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 ...
Spam and unsolicited (i.e. you aren't currently visiting the hosting website) popups, whether pornographic or not, are violations of property rights and should be prosecuted on that basis. Spamming in particular should carry severe penalties as it violates the property rights of large numbers of victims.
That is, however, a topic for another thread.
Simple -- requiring a private activity that generates minor external nuisances to move out of range of the nuisance generation is reasonable accomodation, but requiring it to move out of state (which could easily be hours of travel time) is prohibitive.
You're close, but no cigar. The Blue Laws affected all kinds of activities, not just "sinful" ones. For example, businesses were closed on Sunday.
By the way, "the Supreme Court has upheld them, starting with McGowan v. Maryland (1961), ruling that though the laws originated for religious reasons, the state has a right to set aside a day of rest for the well-being of its citizens."
-- college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_011100_bluelaws.htm made
The 1st amendment gives a person a right to speak -- it doesn't give them the right to be heard.
Bad or not, the damage of effective prosecution far outweighs any damage of the porn itself.
Or we are thinking that government resources could be better spent on unimportant things like securing our borders rather than important things like paying people to surf the web or watch adult videos.
Can people on this thread please stop attributing things to me which I never said, and arguments which I never made ? As a matter of fact, I DO believe I said that outlawing porn would be "futile and expensive".
But that doesn't make porn any less evil and damaging.
Ad absurdum isn't a fallacy AFAIK, but you may be talking about slippery slope. In that case, I'm not talking about the theoretical possibility of your enforcement of religious law possibly leading to the enforcement of others -- all of these laws already happened and have been peeled away as our society advanced (or declined, according to you). You are wishing for a reversal of the path towards freedom, reverting back to governance of religious law -- which would include these others.
In any case, your whole premise is the logical fallacies of prejudicial language, popularity and begging the question, plus likely complex cause, post hoc, fallacy of exclusion, and unrepresentative sample.
Blue laws, lots of them.
The Blue Laws affected all kinds of activities, not just "sinful" ones. For example, businesses were closed on Sunday.
Blue laws were a collection of laws done for religious reasons. Businesses were closed on Sunday because working on the Sabbath is a sin. The "well-being" was a BS justification to continue pushing religious law against sin onto the general populace, and I can't believe SCOTUS bought it.
Because the laws were passed at the insistence of people who considered the conduct of business on the Sabbath to be...
------ | 0 | | | T A | | | --- S _ N _ _ L "Hmmm... how about 'I'...?"
Yet you still believe in prosecuting it, or am I wrong? BTW, you haven't proven the "evil and damaging" part yet. It is interesting you use the word "evil," which leads me to think you're against it primarily on religious grounds.
I can't believe that someone would post the argument "The Supreme Court said so" as an argument from competent authority in this forum. It's about one step above "Bill Clinton said so" in credibility.
Which are part of the same set of religious laws.
I never said that.
Okay, let's set things straight: do you or do you not support Ashcroft's prosecution of (non-kiddie) porn?
The First Amendment guarantees (not "gives" -- that's the leftist perspective on life) the right to speak without being muzzled by arbitrary (i.e. not justified by the protection of other rights) act of government.
Forcing a business to move beyond the range at which a legitimate nuisance argument can be made is a clear-cut example of arbitrary government action.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.