Posted on 07/13/2004 10:11:42 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Do you ever wonder why the internet is so polluted with pornography? The Supreme Court just reminded us why: it blocks every attempt by Congress to regulate the pornographers.
From its ivory tower, the Court props open the floodgates for smut and graphic sex. Over the past five years, it has repeatedly found new constitutional rights for vulgarity, most recently invalidating the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).
This latest judicial outrage happened on the final day of the Supreme Court term, after which the justices headed out for a long summer break. Lacking teenaged children of their own, the justices closed their eyes to electronic obscenity polluting our children's minds.
For decades, pornographers have enjoyed better treatment by our courts than any other industry. The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography.
The flood of pornography started with the Warren Court when it handed down 34 decisions between 1966 and 1970 in favor of the smut peddlers. In mostly one-sentence decisions that were issued anonymously (the justices were too cowardly to sign them), the Court overturned every attempt by communities to maintain standards of decency.
The judges' obsession with smut is astounding. Even though five Supreme Court justices were appointed by Presidents Reagan and the first Bush, graphic sex wins judicial protection in essentially every case.
Woe to those who transgress an obscure environmental law, or say a prayer before a football game, or run a political ad within two months of an election. They find no judicial sympathy, as courts now routinely restrict private property rights and censor political speech.
But the pornographers can do no wrong in the eyes of our top justices. The most explicit sex can be piped into our home computers and the Supreme Court prevents our democratically elected officials from doing anything about it.
COPA was enacted by Congress in response to the Court's invalidation of the predecessor law, the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But decency lost again when six justices knocked out COPA in Ashcroft v. ACLU.
COPA was badly needed, as filth plagues the internet, incites sex crimes, and entraps children. COPA banned the posting for "commercial purposes" on the World Wide Web of material that is "patently offensive" in a sexual manner unless the poster takes reasonable steps to restrict access by minors.
You don't need to look very far to find a tragic crime traceable to the internet. In New Jersey in 1997, 15-year-old Sam Manzie, who had fallen prey to homosexual conduct prompted by the internet, sexually assaulted and murdered 11-year-old Eddie Werner, who was selling candy door-to-door.
COPA did not censor a single word or picture. Instead, it merely required the purveyors of sex-for-profit to screen their websites from minors, which can be done by credit card or other verification.
But minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are most easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young.
Justice Kennedy declared it unconstitutional for Congress to stop porn flowing to teens, shifting the burden to families to screen out the graphic sex rather than imposing the cost on the companies profiting from the filth. His reasoning is as absurd as telling a family just to pull down its window shades if it doesn't want to see people exposing themselves outside.
In a prior pro-porn decision, Kennedy cited Hollywood morals as a guide for America, but this time he relied on the prevalence of foreign pornography. "40% of harmful-to-minors content comes from overseas," he declared in holding that the other 60% of obscenity is wrapped in the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court insisted that individual internet users should buy filters to try to block the vulgarity. Should those who do not like air pollution be told to buy air masks?
The Supreme Court protects pornography in books, movies, cable television, and the internet, real or simulated, against all citizens' clean-up efforts. The Court is no longer the blindfolded lady weighing a controversy, but is dominated by media-driven supremacists forcing us down into a moral sewer.
This latest pro-porn decision was too much even for Clinton-appointed Justice Breyer. He said, "Congress passed the current statute in response to the Court's decision" invalidating the prior law; "what else was Congress supposed to do?"
The solution to these ills foisted on us by judicial supremacists is for Congress to exercise its constitutional powers to remove jurisdiction from the federal courts over pornography. The Court has abused its power, and it's Congress's duty to end the judicial abuse.
Beyond that, another problem I have with internet porn is something nobody discusses. Young girls are starting their own websites with nude photos and vile sex acts for a fee. Teenage girls are profiting like hookers in the comfort of their own homes.
I personally think the internet and the freedoms it offers is a scurge on the world that will cause irrepairable damage. I would shutter(sp) to know what kids are looking at these days. And to suggest that every friend of your children has parents with filters on their computers is rather naive. I bet less than 10% of households in this country have any type of filters.
The fact is, most people are blind to this stuff and/or turn a blind eye. "My kid knows better", etc, etc.
Lastly, I'm surprised at all the defense of porn coming from the "conservative" posters on this site. It is very unsettling and bothersome to me.
Go ahead and attack me. That's just my personal feeling on the matter. I stick to my guns.
He fancies himself as the one in charge?
Not true. They'd tax it.
Your porn-loving anarchist buddies will be crouched down in their bunkers with tons of ammo to defend their collections of pornography.
The ONLY problem these fanatics have with the Taliban is the name they call their god by.
Social conservatives are conservative on social issues. If this was a social forum rather than a political forum, you would have a valid, relvant point.
I have no doubt you are serious and this is the type of pathology that reduces girls into whores and steals their souls.
None of the folks in Iran standing up to the Iranian government are Christians--and, by your definition of "patriot," they aren't Iranian patriots. After all, they're willing to let their woman look like western whores instead of properly attired BMOs.
It's not a fantasy. It's a plan.
Go ahead and attack me. That's just my personal feeling on the matter.
No need to attack you. All I need to do is quote you.
Bring it on, baby. I cannot wait.
But for my amusement, I must ask this: Why hasn't your little "plan" happened yet?
He also calls conservative republicans the Taliban.
Of course the implication is that what happened to the Taliban should happen to us.
Bring'em on.
It's not a fantasy. It's a plan.
Whaddaya think, LC? Is this guy begging for America to impose Rule 7.62 on him?
Sorry, Buchanan is not getting elected in Nov.
They won't liberate Tehran either.
Probably so, but what makes your rationalizations and theories about what the founders 'would have wanted' or 'really meant' any more acceptable than the Supreme Court's or Sarah Brady's.
The point is:
So9
People who possess contraband could be let off with a fine or a short sentence.
considering that pornography is one of the principal reasons the internet came into being, I find it awfully naive of some folks to think it ought to be banned from the net outright.
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