Posted on 09/15/2002 10:28:57 AM PDT by traditionalist
Let’s talk about the facts of life. It’s a fact of life that we have lost the war to control pornography. The war was over years ago when the Supreme Court ruled that porn was legal if it met community standards. Whatever Conservatives or American society in general wished to do about this growing wave of filth has been for naught. It’s saddening to admit, but it’s true.
During the Reagan administration, I was part of a nationwide effort to try to make a dent in the pornography industry. The FBI had hard evidence that organized crime (OC) had moved into the pornography industry, just as they had into gambling, prostitution and drugs. OC thrives on the vices of humans.
After a year-long undercover case that more than proved the OC connection to porn, we brought forward our indictments. At that time, the community standard that allows federal prosecutions for obscene material gave us the hammer to put away many OC thugs – even the Liberal Miami juries agreed that some of the material being sold was a bit over the top. We fined these sleaze merchants heavily and sent them to the slammer.
You know what? We didn’t even make a dent.
Today, that same kind of material is routinely displayed on hundreds of Internet websites advertising their wares in an effort to get you to pay a fee to “peek” inside. What’s inside must really be filthy, but if it isn’t considered child porn, it won’t be prosecuted. Eight years of Bill Clinton in the White House and Janet Reno in the Department of Justice guaranteed that every community standard in the nation has been lowered. Today, both federal and local prosecutions of routine porn are a lost cause.
Whatever objections we had as a society to this porn garbage are moot at this point.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are made each year on the “sales” of horrible things, images that most of us want to keep away not only from our children, but from our communities. We want to keep this material from finding its way into the very fabric of our society. Yet, there is an enormous appetite for this stuff – so much so that it’s obvious that the flow from producer to consumer cannot be controlled. Conservatives need to understand this. We have lost this war, but is there something positive that can come from this? Do we just “give up,” or is there some way we can curtail the amount of porn being produced?
You bet there is, and here’s the answer: Tax the living daylights out of it! Tax every part of it. Tax the consumers who want to look at it. Tax the “actors” – mostly women, and some men – who are making money being “models” for these porn sites. Tax every network that allows this human sewage to flow through their switches, cables, phone lines – tax any entity that makes it easy for this material to go from camera lens to your living room where little Johnny can see it while you’re out at the grocery store.
Call it a Porn Tax.
Tax them federally, and tax them at the state level as well. Tax them county and tax them local. Tax them until it hurts, and tax them until they scream. Then, tax them right out of business.
Impossible you say? Wait a minute! Isn’t this the reasoning behind the tax on cigarettes? Cigarettes are considered to be a threat to the well being of humans. Is filthy pornography less of a threat to the minds and emotional well-being of humans?
We also tax alcohol heavily, reasoning that a heavy tax keeps the prices up, and thus, maybe out of the hands of too many drunks. As a society, we recognize that booze is not the best way to have a good time, but we acknowledge that it cannot be stopped, so we heavily regulate it, and we tax the grapes out of it!
Why does porn get a pass?
Regulating and taxing cigarettes is not a signal that society approves of the production, distribution and use of tobacco products – just the opposite is true. Our society has begun to frown on the use of cigarettes and has outlawed their use in many public places, including restaurants and bars in some states, yet we throw up our hands and claim impotence in our efforts to control porn. We can’t even keep it out of our public libraries! It seems we are unable to think of any solution, so we do nothing.
From now on, unless we have some kind of revolution or the installation of a dictator who has the power to chop off the hands of those who possess or produce porn, it’s here, and it’s widely available. Get over it! Sure you can regret that we cannot control this. Of course, you can do your best to keep it out of your life. I’m not saying we should give any indication at all that we accept this horrible environment that has been thrust upon us.
Most of us hate this deep injury to our civility. The least we can do is think of some way to lessen it.
Let’s face another fact: women are ill-served by allowing themselves to be filmed while performing the most intimate of activities, but they sure aren’t victims! There are thousands of them, maybe hundreds of thousands of women, young and old, who for some reason think it’s just fine to be a part of this scourge.
Being ill-served and engaging in harmful, risky activity has never stopped prostitutes from doing what they do. Obvious facts about the dangers are not going to stop the actors and actresses from appearing in porn flicks. But, we can lay on a heavy financial burden, just like we tax anyone else who’s engaged in a high profit enterprise. Maybe fewer will be available if we make it tough enough. Let’s take away the financial benefit.
At a time when government officials are pulling out all the stops to dream up taxes and penalties that honest, hardworking, decent citizens must pay, this idea seems like a no-brainer. If they can put cameras on tops of poles to catch those who run red lights, don’t tell me they can’t figure out how to tax porn and all who benefit from it.
