To: Viva Le Dissention
Very true: no law means no law. Lost on lots of folks. As is the first word in that sentence: Congress. If a state government or local municipality wishes to make such a law, they can do so.
A common mistake made by the people who follow the "free speech is absolute" myth.
Let *anything* be distributed to the public; we will be the judge.
Uh, no. We cannot allow certain things to be made available to the public, whether it be for reasons of legality (like child porn), or obscenity (bestality, necrophilia, coprophilia, etc.), or stuff that just should not be accessible to children (any softcore or hardcore adult film, e.g.).
That is the way it is, that is the way it should be, and that is the way I prefer it.
22 posted on
07/16/2002 3:37:29 PM PDT by
Houmatt
To: Houmatt
excellent points
To: Houmatt
As is the first word in that sentence: Congress. If a state government or local municipality wishes to make such a law, they can do so. Sure. As long as you're willing to overlook that whole 14'th Amendment thing, and a hundred and fifty years worth of jurisprudence. But that doesn't count, right?
To: Houmatt
Although it *does* say Congress in the 1st Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled that free speech protection extends to the states, so a state or local municipality CANNOT make laws that abridge freedom of speech. Please refer to the dissent in Gitlow v. NY and teh concurrence in Whitney v. CA, and then later the Court's decision in Fiske v. Kansas and finally the decision in Stromberg v. CA
Certain rights are "fundamental to a well-ordered liberty" and cannot be intruded upon by any government. This includes the entire First Amendment, the entire 5th, I believe, parts of the 6th, etc.
As far as we go, free speech is not quite absolute--we have time, place, and manner restrictions--but that's all.
As far as your last "point," you are substituting your moral judgment for the opinions of society. How can we know whether such things like bestality or coprophilia (not illegal) are bad unless we can view them and judge for ourselves? We make our own decisions, and we are responsible for ourselves--not the government telling us, "Oh, we've decided this is just too bad for your eyes. Stay away."
By the way obscenity has a strict legal definition that I doubt bestality or coprophilia would fall under.
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