[forktail]

And I guess this means you didn't read the section of the web site that I referened on prosecuting pornography, which defines the distinction between legal and illegal pornography, did you?

No I did, I just don't agree with it. I even watched a lot of the show. I thought the beating thing was an odd thing to do to your "friend" but she seemed no worse for the wear on the next segment. But I do agree with you that there is definitely a small (hopefully very small) group of people interested in that stuff. But there are people who buy it or it wouldn't get made. Look I don't like Country Music but I don't think it should be illegal.

And I don't think I am Libertarian, but I see where they are coming from most of the time.

[Question_Assumptions]

Well, you keep claiming it isn't illegal but I'm pointing out that some of it actually is. You may not think it should be but it is, which is a different thing entirely. The porn industry creates a well cultivated myth that its actors are well adjusted adults who had happy childhoods. Again and again, it is shown that this just ain't so in many cases. Just as we don't allow people to willingly sell themselves into slavery, there is a point where letting people torture and humiliate each other just isn't good for society and it allows all too many disturbed and misguided individuals to be abused by sadists for fun and profit. I'm sorry but I think that pushes the spirit of "consent".

Ultimately, I'm not a libertarian becuase I realize that liberty isn't an end but a means to an end. Ultimately, the purpose of liberty is to provide a pleasant life and to free people from tyranny, it isn't to allow the the dregs of society to make life a living Hell for nice people, to abuse the misguided and ignorant, and to drag society down to an unsustaintably hostile level of social interaction. At that point, liberty actually becomes the tool that makes life unpleasant by creating a tyranny of the crass, since no man is an island. If that's what you are using liberty for, I have no use for it, just as I have no use for peace if it only serves to keep sadists like Saddam in power. Society should have no use for sadists no matter what skirts (freedom, peace, etc) they hide behind whether the sadist is a dictator who rapes and tortures his enemies or a pornographer that beats young women to a pulp.