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To: Sola Veritas
I don't think "entertainment" should enjoy 1rst Ammendment protection. That isn't what the intent was.

It could be possible that there are a large number of citizens of this US who don't really give a tinker's dam what you think. Or even if you do. So what you think really doesn't have much of an impact- or shouldn't have- on other free citizen's lives.

The Framers of the constitution were interested in protecting political speech not purile entertainment.

And of course you can show this exactly where in all of their writings or the Constitution itself??

However, they wouldn't be for protecting "Debbie Does Dallas." It is not political speech, it is entertainment.

So they weren't trying to protect religious speech either, just political. If religious and political speech are OK, then not entertaining speech? Maybe they weren't protecting making a joke as "free speech". It seems that speech is speech- political, religious, entertainment or whatever and our rights to it are not given to us by the government, but by our Creator.

One of the major reasons that they enshrined individual rights in the Constitution and particularly the First Amendment was that they understood full well that people have different views and no person's views should be forced upon another- particularly and specifically by the government.

"What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1817

Since there are many here who don't seem to agree with your "interpretation" about "Debbie Does Dallas" and "enterainment speech", then I would suspect that legislating for or against it would be "wrong".

I can't seem to find anywhere in the Constitution or the writings of the Founders anything that would separate "speech" into different categories- some to be protected and others not. In fact, the First Amendment is the first of 10 amendments notably called "The Bill of Rights", that spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech..." Nowhere is there any limitation on exactly what constituted "freedom of speech".

In fact, nowhere in the Constitution does it indicate that the unalienable rights, endowed by our Creator, could be limited only to "political" things but not "entertainment" things. I suspect that you will not find anywhere in the writings of our Founders any limitations or distinctions such that you espouse. In fact, quite the opposite:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800

Enshrining YOUR particular thinking into law would be "tyranny" over the minds of others that don't share your views.

The Founders knew far too well the kinds of tyrannies that had been wrought by government sanction against certain types of thought and ideas. Therefore, they were trying to create a place that would be free from exactly those tyrannies. They knew, from personal experience, that as soon as the government could control what kinds of things could be spoken of, the next thing was being persecuted and jailed because they spoke of those things. And then thinking of those things. And then the "thought police."

The power of proscribing speaking about one's hobbies or pastimes or entertainments would certainly turn to proscription of speech about one's politics or religion.

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
-- Daniel Webster

I'm sorry, but your good intentions for the assumption of power over my entertainment doesn't give me any good feelings. Quite the opposite. And I certainly don't need you to be my master.

123 posted on 11/19/2004 7:47:39 PM PST by hadit2here ("Danger lies not in what we don't know, but in what we think we know that just ain't so." Mark Twain)
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To: hadit2here
The power of proscribing speaking about one's hobbies or pastimes or entertainments would certainly turn to proscription of speech about one's politics or religion.

If the standard is that only speech that is explicitly political or explicitly religious are the only forms covered by the First Amendment, it won't take long before a federal bureaucracy gets to decide wheather or not you get to own a copy of the Shooter's Bible, IMHO.

125 posted on 11/19/2004 8:01:40 PM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: hadit2here

"I'm sorry, but your good intentions for the assumption of power over my entertainment doesn't give me any good feelings. Quite the opposite. And I certainly don't need you to be my master."

You are reading entirely too much in what I am saying and you use way too much hyperbole. I am a strict constructionist on the interpretation of the constitution. Until the 20th century no court "saw" a right to have pornography as a first ammendment issue. It was activist courts that made it difficult to regulate pornography. Those were bad decisions and poor interpretations of the constitution.

Now if the people don't want pornography to be illegal, that is their choice and consistent with a free society. However, if the majority want it illegal that is also consistent with a free society and should not be blocked by dubious extrapolations of the first ammendment. The constition neither prohibits nor allows pornography - regardless of what some foolish activist judges have ruled.

What has been side stepped here by many is just how insidious a danger this stuff poses. However, that is hard to explain to those lacking a belief in absolutes.


151 posted on 11/20/2004 3:58:59 PM PST by Sola Veritas (Trying to speak truth - not always with the best grammar or spelling)
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