If you're turned off by stuff like that, do as I do... DON'T WATCH IT. I find such trash disgusting. So i don't go around it or watch it. But then, I am an adult and I can make such decisions. Other adults can make different choices. Parents need to make choices for their dependent children, and NOT have FedGov do THEIR job.
Slight problem with that logic -- the stuff is forcing itself into our faces, into our homes, into our lives, at an increasingly pervasive rate.
To take your position, one must for consistency's sake also assert that burglary and home invasion be decriminalized, under "freedom of travel" auspices. Anyone who doesn't want to have his home invaded, his belongings stolen, his family attacked, need merely buy better locks, hire an alarm company, and set armed guards to protect his abode 24/7.
That, of course, is absurd, as is the "free speech" defense of objectionable garbage that prospers by shoving itself into the faces of all, in the knowledge that some will take the bait.
This is "settled law", if you will:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. The ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality. We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."Chief Justice Burger, U.S. Supreme Court
ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT.,
397 U.S. 728 May 4, 1970.
But none of this -- "this" being the present search engine fishing expedition -- has anything to do with pornography, or even, "the children."
It's a blatant grab for profiling data on virtually every Internetting American. Probably 90% of the "connected" population has queried Google several times during the target period -- enough times to establish enough of a "profile" to provide a handy dandy "NSA Profile" for each of us.
And don't fall into the delusion of thinking that "they don't get the IP data so there's no breach of privacy."
The only reason they "don't get the IP data" now is because they haven't demanded it. Yet.
Far easier to get this first bolus down the sheep's throat without that bit o' stuff on it. And equally easy to get it through later on, once the "good first step" has been taken.
Where does it end? Read your Orwell.
Warning: Spoiler information follows.
Expect that once this awkward moment has passed, and the "propriety" of coercing search engines to hand over the goods has been "established" to the satisfaction of the courts, it will be ratcheted up. First, it'll be "every so often", then, "to make it more convenenient" for the providers, it will be "regularly delivered" -- with full IP, cookie, etc, data included.
Finally, it will simply be echoed to the government in real time, as it happens. Bandwidth is cheaper than storage, and much more quickly delivered. And besides, "if it only saves one life" (no matter how many it destroys in the process...)
I never thought I'd live to see this horror in my lifetime.
I guess if nothing else we can thank the pornographers for providing such a convenient pretext for the ultimate statist utopia.
In any case, let's not give up hope yet ;)
In the final analysis, you are correct that the man or woman who wants whatever security can be found in this world MUST provide it personally or by proxy (from a PRIVATE vendor), as government at any level cannot and will not. This also holds true in the arena of the War on Terror(ists). We have been saddled with a bureaucracy that can't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed in English, Spanish and Braille on the heel. Yet we are told to trust FedGov to do the job for us and we should just roll over and go to sleep. Same thing here... FedGov is telling parents that they can ignore what their children do, either online or in the real world, 'cause Big Bro is gonna do the job. The same Big Bro whose Amtrak and Postal Service and airport security and drug war are such rousing "successes"... The only "success" I can see is a burgeoning bureaucracy and more meddling in and control over honest folks' lives. (Doesn't mean that CRIME, such as home invasion or whatever needs to be decriminalized. The official record keepers -the cops- need something to do and hauling off any surviving home invaders or the corpses of the failed criminals would be right up their alley.)
WRT the second part of your post, I could not agree more with you.