactly what it sounds like, free! I shouldn’t have to pay for something like the arts.
What ever happened to no taxation without representation? This sure as hell doesn’t represent me!