Posted on 04/16/2002 7:32:20 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:40:08 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court struck down a congressional ban on virtual child pornography Tuesday, ruling that the First Amendment protects pornography or other sexual images that only appear to depict real children engaged in sex.
The 6-3 ruling is a victory for both pornographers and legitimate artists such as moviemakers, who argued that a broad ban on simulated child sex could make it a crime to depict a sex scene like those in the recent movies "Traffic" or "Lolita."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
There is a legal word for a film depicting an actual murder--it is called "evidence". In a broad sense, there are lots of snuff films. Taken by nazi camera crews at Auschwitz, for example. But by a commercial vendor? Dream on.
A child's natural right to protection and nurture is greater than the natural rights of freedom, expression and self determination possessed by adults.
The natural right of a child to be free of sexual exploitiation is greater than any adults (individually or culturally) right to view them as sexually exploitable in any medium.
Absolutely.
You fellows are no better than Tom Daschle, you both want to make the rules on how my neck of the woods runs its life, you just have different rules here and there.
NO.
Advocacy groups from all spectrums of political thought have always, and will continue to, advocate for their brand of Orwellian thought and behavior control all the time. (hate speech and prohibition comes to mind) They do so with no regard to the consequences to the balance between indivdiual rights and governmental control past their sole issue. There is an ebb and flow to the balance, based on the spines of our Congresscritters and the collective political bent of the Supremes at the time.
We are damn close to Orwell's vision right now; why hasten such a hell by criminalizing some perv looking at a virtual image? What would be the difference between that perv sanding the ol' mainmast to a virtual image or to the image in his mind? NOT ONE DAMN DIFFERENCE. Would we criminalize and prosecute the perv based on his admission to a third party that he was tenderizing his meat last night to his visualization of that little irritant in Home Alone??? There's no difference between a virtual image on a computer and in one's mind - the image ain't real.
Allow this law now and when the technology is available in the near future you can bet some moron will advocate implanting some sort of monitoring device that would transmit a convicted sex offender's thought images to a digital repository for review and prosecution of unapproved visual images.
I don't want to live in such a society...and you shouldn't either.
Right on dude! The pedophiles liberty should stop well short of children.
Explain to me how a virtual image on a computer screen is any different from the image in one's mind.
You can't, because the only difference is the medium; computer or brain - and the image in the computer came from someone's brain. (albiet a perverted one)
That's called thought. No actual child is harmed and therefore the act, viewing the image on the screen or in one's mind, cannot be criminalized.
Oh, really....can a computer ACT on an image? Also, I have a little more confidence in our system that people aren't going to try (or be allowed) to implant chips to monitor thoughts....it's the resulting acts we're talking about. Imagination is where a lot of motivation (and success) begins......we cannot ignore that. I think we have just LOST our ability to be humans, and now entered the animal world.
You live in Maryland for Cripes Sake.
Hate laws are already here, the press is more equal than the rest of us pigs and a TV ad within 60 days of an election gets you 5 years in jail.
Those are issues that neither of us should want in our society. Norming child pornography is not my idea of freedom but worse yet to me is all the folks here who applaud the USSC forbidding my town from outlawing child porn, virtual or otherwise.
Right on dude! The pedophiles liberty should stop well short of children.
Absolutely!
What you all keep ignoring is that creating a virtual image of a child engaged in sex does not involve a real child, therefore a law criminalizing creating a virtual image of a child engaged in sex criminalizes thought where no actual child is exploited or assaulted.
LOL, right on Dudette, from an unabashedly, unashamedly, conservative Grandpa.
The molesting part happens all the time here, I am told. It just isn't publicized. There have been at least two cases of murder (that I've read about, I don't watch TV or read local newspapers very often) where a mother has killed a neighbor's child because the neighbor's child got into an elite school and her child did not.
I'm not ignoring it at all. It is simply my opinion that in this case the rights of a group take precedence over the rights of pedophiles. And if that is the opinion of my fellow residents, then we should have the ability to keep it far, far away.
I'm even less of a fan of Government attempting to regulate my thoughts...as you pointed out I live in Maryland where my "insurrectionist interpretation" (the only correct evaluation IMHO) of the Second Amendment is already viewed as questionable thought by my beloved AG and Governor. I don't want some SCOTUS opinion on virtual porn giving these richard craniums any ideas about my views about the relationship between firearms, the indivdual and government...
Such would be one of the many unintended consequences if this law were upheld. Imagine all the usual suspects, Children's Defense Fund, VPC, Brady Center, et.al., all of the sudden getting a law passed here in MD that exposure to Guns and Ammo or other firearms related matter is harmful to children and places them at risk due to the images....and don't say it's unconstitutional - I was just skimming the dissents in this case and their arguments, had they been the majority, could have damn well supported such a law given all the bravo sierra 'statistics' those groups put out about the relationship of firearms to child deaths. That scares the hell out of me.
(Not sure which scares me more, the thought of what I just outlined or the fact that I'm disagreeing with Scalia and agreeing with Souter, Stephens and Bryer...)
Because if you are I'm here to tell you, you're not even close. Men are the overwhelming sexual abusers of children.
Explain to me how a virtual image on a computer screen is any different from the image in one's mind.
Is there a printer on your computer---other people---rights--fredom in the world beyond your shrunken brain--soul?
Do you have anthrax too in your refrigerator---dynamite in your garage---all harmless--your lifestyle?
No, what you keep ignoring is that such virtual depictions can and WILL BE used by pedophiles to break down a real child's natural inhibitions and to elicit curiousity that the pedophile will then exploit to manipulate the child into sexual activity. And then that child will be further manipulated into believing that he/she caused or asked for such exploitation. Adults have a duty to protect children, by depriving criminals of their tools of exploitation. If this inhibits some of our adult freedoms, tough nuts.
There is no freedom with out responsibility.
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