Posted on 11/19/2004 3:07:51 PM PST by Lindykim
The itdea of sluts screwing (and worse) in front of a camera for money and then idiots viewing it later in order to masturbate is not demeaning human sexuality?
It would be interesting to see some polls.
Millions of people thought slavery didn't demean people.
There are millions who think "gay" marriage doesn't demean people or human sexuality. But more think it does, at least in the states wherein people have voted on it.
You live in a strange world.
"As I've said, my definition of freedom means being free to do whatever you want, so long as you do not harm the person or property of another."
MM thinks that porn is good and doesn't hurt anyone. StS and I consider that it does hurt people, and therefore society.
These two world views are irreconcilable. The problem is that only one can prevail. Porn has always existed and always will. Even when it was illegal and very difficult to obtain, users would always be able to get it. The difference was that young people especially, and men in general, would not have it dangling in front of them. Therefore, it did society little harm since it harmed very few people. But now, being practically omnipresent (way more than half of the internet is porn, I've read), it is very difficult for impressionable young people or people with a weakness for it to avoid.
But since MM thinks porn is good, and not harmful, this doesn't bother him. Even though if porn was hard to get, determined wankers could still get it. He wants everyone in the cesspool along with him.
So, the government should "help" them, right? After all, "it takes a village"...
The government has a duty to protect citizens from external enemies and internal enemies. Libertianism is a utopian philisophy that will never work in the real world.
Better minds than yours have figured it out. How about Edmund Burke, the philosopher who greatly influenced many of the founders of our country:
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites--in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;--in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;--in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
-- Edmund Burke
And Thomas Jefferson, known for his wide ranging intellectual searchings, and not known for slavishly adhering to a particular doctrine:
"Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests
of society require the observation of those moral precepts ... in
which all religions agree." --Thomas Jefferson
But all who want pornography, and they want it now, will continue to not listen. Such is life. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see and keep their eyelids tightly shut no matter what.
Eating up its resources to "protect" people from something that IS NOT forced upon them, and which citizens partake of, or not, in the privacy of their own lives is patently ridiculous.
Why do you want so badly for the government to control the private lives of others?
Why do you ignore the wisdom of your betters? (I'm referring to the gentlemen I quoted above.)
Impressionable minds of young people - say up to 18 - need protection from rampant pornography. Porn should be hard to obtain, not hard to avoid.
Number two, it is my right to disagree with them on those points.
Number three, you haven't answered my question.
As to people under 18, the law already has provisions regarding their exposure to pornography. After that, it is up to their parents, not the government, to regulate what they see.
It is hard to avoid Leftist propaganda, too. Should we thus ban or "control" it, because we do not like it or disagree with it?
You are under NO coercion to use pornography if you choose not to, and you are perfectly able to protect your children from it. What you want is to control OTHER people. Don't be surprised if those others disagree with letting you. They have reason to believe that you won't stop there.
Now you're just being ignorant. Newsflash, but thanks to nanny government, there are oodles of people living off of me. I'm not living off the credit of anyone, even in your pseudo-metaphorical sense.
I don't mind debating, but please LJ, don't pretend like you know me, or how I live. You might be surprised to know that I'm happily married, gave up my career so my children would never see the inside of a daycare, and I even kept my near invalid mother at home during the latter years of her life and took care of her myself.
Now, I don't expect a medal, or even a cookie for the sacrifices. I did what was best for my family. I'm only bringing it up, because it stands in stark contrast to the slanderous image of juvenile adult who lives for instant gratifcation you're intent on painting.
The "consent" argument you espouse as a 'fundamental' determiner was Created by today's version of yesterdays gnostics. Gnostics claimed to be able to garner information knowable only to themselves from their readings of the Bible. Today's version, known as 'secularist' USSC justices, claim to be able to 'see' mystical penumbras, auras, and emanations whenever they read our Constitution and Rule of Law.
And it was fromone of these 'magical' penumbras {or perhaps it was an aura?} that they claimed to "see" a hitherto completely unknown 'rights' based upon 'consent'.
