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 said it was very rare, and only picked up a bit in the last several years, but still far below the US rate. They're starting to copy us a lot -- even had a school shooting a while back.
I imagine it would to a criminal sympathizer.
Boy, you're really stretching here... If you buy a magazine that doesn't warn you in advance about "adult material," then you return it and demand a refund, or in the worst case, THROW IT AWAY! The last time I checked, People Magazine doesn't have a paramilitary wing that will force you to keep their magazine.And neither does HBO! If you don't want what they have on the air, END YOUR SUBSCRIPTION! You don't have to keep their subscription.
Why would/should the magazine publisher owe your a refund if the broadcaster would not?
This is what we get when corporations abuse the power to regulate their own content. I prefer for self-regulation but at this time in America they are showing themselves to be irresponsible with the power. If they violate any obscenity laws, prosecute them for it.
Put the full frontal and actual masterbatory penetration programs onto an ADULTS ONLY channel. Not basic HBO.
Nice try, but no go. A person is either above the age of consent or majority in a country or below it (I'm not going to argue Scandinavian law). When a child is below the age of being able to consent to participating in a porn production there is a clear victim. As you said, they can't consent so it is either rape (if below the age of sexual consent), child pornography (if below the age of majority) or both.
Where drug use, prostitution or porn involves only adults, a person who believes in liberty would say it is not the governments business to ban it, and that fighting a criminally-oriented government war against such activities is both immoral and futile.
Better get rid of religion (your cited "cause" for the increase in child rape) and guns then. You sound like a liberal and "not even" a libertarian.
Suppost to ping me if you are responding to something I am included in. Blind siding is sorta low IMHO.
Let me get this straight then, you approve of laws that outlaw porn that documents "legal, consensual activity"?
I don't see how adults and minors can legally consent to have sex together when you arbitrarily state that a person must be 18 to "appear" in porn. That is a moral decision.
And for the record in this lengthy thread, you DID defend underage porn produced in Scandavian countries as being a result of their lower age of consent laws.
You now also bring in drug laws. Regulation of use (sale of alcohol on Sunday only after 12pm, sold at stores only until midnight, sold in bars only until 2am, used only by persons over 21...) still carrys a slew of laws.
If you want to legalize drugs better be willing to legalize all substances for use by everyone regardless of age.
After all, the "war on drugs" targets underage users too and we know that child and teen drugging, smoking, tripping, and drinking will never be eliminated.
It is indeed a strange thing, especially when you take into account the 15 year old busted for disseminating child porn on the net -- they were her own pictures of herself.
But the government establishes ages of consent for things. 16 may be able to legally consent to have sex with an older person, but not legally able to consent to appearing in a sexually explicit production. They could probably get around it by parents granting permission, but then we could nail the parents. We have to set the ages somewhere.
If you want to legalize drugs better be willing to legalize all substances for use by everyone regardless of age.
It's all about age of majority, which is when a person supposedly obtains full rights as a citizen. I think age of majority should be where the drinking age and all other cutoffs for consensual acts are set. Either you're a full citizen with all the freedoms, or you aren't, period.
After all, the "war on drugs" targets underage users too and we know that child and teen drugging, smoking, tripping, and drinking will never be eliminated.
Easier, and more constitutional, to go after that use than all use by citizens past the age of majority.
Zero-tolerance laws are generally idiotic because we as humans are so chaotic. Offenses have to be judged individually, especially when we are talking about something as personal as relationships. A strict exemption for 16/19 sex wouldn't necessarily be good either, as we could be talking about a naive 16 and an advanced predatory 19. With minor on minor, there's no adult in the equation to have taken advantage of the minor.
That's why we have prosecutors, grand juries, judges and juries who at any point can say that no one deserves to go to jail.
Thanks for the laugh. I used to believe in this, but it's pretty clear those in federal government skipped over those minor details at some point, and never looked back.
It is interesting how some would almost like to turn the nation into something resembling Taliban-run Afghanistan. Ban and enforce bans on porn, gambling, adultery, alcohol, skimpy clothing, free speech in general, etc. I don't care for any of those things, but I could never dream of living in such a restricted place. I'll take those hedonistic aspects of our society in return for freedom.
I'd rather endure the annoying pinpricks of any effects of personal drug use than see the effects of the nailgun that's been repeatedly fired into the Constitution in order to prosecute that war.
you want to make it more easily available to vulnerable Americans
Wait, I've heard that sentiment before. I know, it's the liberals who say we're all unknowing victims who can't make up our own minds about anything, and therefore need the government to run our lives for us.
Look in your mirror, as you've spun it so far to the right that it's now leaning heavily to the left.
I do have some libertarian (definitely lowercase "l") leanings, but those result in believing the Constitution is supreme law of the land. I know, it's a strange way to think these days, sometimes even strange on a conservative board.
Of course. I was just joking, although a triple-play is pretty rare. :)
Thanks for the laugh. I used to believe in this, but it's pretty clear those in federal government skipped over those minor details at some point, and never looked back.
I know... It used to be that the government would just ignore the parts of the constitution that they didn't agree with, and (it seems that) everyone would just ignore the fact of the blatent violations with a wink and a smile... But now, they've gotten into the habbit of saying, "well, even though it says, 'Congress shall make no law,' the Constitution doesn't really mean 'NO LAW,' since the founders weren't as intelligent and important as us... We certainly know better."
Mark
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