The topic is obscenity. There are laws against public sex and nudity because legislatures have deemed them obscene. You support government intrusion vis a vis public obscenity laws. Ergo you see a role for government in regulating obscenity. And by your reckoning this makes you a statist of the first order
You can’t have it both ways Marcus. You can certainly take a position on where obscenity and government should intersect but you’ve already ceded the point that they can and should. A common problem for libertarians especially those with a sense of decency.
You can’t have it both ways Marcus. You can certainly take a position on where obscenity and government should intersect but you’ve already ceded the point that they can and should. A common problem for libertarians especially those with a sense of decency.
The difference is that public sex and nudity being “public” is just that, “public”. If a group of people strip down to natures own and engage in group sex in the middle of the town square, they are putting out in public, that which should be private and which a vast majority of citizens would not want to see and being in public, unless I can drive my car down Main Street with my eyes closed and put paper bags over my kid’s heads, they are going to see what no child should be subjected to seeing. That’s common sense.
But as an adult if, in the privacy of my own home, want to watch an X-rated movie (and I don’t BTW, because I find porn very stupid and boring) or for that matter an R-rated movie or read an erotic novel or listen to a ribald comic or a song with “dirty lyrics” that is none of the government’s business or yours.
Of course that’s not to say that you or anyone else has a right to not be offended. We now live in a country where everyone is offended and the freedom of free speech, especially political speech is in great jeopardy (Rush Limbaugh anyone?).
But my take as a libertarian is that as a free citizen I’m basically free to do and say whatever I want to do as long as what I do and say does not infringe upon the rights of other free citizens.
I would think that performing pornographic sex acts in public infringes on the rights of other free citizens not to be forced to view what they do not want to view. Engaging in or viewing pornographic act in the privacy of my own home or a private establishment does not infringe on your rights not to view such in any way.
On the other hand, my expressing views that you happen to not agree with does not interfere with your rights as you are just as free to disagree and free (or at least should be) to express your own opinions on the matter.