Posted on 04/05/2004 9:23:56 PM PDT by Quick1
WASHINGTON -- Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5, surrounded by a half-dozen other "computer forensic specialists" like him, has become the focal point of the Justice Department's operation to rid the world of porn.
In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in rooms of major hotel chains.
Department officials say they will send "ripples" through an industry that has proliferated on the Internet and grown into an estimated $10 billion-a-year colossus profiting Fortune 500 corporations such as Comcast, which offers hard-core movies on a pay-per-view channel.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I understand the conundrum. It seems as though your cable provider needed a little more competition to encourage a broader range of choices as to the channel packages. Can a pay network mix adult only porn with regular fare without notifying their customers? Or should such explicit programming be confined to adults only channels?
Well, I think they certainly can, but if they do it seems to me that they run the risk of alienating customers. Of course, most cable providers have a virtual lock on their markets. To that extent one might be able to make a better case for regulation, but I would argue that what we need is more competition. In my mind it still comes down to personal choices.
You'll have to ask the Supreme Court that one. I see no reason why prostitution is illegal in light of last year's sodomy ruling. I've been arguing that very point.
Just as government does not yet control the life of every man. If this government power expansion keeps progressing, we'll all be animals living on Uncle Sam's (or the UN's) farm. I'd rather remain a man.
If they're violating someones' rights, sure. If not, the community members should settle them privately, via deed restrictions, boycotts, etc.
At what level of government? The state? The city?
Why can't a state like Utah ban whatever they want?
Me neither. That's why I set my mail filter to exclude the porn spam, and my browser to refuse pop-ups.
I have no problem restricting the dissemination of porn to people who haven't asked for it. I do have a problem with restricting the dissemination of porn to people who've freely consented to receive it. And as for 'community standards', these make no sense in the internet age.
A parent who "tolerates" the excesses offered by some of the corporations gives them a green light to air such programming to children. This is what the dominant liberal media does.
If corporations were pressured (by individuals, not government) to do the "right" thing, they would separate out the "good" from the "bad" (and let their potential audience know where they could find such materials). But the homosexual agenda is being fought the same way the opposition to conservative ideals is being fought, through a media propaganda campaign.
A channel like MTV can be offensive and explicit and programs to an underage audience yet it is offered in most cable packages. Even if you don't watch it and block it out, your cable subscription fee still goes in part to Viacom-MTV.
Some people are asking for customers to be allowed to "opt in" to channels (especially in a digital environment like satellite) rather than "opt out". In the absence of any broadcast standards from the corporations, it seems like a reasonable request.
The only reason to REQUIRE a customer to buy garbage that he will never watch is to inflate the bill and create an illusion of market exposure. I don't think that any customer should be required to buy porn (especially when different porn producers do it well or lousy).
I do not have to do this with my physical mailbox. The responsiblity to send porn to only those who want it resides with the corporation, not the public. This is why they must be prosecuted.
Certain things are constitutionally protected. Porn is, but obscenity isn't. The problem is that SCOTUS came up with the concept of community standards before the internet existed. If a website in San Francisco depicting gay porn is viewed by people in Alabama, what community standards should be used to judge whether the pornography in question is actually obscene? The prosecutor would want Alabama standards to apply, the defendant would want Bay Area standards.
That we can boycott it, but not stop people from the all surrounding areas to patronize it?
I don't see strip club zoning as any different than zoning that bans, say, a slaughter-house from residential areas. A community has the power to limit what types of businesses operate within the boundaries of that community.
I just don't understand why the residents of a state have to put up with strip clubs if they have enough votes to ban them.
I'd like to have some channels but can't justify the cost. I can buy several DVDs for what a month of cable or satellite costs and these programs don't even get aired.
It would be nice to have cable for some breaking news items but I've seen just how lousy "The Weather Channel" is at actually having current reports (they lag by hours even during emergencies). I'm also aware of how bad "news" channels are; FR gives me enough of a "breaking news" report.
MM:I don't see strip club zoning as any different than zoning that bans, say, a slaughter-house from residential areas. A community has the power to limit what types of businesses operate within the boundaries of that community.
On a practical level, "communities" can and do prohibit such businesses, and such prohibitions have been held to be legal.
We'll get far afield from the injustice department wasting resources on pornography if we go into land use issues. Suffice it to say I believe zoning is a bad thing. Fortunately Houston has none - land use is largely regulated by deed restrictions, which range from virtually no restrictions to very strict ones.
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