Posted on 03/15/2012 11:00:14 AM PDT by timlot
You are right.
Wow, great quote. Thanks for posting.
They were struck down because there was no objective standard from which to judge. And you can’t prosecute someone if you never determined what what authorized or not.
The ‘I knows it when I sees it’ rule doesn’t fly.
Which is all fine and dandy... as it would be like using .gov for government sites, .org for tax-exempt charities, .edu for educational facilities, etc, etc, etc... except for one thing.
Santorum is not pushing for that. He's pushing for the current system and enforcement of laws that have no objective standard by which our citizenry can use (ie: if I do 'this' or less, I am fine... but if I do 'that', or more... I can go to jail).
Furthermore, it's very dangerous to project your own personal views on an issue on a candidate that you support. We got Obama because so many Americans viewed him through the prism of their own political agenda.
What Santorum has said/done and what he promises to do is the only standard by which we should judge him.
And that standard is sorely lacking.
---
"We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."
- Davy Crockett, Representative - Tennessee
OK. So you don’t believe me. That’s your choice but I’m telling you whether you believe it or not, that in all my years of web surfing I’ve never inadvertently or “accidently” brought up any xxx pr0n sites. Never. I’ve received some suspicious spam over the years but I’m smart enough not to click on the links of the very few pieces of spam that manage to get past my spam filters.
And I was searching for some SQL Server info at my job at T-Mobile a couple of years ago and one of the sites it brought up was raw pr)n. We’re talking a full scrollable page of people “in the act”. I went back to google (It was difficult because the page did not want to close) and took a screen print of the page that took me to it (including the search values proving I was searching work stuff) and emailed it to myself in case HR accused me of surfing Pr0n.
Then T-Mobile must not use very good web filtering because where I work, and for that matter at companies where I’ve worked over the last 10 years, it’s nearly impossible to bring up any inappropriate web sites. At the last place I worked, the Washington Post was listed as a forbidden site (come to think of it, probably for good reason :), ). Where I work now all social media sites like Facebook are blocked as is YouTube and even the Pennsylvania State Lottery website – Gambling sites are forbidden – LOL!
And if safe search is off, try searching ANY female name in google images. It’s all right there.
OK. I searched in Google images with safe search off on the very common female name “Jennifer”. Lot’s of beautiful women, some in bikinis but not seeing any xxxporn. Perhaps your definition of xxxporn is different than mine.
I actually stopped using hotmail and switched to Gmail several years ago for a single reason: Google is all text.
And you are in IT? Really?
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.
“See, your personal beliefs on these issues just shouldn’t be part of the political dialogue.”
It is utterly foolish to think that a person’s beliefs aren’t part of the political dialogue. If they hold them strongly, they WILL affect how they will act and vote.
That is why one should fear Romney. He is a very devout Mormon and he will use Mormon values & beliefs if he were POTUS. Just the same as Santorum, Gingrich, or any other will do so. It is disingenuous for perons to say otherwise.
Goodness, even in your statement that “beliefs” shouldn’t be part of political dialogue is you FORCING a value or viewpoint on others. It is YOUR VIEWPOINT that beliefs shouldn’t be considered. So, you are doing the very thing to rail against.
Bottom line is that Santorum or Gingrich or whomever must run their campaigns in accordance with their views and beliefs. IF you don’t like their beliefs....then don’t vote for them.
You are just torked that someone unafraid to articulate his religious views in public discourse is doing pretty well so far. I am actually surprised he has done as well as he has myself. The only difference is it doesn’t tork me off. I appreciated honesty.
Whatever, I will not disagree with you about a general election. I would be very surprised if he could continue this path and win in this hedonistic and pagan society we have devolved into. I would be astounded. However, should he succeed, I would be pleasantly encouraged by it. Of course, it won’t happen.
I would be very surprised if he could continue this path and win in this hedonistic and pagan society we have devolved into. I would be astounded. However, should he succeed, I would be pleasantly encouraged by it.
***Good, positive thinking.
Of course, it won’t happen.
***What happened to that positive thinking?
It should be noted and is worth repeating that quotes like these from the Founding Fathers were from their private letters and personal correspondences.
The quote comes from Adam’s Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798.
It was not a statement of public policy nor did Adams ever propose or enact any legislation while in office that the Constitution only applied to “moral and religious people”.
John Adams also said:
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
I am disappointed that terrible candidates can gain traction in my party. I find it irritating that many social conservative voters will waste their primary votes on silly candidates who have no chance to win a general election, and that they often don't vote based on conservatism - but rather on who can best quote scripture and position themselves as the most God fearing candidate (see Mike Huckabee in 2008). About as disappointed as I was in 1988 that Pat Robertson managed to do well enough to come in second in Iowa and even win some primary caucus/states. Yes, the same Pat Robertson who had already pulled a "Harold Camping" and predicted the end of the world would be in 1982
Fine...But it does not give the Federal Government the role to define morality or enforce morality laws..
“I find it irritating that many social conservative voters will waste their primary votes on silly candidates who have no chance to win a general.”
