[Sabertooth]

Remember pal, as a result of the First Amendment, I'm free to go to my local pub after work today and publically state to anyone who wants to listen that I wish T. Daschel would choke to death on his own words, without fear of the FBI hauling me off to jail.

Hey pal, it's only because of some lawyers' deviation from common sense that your prerogative to exchange virtual child porn is said to be protected by the First Amendment, when you and I both know that George Mason and the rest of the Framers would have ridiculed the notion.

Further, your Daschle analogy falls on two counts:

First "choke to death on his own words" is clearly figurative, as no one has ever expired thus. More importantly, Daschle is not the President of the United States, and is not under the protection of the Secret Service and special legislation regarding the Exectutive Branch.

[Labyrinthos]

I think you know exactly what I'm saying, but are just looking for an argument. I suspect that Mason and the other Framers would have scratched their heads over virtual child porn because it simply did not exist at the time the First Amendment was enacted. I also suspect that if they could appreciate the concept of virtual child porn, they would have correctly found that it is not protected speech under the First Amendment. But they may have also frowned upon the virtual child porn law that SCOTUS properly struck down last term, not because the First Amendment protects virtual child porn, but because the statute was so overbroad that it would have resulted in the uncontitutional suppression of protected speech.