Posted on 06/27/2003 6:17:49 AM PDT by rhema
Among its closing flurry of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court this week upheld a federal law designed to stop public libraries from functioning as high-tech peep show parlors — at least at federal taxpayers' expense. Predictably, sometime champions of First Amendment free expression rights, at the New York Times and elsewhere, are worried.
How long can freedom reign, they wonder, if we've lost the inalienable human right to pornography — in a public facility, free of charge and of embarrassment?
The court has here reaffirmed the famous principle of Judge Robert Jackson that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." Limits on governmental powers need not be extended to the absurdist point where the community must not just endure but must finance and facilitate the destruction of its own minimum standards.
The law in question withholds federal funds from public libraries unless they install porn-blocking software on their computer terminals. Libraries may disable the filters for adult patrons who request it, perhaps because they're having trouble connecting to sites dealing with breast cancer, or for other, um, specialized research purposes.
But that's not good enough for critics, who say such requests would produce unconstitutional embarrassment.
My daily e-mail smut offerings give a glimpse of the sort of Web site riches that might now require a special request at the public library: "Young girls raped," says one site promo. "See how me do it!"
It would be a shame if anyone got embarrassed.
The questions courts address are legal questions, not policy questions. It is not for the court to decide whether this federal law is wise or practical, but only whether Congress has violated the Constitution by making this choice.
That issue came down to whether it would be unconstitutional for a local library to install porn filters, with or without federal inducement. A six-justice majority said that since libraries routinely choose to stock some books but not others, filtering Internet content is likewise a reasonable exercise of discretion, which Congress can seek to encourage.
This doesn't necessarily mean Congress has made a good decision. Those who think it hasn't have a handy device for registering their opinion — the next election. They could also press their local library board to forego federal funding and keep the porn flowing.
By contrast, once the court rules a policy choice unconstitutional, citizens have no recourse.
What's perplexing is that, as often as not, the very folks who think the First Amendment is so absolute that it prohibits the government from limiting access to publicly financed pornography are all gangbusters for limiting private political expression with campaign finance reform.
Under this logic, Congress can limit how much of my own money I can spend to express: "Vote for Smith." But it can't limit how much taxpayer money goes to help distribute: "See how me do it!"
If you find sense in that, I cannot help you.
Under this logic, Congress can limit how much of my own money I can spend to express: "Vote for Smith." But it can't limit how much taxpayer money goes to help distribute: "See how me do it!"
If you find sense in that, I cannot help you.
This frames the issue as succinctly as anything I've seen.
Gotta like this, too:
The court has here reaffirmed the famous principle of Judge Robert Jackson that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."
Wish it were truer than it is, though. Certainly, in 1973 the Court did find the Constitution to be a homicide pact.
Dan
The author must have been in favor of the federally mandated 55 mile per hour speed limits. They were effectively mandated by with-holding federal highway funds.
The federal government has no business dictating speed limits and they have no business dictating internet limits. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Are there communities in our nation so undeserving of freedom that they must have their library content dictated by the central government?
That issue came down to whether it would be unconstitutional for a local library to install porn filters, with or without federal inducement. A six-justice majority said that since libraries routinely choose to stock some books but not others, filtering Internet content is likewise a reasonable exercise of discretion, which Congress can seek to encourage.
This doesn't necessarily mean Congress has made a good decision. Those who think it hasn't have a handy device for registering their opinion — the next election. They could also press their local library board to forego federal funding and keep the porn flowing.
Unlike the Michigan and Texas cases, in which the activist wing of the Court once again found brand-new constitutional rights in labyrinthine, heretofore-hidden penumbral emanations, the Court did its job in this case. If it's a lame decision of Congress, at least it's Congress's -- not the Court's -- prerogative to make it, and there are ways to remedy or mitigate bad decisions, as Tice mentions. (Are we still saddled with 55-mph limits on our freeways?).
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