Let’s tax porn back into the dark alley where it belongs.
So let me say this, if you try taxing porn i will probably just get it from the same Indian Reservation that i get my ciggerettes from now, either that or from overseas.
Maybe i would buy it normally but unknowingly fund HAMAS Terrorists who have an interstate porn smuggling racket. (This should sound familiar)
Regulating morality through taxes is probaly the most ludicrous idea to come around and its amazing that even conservatives are starting to give it serious thought nowadays.
You shouldn't, they are exactly the same thing.
I'm completely against any and all taxes. I'm overtaxed. We're overtaxed. The taxes must stop!!!!! If you really want to talk about what our Founding Fathers intended, let's think about the taxation we live in. As much as I think the porn issue needed to be tackled a long-time ago to be effective, I'm still against using any kind of a tax to battle it, today. NO MORE TAXES!!! I'm still waiting for the government to cut it's taxes by 20-30% so I can start a family of future voters.
No, Gary Aldrich wrote this.
Seems to me what they intended was for the government to stay out of peoples' private lives.
Zon to Windsong: I and every person picks and chooses that which suits their agenda. The key difference and gulf that separates how you do it and how I do it is I only chose that which is grounded in honest principle. You, on the other hand have no qualms about lying through your teeth. 63
Zon: I outed you long ago in the Lying Windsong click here. 63
Anyone worth their weight in carbon can see that there wasn't any lying done on my part in that thread.
Any person can follow the link I gave which takes them to documentation of your lies. Here it is again.
Zon to Boot Hill: That said, if the founding fathers and drafters of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights were alive today, given the massive amount of information at their fingertips, they would, based on reason, (not feelings as you implied) agree whole heartedly with the Constitution of the Universe. 134 [The Constitution of the Universe is posted at 49.]
What an arrogant LIE.
I stand by what I wrote. That said, once again you display your ignorance and incompetence. I can safely say that because you don't even know what constitutes a lie and what constitutes an error.
Not that you'll acknowledge your error, I give this example for the benefit of other readers. As I said, I stand by what I wrote. Here's the difference between a lie and an error: If person A asks person B what day of the week it is and person B mistakenly says "Tuesday" when it is actually Wednesday, that is an error. A lie would be Person B saying "Tuesday" despite knowing that it is actually Wednesday.
Also, since it is impossible to know for certain/fact whether the founding fathers and drafters of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights would stand for or against the Constitution of the Universe if they were alive today it is impossible for what I wrote to be a lie. For it to be a lie a person must knowingly contradict a fact. As I said, I stand by what I wrote; that the founding fathers would agree with the Constitution of the Universe.
The day that James Madison, Noah Webster or John Adams would subscribe to your athiest/anarchist bull$shit is the day that pigs fly
No anarchist here for I subscribe to government that is limited to upholding and protecting individual rights and property rights.
Zon to Boot Hill: I don't know how people that advocate the initiation of force can look themselves in the mirror, much less look their spouse and children in the eye. 111
Shall I post the link to the numerous websites that have documentation showing your Wally to be a complete fraud and a flim-flam loser when it comes to paying one's taxes? Oh wait..sorry. I forgot..no force allowed. We can't actually have the law being backed up by FORCE.
It's obvious that you will do what ever you want/chose. For some reason you wanted/chose not to post those links. Also, on the Neo-Tech Website is scanned copies of the tax returns for the years in question that show that Wallace Ward actually over-paid his taxes for those years. Despite that the court/judge sent Dr. Ward to prison for ten months. All that information can be found at the Neo-Tech Web site. That you chose to side with the IRS in it's crimes against Dr. Ward is no surprise to me.
No doubt the reason you detest the Constitution of The Universe posted at #49 is that you disagree because it doesn't grant government agents nor yourself the power to initiate force against people nor allow you to enlist government agents to initiate force against people on your behalf.
Remember, you had given me a heads up that you weren't actually a Libertarian and that despite its appearance, your "Constitution of the Universe" did not have a Libertarian origin.
I wrote in post #118: "That constitution I posted is not a Libertarian constitution." You won't find it on the Libertarian Web site. It's origin is Neo-Tech.
Here are some of the exciting topics I'm currently exploring at your amazing website, Zon. These are so good, I've just got to have more:
It's not my Web site. The publishers of the Neo-Tech/Zonpower Web site welcome both positive and negative comments. As a quick assessment of people's responses from a much wider spectrum of people than the few people at FreeRepublic that have commented on Neo-Tech/Zonpower is to read both the positive and negative comments posted at the Web site. The juxtaposition of those positive and negative comments is powerful. Also, you can post your own comment.
