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To: Lorianne
No, I’m sure there has always been porn. But standards change. Probably what was considered “obscene” in their day is thought nothing of today.

I'm still only going to deal with the first bit for now becuase you're dodging.

At the time we constructed our Constitution there must have been laws against obscenity in every state and probably local stautes to boot. The Framers did NOTHING to eliminate or even limit those laws, and I'm not aware of any court ruling in the Framer era that overturned an obscenity law on free speech grounds. So, it would appear that the Framers considered these things which are "thought nothing of today" to be outside the bounds of protected speech. So, how can you claim that the First Amendment covers porn when the people who wrote it and ratified it did nothing to include it under First Amendment protection?

141 posted on 06/22/2007 11:24:16 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback (A pacifist sees no distinction between the arsonist and the fireman--Freeper ccmay)
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To: Mr. Silverback

The Framers did NOTHING to eliminate slavery either ... nor laws which dealt with what to do with slaves, slave ownership, punishments for runaway slave, etc.

At the time the Constituition was drawn up and ratified, African slaves were not deemed to have rights ... and there were myriad laws on the books which dealt with slave ownership. The Framers did nothing to eliminate these laws and slavery isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.

There were many laws on the books in the various states that were NOT challenged under the new Constitution.

By your logic, all laws the Framers “did NOTHING to eliminate or even limit” (your words) could still be laws today within the Constitution.


142 posted on 06/22/2007 11:51:40 PM PDT by Lorianne
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