[Redcloak]

Ok... I like Ann and I'm looking forward to the gratuitous Ann pics that are bound to be posted to this thread; however, she is out to lunch on this! The Supreme Court's ruling on "virtual" kiddie porn is not about protecting smut. It's about defining what government may or may not proscribe. Government may regulate speech, such as real kiddie porn involving real kids because the production of that speech harms children. It may also regulate other types of porn as obscene, albeit under some rather byzantine rules. The theory behind such regulation is that direct harm results from the speech in question. "Virtual" kiddie porn does not have the same element of direct harm that real kiddie porn does. A "virtual" child cannot be harmed; it does not really exist. As Rush said this morning, these are cartoons.

Whether American is "awash" in pornography or not is irrelevant. What we don't need is for it to be awash in senseless government regulation. Laws regulating speech or other behaviors should be based upon a reasonable interest by the government. Protecting real children from pornographers is a legitimate insterest on the government's part; protecting "virtual" children is not.

[Vicki]

As Rush said this morning, these are cartoons.

Most of these are not cartoons. A sicko could take a picture of your child at a public swimming pool, go home to his computer and change the photo enough that it would be considered computer generated and your child could be depicted in a sexual act with an adult.

With software programs like Electric Image Animation you can create realistic 3-D human bodies with blank faces and take anyone's face and map it to the body. This body could be doing anything.

How do you think tabloids get a three-breasted woman pictured on the front. She certainly did not look like a cartoon!

So imagine finding out your child is on a porn site and there's nothing you can do about under the current ruling because the picture was altered by a computer.