njlauren -> RE: Adult film producer convicted in obscenity trial. (5/26/2012 8:31:05 PM)
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Obscenity isn't so cut and dried which is why a federal obscenity law is problematic. What you think is cut and dried may not be so cut and dried, and what passes for 'community standards' in NYC prob won't pass muster down in the great hookworm belt. Even works most think of as literature have been banned as obscenity (take a look at the banned book lists going back in time, you would be surprised) and who is going to decide? Grandma Sadie in Tupelo, Mississippi? John Ashcroft, Bush's Attorney general, who when the threat of terrorism was looming, tasked people in the justice department to make sure that statues that had any kind of naughty bits were covered up, and was planning another massive commission trying to prove that porn was harmful and therefore should be banned but unfortunately/fortunately, got sidetracked by 9/11. When you reduce free speech to its lowest common denominator you are ripe for abuse and that is what goes on. Remember the super bowl where *gasp* Janet Jackson's nipple was exposed for 10 seconds? CBS got fine some ridiculous amount, it was a record (I seem to recall a million dollars)..the Super Bowl is watched by 100 million people, and do you want to know how many complaints the FCC received? A little over 100 (not 100,000, 100), mostly from the bible belt..... These are people who aren't all that far removed from Anthony Comstock (look him up sometime) , are we going to let discourse go down to their level? Yeah, there are a lot of things that are to me obscene, I find shit play disgusting personally, there are forms of blood sports or roman showers that make me ill to think about....seems easy, right? But what about to mary lou dinkleheimer in nowhere, arkansas who thinks depicting two men living together is obscene? What is Purley Jenkins thinks that a video showing michaelangelo's David with its dongles flapping in the breeze is obscene? Antonin Scalia, not exactly the most liberal of people, when they came out with the so called Computer Decency Act, that was supposed to protect children on the net, wrote the majority decision on the case and what he wrote was almost shockingly Brandeis-esque, he said basically the law was so broad, so ill written, that it could and would be abused to silence things that have nothing to do with children, that words like 'adult content' and 'obscenity' were so broad based it could stifle legitimate speech and expression far too easily and he was right, because the question again comes down to who decides? What "community" are we talking about? Does it depend on whether the judge is a card carrying member of an evangelical Church or Opus Dei Catholic like Rick Santorum or someone versed in the ideas of free speech? This guy should have been prosecuted for putting out illegal images. Things like snuff films are illegal, even if simulated, and bestiality is like child porn in that it is non consensual, as would be a movie depicting non consensual S/M -abuse. This guy is probably a moron , I have no doubt, who figured he would go over the top and get a ton of publicity for what he was doing, but free speech is not defended in the middle, it is in the fringes. The founders of this country knew that, they said protecting speech most people agree with is easy, it is in the margins where the law and the will of the people for freedom is found. Someone (can't remember who) was talking about Howard Stern, the radio shock jock, and he said while he found him personally to be a childish, moronic boor seeking titulation in simply shocking people or being out there, he said personally he would give the guy the medal of freedom for pushing the limits and making it easier for others to express their views. I know of more then a few in the 'alt community' who are planning on voting for Romney and the GOP in this election because they feel it will be better for their pocketbook and they are totally dismissive that Romney and the GOP posed no threat to them or anyone else , that all the posturing on gay marriage and abortion and birth control was 'meat to feed the base' so to speak. I wouldn't be so complacent, Romney is a Mormon, a serious one, and Mormonism is no less more tolerant then the evangelicals. When he was governor of Mass he had no choice, it would have been suicide to try and censor things or bring charges for porn and such, but on a national stage? We could see a redux of Bush and before him Reagan, which were not exactly times known for their progressive attitudes.
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