Posted on 05/28/2004 5:25:59 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
You ascribe selfish reasons for people who just wish for liberty. For example I belive drugs should be legal, so that makes me a drug user? Nope, I don't do drugs and won't have them around my family, but I realize that freedom isn't always roses -- it's allowing people to do the wrong things to themselves.
Conservatives for porn and drugs being illegal continually confuse me since their position is inline with the "Takes a Village" liberal nanny state ideology.
Like I always say. The political spectrum from Left to Right isn't a straight line, but a circle where extreme Left and Right meet at the bottom, where freedom is banned.
Isn't there one girl in porn who's a member of Mensa and does the programming for her web site herself? Saw something about that a few years back.
Don't forget the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Should high school girls work in tit clubs?
Yes, they're of the age of consent.
Should high school girls do gang bang scenes with 12 guys?
Same here.
Should high school girls fly jumbo jets?
If she is a trained pilot with enough hours of flight experience and the proper qualifications, yes. But I doubt someone that young could get that far by that age. However, a 18 year old copilot is not out of practical reason.
Should high school girls be able to write prescriptions for themself and others
If we have a child prodigy who's made it through med school by this age, then yes.
Should high school girls be able to be president?
Impossible. Constitution states a minimum age.
Intrinsic evils should be criminalized. The only subject for debate are the penalties that should be applied.
Are these the only "intrinsic evils" which should be criminalized? Or are there others as well? Just curious.
Mark
Most intrinsic evils, like theft and murder, are already criminalized, but as our society has degenerated morally, we have begun to decriminalize intrinsic evils like adultery, sodomy, abortion and pornography.
Nonesense. At what point do you think she "knew what she was getting it to"? When she began having sex with a dozen men did she think it was a game of twister? Good grief.
Apparently you think initiation of force or fraud is a good thing, as long as you can rationalize it as fighting whatever you call "evil".
Implicit in an assertion of the non-coercion axiom is that the principle is good, and that objection to the principle is evil. So you, just as well as I, depend on definitions of good and evil in promoting your ideas. Not only that, but implicit in your claim that the non-coercion axiom is the first principle of society is that this principle is good for society (unless you're going to claim otherwise). So your principle rests on a prior principle, that the State should operate for the good of society, or the common good. So your "first principle" can't be a first principle.
The first principle of the State is to promote the common good. Therefore, the State is within its rights in "initiating force" against someone who is engaged in acts that are intrinsically evil in order to promote the common good.
Doncha just love it when the immoral and non-religious turn to that document for the protection of their immorality?
It's ironic, to say the least.
Correct. The Founders intended to protect political speech, which was a prudential judgment. They would have laughed at the idea that people have a "right" to expose themselves.
How would you characterize people who claim a right to engage in vices such as fornication and pornography?
The common law is based on the natural law, which is written on the human heart and is knowable to all people, in contrast to Sharia law.
Well so is oral sex, but you'd have to condemn most of America.
Everybody's doing it, so it's OK?
I don't understand your point. Can you restate this?
They re-aired it (along with some extra footage) on 5/27 because of the recent HIV outbreak in the California porn industry. The program included a new interview with another woman who came to LA to make a quick buck and aquired HIV, and also a new segment where Michelle "confronted" her mother.
I couldn't find a transcript for the whole show, but found this on the ABC website.
Yep. That's my conclusion.
That's very sad. Would you wash your hands of your own daughter?
Not even God can help people who don't want to be helped.
How do you know who wants to be helped unless you try to help them?
As an Aquinas fan, you should have more insight into the nature of Free Will. She sins of her own Free Will.
We all do. So what?
You cannot make people virtuous by simply suppressing the instruments of their lust--they still lust and fall.
No, but you can make it more difficult. You can minimize "near occasions of sin."
Would you drink in front of an alcoholic coworker every day and tell him, "if you start drinking again it's all your fault!"? Or would you be complicit in his relapse?
How would you characterize people who claim a right to engage in vices such as fornication and pornography?
You believe God gave us free choice to do good and to avoid sin. -- I'd say these people might have made a poor choice, in your eye.
Do you disagree that they have that choice? And is that choice not a 'right'?
-- Then why do you lobby for laws to deprive free men of a free will choice?
Isn't having a choice "the first principle of ethics"?
That's the $64,000 question. It's a matter of prudential judgement and it's a matter for society and statesmen. I'll propose some ideas below, but what I'm simply trying to maintain now is that pornography is intrinsically evil and that the State can and should act in principle to suppress pornography.
An adult has certain choices to make, certain lifestyles they might wish to follow --- do we lock her up?
Do we lock up drunk, high, and suicidal people for their own protection? Certainly, such things are permissible in principle.
Do police raid your home looking for porn you may or may not have?
In my judgment the cost to society would outweigh the benefit. But such an act can't be ruled out in principle.
Does the government watch everything you buy to make sure you aren't contributing to this?
Same answer as above.
I don't think you can just make laws to save everyone who chooses to follow evil.
No, because we'd all be in jail. The State has to use prudential judgment in the punishments that it applies. Some intrinsic evils (like attempted suicide) should be criminalized but should not be punished (unless you consider a period of forced institutionalization to be punishment).
Religion is supposed to show people the way --- but if they won't go --- if they wish to follow money and pleasure --- they've been warned --- just like all of us. And they still have time to find God if they would allow Him. Jesus didn't save everyone even when he walked on earth --- many chose to disregard him then and some chose to kill him.
Yes, but the specific duties of the Church are different from those of the State.
* * *
Some ideas for suppressing pornography:
- Penalties for creating and distributing porn.
- Prevent hotels, libraries and other public places from displaying porn.
The most difficult issue though is internet porn. I don't know if it's possible to stop it, but the government should work on ways to prevent the distribution of porn over the internet. I'd go as far as requiring internet browsers to include anti-porn filters, if such a thing were possible.
You're like a broken record repeating your mantra that what you see as 'sin' is "intrinsic evil".
That is the question at issue. You are begging that question.
Non-violent consensual acts are not 'criminal' under our rule of constitutional law.
The public aspects of such acts can be 'reasonably regulated' by state/local governments. No power has been granted to prohibit or to criminalize them.
-- Why do you advocate ignoring our constitution?
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