Your 'consent' argument was based upon hocus-pocus. It's only purpose? To allow certain people 'license' to do things that they know they should not be doing.......and to not have to feel any guilt over doing them.
Fundamentally, a porn-user's pro-porn defense arguments are rationalizations created in an effort to escape feeling guilt for doing that which he knows is wrong.
Number one, while those gentlemen were unquestionably wise and learned, you'll forgive me for not considering them my "betters".
'Nuff said.
Children have access to porn on the internet without any difficulty. And when porn is easily available as it is now, kids see it without any problem. And the easy availablitiy of porn lowers the bar for sexual content in entertainment not considered porn, so kids are becoming more and more sexualized.
You comment that it's parents' duty to protect children and not the government is a statement borne of ignorance and arrogance. Children aren't citizens that warrant protection?
Some speech is not worthy of protection - slander, libel, false advertising, incitement of crime or terrorism, treason, and probably some others. Traditionally, and with good reason, pornography was on this list - UNTIL the ACLU, leftist activist judges, and porn producers, changed the federal law so that local communities including states now have no local control.
That IS leftist.
I am speaking about living off the credit of previous generations who adhered to moral absolutes in the sense of enjoying a more or less regulated society. I think you know that.
Your personal life is your personal business. I am not accusing you of immorality, that is your affair. But by promoting immorality in the name of freedom you are sharing the responsibility for those that practice it. This is a law of nature that is inescapable, whether a person "believes" in 'as you sow, so shall you reap', the law of 'karma', or not.
Laws of nature don't depend on our belief. There are laws of nature that our eyes can't see and our ears can't hear. They exist nonetheless.
The fact that you get so angry and vituperous is evidence that there is a voice in your heart you are trying to drown out. Even if you shut me and everyone who thinks like me up, that voice will still be there, and you'll still have to get angry.
And the banners' arguments amount to rationalizations to escape the reality that they wish to control others.
If parents cannot be bothered to care for their children, it is not a justification to run the lives of others.
You seem quite willing to call other men your "betters". Why is that?
"Some speech is not worthy of protection..."
I guess we should all accept YOUR definition of what is "worthy" speech, eh?
To quote our president- I'm still trying to decipher that.
Or figure out how it is relevant to the discussion at hand.
Fundamentally, a porn-user's pro-porn defense arguments are rationalizations created in an effort to escape feeling guilt for doing that which he knows is wrong.
(Shrugs) You assume I hold any guilt for engaging in consensual activities involving other adults. Trust me, I don't.
When some people show that they possess wrongful attitudes which endorse moral wrongs like using other people as slaves, using other people as though they were sex toys, etc., then yes, those people with the bad attitudes must be prevented by society from acting upon their wrongful desires.
How very, very true. Only a society with a culture with strong internal moral restraints can be free.
Look at Islam and its unfitness for democracy. Men who demand that women carpet themselves from head to foot with cloth and be isolated from social contact with other men are men who think about rape all the time. Men with no internal restraints, men who apparently cannot control themselves at the sight of female flesh, need despotic restraints to maintain order among them.
That is the fundamental foolishness of libertarianism. Only a society with a strong culture can have weak government. Only a society in which ostracism and disgrace are potent sanctions, only a society where "what the neighbors will say" matters, only a society that in fact would never, ever, regard the use or presence of pornography as acceptable can be libertarian. Government expands when cultural norms no longer hold and laws have to fill the receeding space of honor, morality, and fear of disgrace. The more monocultural a society is, the weaker the government it can have because the coercion of law is replaced by the coercion of ostracism to control negative behavior.
Sheesh. So now we're to legislate against BAD ATTITUDES, fer the luvva Mike?!?
Why not just get it over with and give everyone a lobotomy at birth?
"prevented by society from acting upon their wrongful desires..."
And what will you do when the State Comitteee For Wrongful Desires decides that something YOU like is "wrongful", for the good of society, of course?
Once again, if those "wrongful" desires harm NO OTHER UNCONSENTING PERSON, then the government should just butt out. You are advocating thought crimes, here.
Do you not see the inherent madness and tyranny of what you posted?
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