Well, your views are why the Republican Party is so fractured and a battle over its “soul” is in progress. I find persons that put “winning” ahead of “principles” irritating. That kind of thinking is getting Romney the nomination. Also, that kind of disdain for morale conservatives is something Rush has attributed to the “Party Elite.”
Many of us put social conservatism first because we believe that if you get that right, everything else falls into place. Also, Sodom was prosperous, and the area around it green for cattle, that is why Lot chose it. However, it turned out to be a lousey place to live.
Personally I fear God more than men.
“Fine...But it does not give the Federal Government the role to define morality or enforce morality laws..”
Government (at any level) doesn’t attempt to enforce “morality” they attempt to control behavior (now that enforced behavior may have its origins in “morality”). The original purpose of this post was about how Santorum said he would attempt to regulate porn on the internet. The “internet” is “interstate” and “intercontental.” That makes it fall, via the COTUS, under the jurisdiction of the Federal government. Only at the federal level would it even be remotely possible to rein in internet porn.
IF you don’t want internet porn regulated, then just say so and let your congressmen know....but don’t appeal to the idea that it is not a federal issue...because it is.
“***What happened to that positive thinking?”
I’m not Norman Vincent Peale....plus some of the posts I read here utterly discourage me about the state of our union’s people.
Saw a 1995 article by Judge Robert Bork elsewhere on FR and thought this portion so appropriate to this thread:
It is likely to become a rocket ship soon if, as George Gilder predicts, computers replace television, allowing viewers to call up digital films and files of news, art, and multimedia from around the world. He dismisses conservatives’ fears that “the boob tube will give way to what H. L. Mencken might have termed a new Boobissimus, as the liberated children rush away from the network nurse, chasing Pied Piper pederasts, snuff-film sadists, and other trolls of cyberspace.” Gilder concedes, “Under the sway of television, democratic capitalism enshrines a Gresham’s law; bad culture drives out good, and ultimately porn and prurience, violence and blasphemy prevail everywhere from the dimwitted ‘news’ shows to the lugubrious movies.” But he blames that on the nature of broadcast technology, which requires central control and reduces the audience to its lowest common denominator of tastes and responses.
But the computer will give everyone his own channel: “The creator of a program on a specialized subject-from Canaletto’s art to chaos theory, from GM car transmission repair to cowboy poetry, from Szechuan restaurant finance to C++ computer codes-will be able to reach everyone in the industrialized world who shares the interest.”
Perhaps. But there seems little reason to think there will not also be an enormous increase in obscene and violent programs. Many places already have fifty or more cable channels, including some very good educational channels, but there are still MTV’s music videos, and the porn channels are coming on line. The more private viewing becomes, the more likely that salacious and perverted tastes will be indulged. That is suggested by the explosion of pornographic film titles and profits when videocassettes enabled customers to avoid going to “adult” theaters. Another boom should occur when those customers don’t even have to ask for the cassettes in a store. The new technology, while it may bring the wonders Gilder predicts, will almost certainly make our culture more vulgar and violent.
The leader of the revolution in pornographic video, referred to admiringly by a competitor as the Ted Turner of the business, offers the usual defenses of decadence: “Adults have a right to see [pornography] if they want to. If it offends you, don’t buy it.” Modern liberalism employs the rhetoric of “rights” incessantly to delegitimize restraints on individuals by communities. It is a pernicious rhetoric because it asserts a right without giving reasons. If there is to be anything that can be called a community, the case for previously unrecognized individual freedoms must be thought through, and “rights” cannot win every time.
The second notion-”If it offends you, don’t buy it”-is both lulling and destructive. Whether you buy it or not, you will be greatly affected by those who do. The aesthetic and moral environment in which you and your family live will be coarsened and brutalized. There are economists who confuse the idea that markets should be free with the idea that everything should be on the market. The first idea rests on the efficiency of the free market in satisfying wants; the second raises the question of which wants it is moral to satisfy. The latter question brings up the topic of externalities: you are free not to make steel, but you will be affected by the air pollution of those who do make it. To complaints about pornography and violence on television, libertarians reply, “All you have to do is hit the remote control and change channels.” But, like the person who chooses not to make steel, you and your family will be affected by the people who do not change the channel. As Michael Medved puts it, “To say that if you don’t like the popular culture then turn it off, is like saying, if you don’t like the smog, stop breathing. . . . There are Amish kids in Pennsylvania who know about Madonna.” And their parents can do nothing about that.
Can there be any doubt that as pornography and violence become increasingly popular and accessible entertainment, attitudes about marriage, fidelity, divorce, obligations to children, the use of force, and permissible public behavior and language will change, and with the change of attitudes will come changes in conduct, both public and private? The contrary view must assume that people are unaffected by what they see and hear. Advertisers bet billions the other way. Advocates of liberal arts education assure us those studies improve character; it is not very likely that only uplifting culture affects attitudes and behavior. “Don’t buy it” and “Change the channel” are simply advice to accept a degenerating culture and its consequences.
Robert Bork 1995
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