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.
It's gotten so bad now, that anybody with cable TV has a nightly barage of open sex acts on TV. There's more open sex on TV than even any form of educational TV. I suspect there's some strong merit in legislation on the matter.
And you believe the founding fathers and drafters of the constitution and the bill of rights intended for naked people parading around for money and someone else's jollies qualifies as SPEECH?
Yes. They had pornography back in those days, yet the founding fathers and drafters of the constitution and the bill of rights knew that it shouldn't be outlawed -- so they didn't. Your "argument" is childish at best.
"Two centuries later, smutty drawings and bawdy tales were known to have helped George Washington and his troops endure the long, bitter winter at Valley Forge. The legend of Washington chopping down a cherry tree is now known to be the sanitized version of a lewd story involving the father of our country and Betsy Ross, though his vaguely worded explanation to Martha--"I was trying to earn my stripes"--is probably closer to the truth than it might at first appear."
David Gianatasio, A Brief History of Pornography, Sweet Fancy Moses
"Since the beginning of time man has been fascinated by the sight of other human beings indulging in sexual activity. Pornography can be traced through the centuries from mere etchings in the walls of caves, to its first printed appearance on post cards, to early photography, magazines, 8mm movies, and finally to the video quality of today. (The Age of Pornography. Online)."
A DISCUSSION OF PORNOGRAPHY
Attractive, well adjusted people can engage in sexual activity, not merely watch others - so porn primarily is entertainment for misfits and the unattractive. If someone is so fascinated by that, well, it's just as well they don't clutter up the halls of higher learning.
Now when they get into the Whitehouse, that's a problem.
Every single state OUTLAWED AND PROSECUTED PORNOGRAPHY in early America.
You site a book that promotes pornography, and take it as fact.
Why don't you look at the real facts, like the Commonwealth V Sharpless case I quoted above. Where several men were prosecuted and Convicted for Pornography.
So you are mistaken as most typical libertarians are. THE FOUNDERS DID BAN PORNOGRAPHY!!
The defendant argued that since his acts were "private," not "public," the law could not reach him. The Court disagreed. Here are the facts:
Jesse Sharpless . . . designing, contriving, and intending the morals, as well of youth as of divers other citizens of this commonwealth, to debauch and corrupt, and to raise and create in their minds inordinate and lustful desires . . . in a certain house there . . . scandalously did exhibit and show for money . . . a certain lewd . . . obscene painting representing a man in an obscene . . . and indecent posture with a woman, to the manifest corruption and subversion of youth and other citizens of this commonwealth.
Many things occurring in private have a public effect and therefore are punishable.
The court is . . . invested with power to punish not only open violations of decency and morality, but also whatever secretly tends to undermine the principles of society. . . . [W]hatever tends to the destruction of morality in general may be punished criminally. Crimes are public offenses not because they are perpetrated publicly, but because their effect is to injure the public. Burglary, though done in secret, is a public offense; and secretly destroying fences is indictable . . . hence, it follows, that an offence may be punishable if in its nature and by its example it tends to the corruption of morals; although it be not committed in public.
The defendants are charted with exhibiting and showing . . . for money, a lewd . . . and obscene painting . . . . [I]f they privacy of the room was a protection, all the youth of the city might be corrupted by taking them one by one into a chamber and there inflaming their passions by the exhibition of lascivious pictures. . . .
[A]lthough every immoral act, such as lying, etc., is not indictable, yet where the offence charged is destructive of morality in general . . . it is punishable at common law. The destruction of morality renders the power of the government invalid. . . . The corruption of the public mind, in general, and debauching the manners of youth, in particular, by lewd and obscene pictures exhibited to view, must necessarily be attended with the most injurious consequences . . . . No man is permitted to corrupt the morals of the people; secret poison cannot be thus disseminated.
Well, if I had known that Albert Einstein was going to rise up and snidely lecture me I guess I might have better prepared myself.
It is evident, because you don't have enough police for enforcement.
It doesn't matter how many laws you pass, if someone wants to break the law they will. And in the case of porn, whores, moonshine-- whatever-- all the laws in the world don't mean anything except something to point to at re-election time.
What needs to be addressed, in the schools and homes, is a code of conduct (and the reasons for such a code) so that society rejects the bad behavior.
And I'll say it again, real slow, just for you: Pass all the laws you want, but you can't legislate morality...
Why are states like Utah (One of the few states that still enforces moral laws) doing so well, while states like Kalifornia that promote immoral laws doing so poorly?
People will still murder, rob, rape, and steal even though there are laws against it, so should we just make everything legal? Anarchy? Isn't that what libertarians really want?
All laws enforce morality. And while you cannot prosecute and arrest everyone who breaks the law, you do catch some, and when they are punished severly you can make the others think twice before doing it again.
Prohibition would have worked if we made possession a Capital Offense. We need to do the same for Drug Possession today. Along with Homosexuality, Blasphemy, Fornication, Adultery and Pornography.
I guarentee you that if it was a Capital Crime people would think twice about it.
If our founders had only known what we have become, they would have drafted a much different constitution.
Probably something along the lines of this: (No doubt you'll 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.).
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The Constitution of the Universe
(1976) Preamble * The purpose of conscious life is to live happily. *** No person, group of persons, or government may initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any individual's self or property. Article 2 Force may be morally and legally used only in self-defense against those who violate Article 1. Article 3 No exceptions shall exist for Articles 1 and 2. * * * The Constitution of the Universe rests on six axioms: |
That's sort of Taliban-ish, isn't it?
My point is that you can pass all the laws you want, but it's the lack of families teaching morals at home that's the problem. Legislation is simply a social band-aid.
Just move to Saudi Arabia.
Why don't you look at the real facts, like the Commonwealth V Sharpless case I quoted above. Where several men were prosecuted and Convicted for Pornography.
And O.J. was deemed "not guilty" in court. Now what were you saying about the legitimacy of the courts. The founding fathers were wrong to permit slavery as put forth in the constitution.
And you believe the founding fathers and drafters of the constitution and the bill of rights intended for naked people parading around for money and someone else's jollies qualifies as SPEECH?10
Yes. They had pornography back in those days, yet the founding fathers and drafters of the constitution and the bill of rights knew that it shouldn't be outlawed -- so they didn't. Your "argument" is childish at best.42
YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!
Yelling hinders/diminishes your argument. Obviously you not even been through debate tactics101 course. Probably still stuck in child tantrum state.
I suppose you think every law and all government-won court trials equals just laws and just application of the laws. You don't, (you can correct me if that is wrong) and you're just as wrong to pick and chose that which suits your agenda rather than standing on honest principles.
If we could just make that mandatory, we might wipe out prostitution. :-)
And you...you would neeeever "pick and choose that which suits your agenda". Nope. Never. Not in a million, billion, trillion years! LOL
Haven't you had your ass kicked enough times already with this pseudo-intellectual bull$shit (i.e. abortion debates, drug legalization)??
Prohibition would have worked if we made possession a Capital Offense. We need to do the same for Drug Possession today. Along with Homosexuality, Blasphemy, Fornication, Adultery and Pornography.
That's a keeper that will serve well to discredit you and further show you as a raving lunatic. Thank you.
Yeah, right.
Porn existed when our constitution was being drafted. There were pornographic writings and drawings in existence. In fact, porn has been around as long as there have been writings and drawings. So yes, our founding fathers were aware of porn, and they did not outlaw it.
Vice is not a matter of personal opinion, and conservatives since the time of the founding have passed laws either prohibiting or discouraging vice.
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