Dufus gasped:

...

...

No they are not. You can't make the picture without commiting the act.

A not-so-clever straw man. "Making" the picture is not the speech in question, Duh. Distributing the picture is. And you can distribute the picture, without committing the underlying act yourself.

Absolutely the making is 'speech'.

Oh it is? Well in that case, to be consistent, you'll have to tell us why the first amendment doesn't apply. Taking a picture is NOT free speech; showing/publishing the picture is. What a moron.

The distributing it is 'press'. Only a lawyer would confuse the two.

Only a non-lawyer would pull such a definition out of his ars. So, if I e-mail needle dick a picture, that's "press"? How so? Sounds like a speech activity to me. Oh wait, maybe Jimbo thinks that speech is to slander as press is to libel? Sorry, not so. Wearing a baseball cap that says, "Fuck Jim Choate" is freedom of speech, not freedom of the press (and mighty satisfying--the wearing not the fucking; nobody would actually want to do that).

We have a group of persons who commit an act with a child. In the process a photograph is taken. The photograph is distributed.

Your (ie CACL) claim is that the picture is not itself a crime, and in particular it is protected as speech.

Don't put words in my mouth, fat boy. What you have stated seems to be more your position. As I said, the taking of the picture is not speech, the distribution is. In either case, the sexual acts, the taking of pictures and the distribution ARE all crimes under current law. The position that a number of us on this list have taken is that the mere possession or distribution should not be a crime, per se, because of the rights guaranteed under the first amendment.

This assertion is wrong. Here's why.

Well, it's your assertion (i.e, straw man). You should try to defeat arguments that your antagonists actually make. Nobody is fooled by the cheap shot of making up your own silly interpretations and "defeating" them.

(A bunch of self-serving nonsense predicated on a straw man, left out.)

So, can the child be 'consensual'? No. Children for a variety of reasons are NOT...

So, Jimbo is now telling us that someone who is 17 years and 364 days old does not have the "consensual abilities" of someone who is 18 years old? That must come as a shock to a lot of 16-year olds who consensually drive a car.

The picture is not protected speech by the simple expedient that it was constrained or forced upon at least one of the participants.

Assuming /arguendo/ that there was force or at least no consent, the taking of the pictures may be illegal, immoral and fattening, but that doesn't mean the pictures are (protected) speech.

I guess that 97 percentile doesn't mean as much as you thought.

Anybody have any idea what dufus is trying to say here?

(this applies equaly to Declan's specious commentary as well)

I'm sure it does, but of course, not in the way Jimbo means it. :'D So once again, folks, we meet the implacable Inchoate reasoning. I think I, and others, have said enough to support our position. Jimbo has offered nothing substantive in return and--if past experience is any teacher--is not going to do so. The smart people have already made up their minds. Therefore I rest my case and encourage Jimbo to mount his silly little soap box in our version of Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner, and rant until the cows come home. I'll only re-emerge when it's time to clarify the next issue Jimbo gets wrong. S a n d y