Now bring on the libertines, better known as libertarians. Give me your best shot!
Because you can't legislate morality...
No, OC thrives anywhere government makes something valuable by making it illegal or too heavily regulated. It really is that simple.
A lot of folks have a hard time grasping that the internet is an *international* entity. I can access websites in Australia or Moscow as easily as I can one in my own town. Even if the internet were thoroughly regulated by the U.S. government (something I hope nobody here really wants), they can't stop international porn any better than they can stop international spam mail. Hell, they can barely stop international drugs and that's something that has to physically cross the border to be sold, rather than just blips of data travelling through telephone lines.
Finally, on the idea of taxing it to death. Let's not let the government camel get their nose under that tent shall we? Once the government feels it has the okay to tax your internet (because they surely can't/won't tax the porn producers), can censorship and taxing *all* internet activity (even e-mails) be far behind? The internet has two chief advantages as a marketable service - interactivity and immediacy. You can shop for what you like when you want to, even at 3 a.m. But it is not a cash cow for more than a handful of websites. To tax it to death would be to kill the goose.
Unlike alcohol, tobacco or drugs, pornography need not physically exist in the home to be, er, consumed. To stop it entirely would mean cutting out your phone lines and your cable service because if one or the other exists, you have access to porn 24/7. If the only way to curb it is government intervention, I'd rather live with the status quo.
I sympathize with Mr. Aldrich but the only way to curb the explosion of pornography is in the same way abortion must be curbed - by changing hearts. That's a slow and quiet method because evil succeeds very well in a vacuum. Public pressure will help some but running to the government would surely only make this worse.
No, OC thrives by providing products and services that are in demand, yet banned by governments. There status as "vice" or "virtue" is irrelevant.
If it was unwanted by "most of us", it wouldn't be a hundred billion dollar industry.
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.
The March of the Brigade
Here is the march of the Brigade
The Live Like I Do Brigade
We know you think it's your life but you're wrong
And that is the very reason for this song
To demand you do what we think is best* and you will see
The only "good" kind of life is lived by me
And those who think like me regarding this issue of course
* Those who do not agree with the Live Like I Do Brigade subject to kidnapping and false imprisonment at the hands of the Imperial Federal Government
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.
Posturing moralists seem to be among the more blatant offenders.
Look around you... we have many serious and life threatening problems to deal with.
You think any thinking person will be sucked into a useless time consuming debate about your neurotic preoccupations?