The Zonpower manuscript is thick with metaphors, as partially shown by the section you quoted. My favorite is Chapter Six: A Cosmology of Infinite Riches. It is not easy to understand/digest/integrate as it requires a considerable amount of thinking and more than one reading.
When do we get to drink the kool-aid, Zon? When will the mother ship come to pick us up, Zon? When do I get my red cape with the big "Z" on it?
Obviously you can ridicule and attempt to minimize the Zonpower manuscript. It is not easy to understand/digest/integrate as it requires a considerable amount of thinking to understand. But we we are discussing The Constitution of the Universe that is precise, clear and not thick with metaphors. What you cannot escape is what I said in posts #111 and 134 "No doubt you disagree because it doesn't grant government agents nor yourself the power to initiate force against people nor allow you to enlist government agents to initiate force against people on your behalf."
I find that you are part of some obscure whackjob cult (the exalted mystical leader maybe?) called ZON!
My job is not to defend Neo-Tech/Zonpower. The authors at Neo-Tech Publishing and Neo-Tech Worldwide do that with uncanny clarity and ability. Neo-Tech has no members or leaders. My "job" in our discussion is to let you expose yourself and then highlight that. That said, from the Web site:
Ending Lawyer-Like Dishonesties #4Let's Call Neo-Tech a Cult Perhaps the most-obvious, lawyer-like dishonesty archived throughout Internet search engines is the assertion that Neo-Tech is a cult. Neo-Tech is not only the antithesis of cults, but is the tool that vanishes them. ...Neo-Tech is based on wide-scope accountability and fully integrated honesty, while cults are based on narrow-scope restrictions and manipulated deceptions. Consider the following dozen contrasts between Neo-Tech and cults:
|
I know that it's considered bad form to attack the messenger, rather than the message, but if ANYBODY ever so righteously deserved such an attack, well then Zon ol' buddy, you are definitely the one.
It's not just bad form on your part, it is yet another display of your ignorance and incompetence and quite possibly, you demonstrating dishonesty. Dishonest if you knew that you were attacking me as though I was the messenger despite the fact that you delivered/posted the message.
You are the messenger of the post you made. I am the messenger of the post I made. You just attacked/shot yourself in the foot.
Now, if you wanted to attack me as the messenger of The Constitution of the Universe that would be attacking the messenger because I posted The Constitution of the Universe.
You really are a hoot.
Not to worry too much about our local zonhead. He claims he was able to get all their otherwise $145 each pamphlets of wisdom for free.
Any person can read the Web Site for free. By the way, a phone-book thick publication is not a pamphlet. "The Book" is over a thousand pages and sells for under a hundred dollars. I'm fairly certain that all that is in The Book can be read for free on their Web site. Myself, I prefer reading a hard copy book as opposed to a computer screen. Most of what they sell averages
He will also thank you for posting their screeds, one time, but if you should start to persist in posting their rubbish he will get a little testy about it, and won't be so thankful anymore.
I generally only thank people for posting a link to the Neo-Tech Web site when they introduce it to the thread. When I am the first on a thread to post a link to the Neo-Tech Website (about one in a hundred threads I post to), as I did on this thread, I don't thank those that follow up with their own links to the Neo-Tech Web site.
No doubt you too detest the Constitution of The Universe posted at #49 because it doesn't grant government agents nor yourself the power to initiate force against people nor allow you to enlist government agents to initiate force against people on your behalf.
Your beloved Crusades and the Dark Ages thrived on the initiation of force, fraud and coercion, as do pedophile priests and those that harbor them in the name of an imagined God. Truth has and always will outlive the lie.
* * *
Since the Golden Age of Greece 2,300 years ago the three main institutions or influence on individuals and the society they make up -- government, religion and commerce/business -- which has harmed more people and which has benefited more people?
Governments in the last century alone have killed over one hundred million people in wars. Governments killed sixty million of their own citizens. What about religion: the Crusades, Dark Ages, pedophile priests and those that harbor them and now terrorists carrying out the work of an imagined God/Allah as written in the Qur'an.
Business, the antithesis of the initiation of force; the advancement of science and technology to bring to free markets the choice to increase customers' prosperity and thus increase the prosperity of society while creating jobs that further increases personal prosperity and society.
Well Gary it appears you've answered your own question. "...Eight years of Bill Clinton in the White House (note he omitted AlGore the Inventor of the Internet LOL) and Janet Reno in the Department of Justice guaranteed that every community standard in the nation has been lowered. Today, both federal and local prosecutions of routine porn are a lost cause..." Hmmm, I won't ask the definition of Routine Porn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.