NRC asks for reviewers for forthcoming Internet porn report

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 georgemw at speakeasy.net wrote:

> On 16 Aug 2001, at 0:09, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
> 
> 
> > And I think if you look at the history of the Bill of Rights (which
> > Americans naturally know far better than I ever will), one does have some
> > reason to believe the "speech" in 1A is mostly targeted at political speech,
> > even if the meaning is implied.
> > 
> 
> I really don't think so.  It's possible some people were more 
> concerned with political speech in the sense that the idea
> that Congress might try to ban "dirty books" wouldn't have
> ocurred to them in the first place,  whereas the idea that
> it might try to ban "subversive" or "heretical" speech seemed
> a more likely threat,  but the idea that political speech is
> somehow more deserving of protection (as opposed to more
> in need) would have been as alien to the founding fathers as it
> is to me.
> 
> I'll take that a step further; the only people who will assert that
> political speech is somehow more important than any other kind
> are people who have spent too much of their lives heavily involved
> in politics. 
> 
> I think the same concept is true for the BoR in general.  The 4th
> amendment prohibition against unreasonable serach and seizure
> isn't there to give criiminals (political or otherwise) a sporting
> chance,  it's that your life is essentially your own,  and if society
> wants to invade your home they'd better have a damn good reason.
> 
> The reason there isn't an amendment in the BoR protecting your
> right to eat,  drink,  and smoke what you choose is that the 
> glutinous pothead drunkards who wrote the Constitution never
> conceived of such abusive laws in the first place,  which in turn
> is because the bush-league tyrant George III never even considered
> trying to inflict such laws on the populace.  
>     
> > >(The landmark Supreme Court cases on obscenity, like Miller, have to do
> > >with fairly gross obscenity. Not that I agree they were justified, but the
> > >"online decency" issue is a long way from what the Supremes have said may
> > >be banned.)
> > 
> > So how about the "prevailing community standard" part?
> > 
> 
> Well,  that's just something the Supremes made up,  but,
> to be fair,  the idea that the 14th extends the protection of
> most but not quite all of the BoR from Congress to the states
> is more or less something the Supremes made up also.
> 
> > >"For the children!" is no more a reason to trump the First for Web sites
> > >than it would be to trump the First for bookstores, for example, by
> > >requiring that "Lolita" be kept in an adult's only section.
> > 
> > The question is, are there enough sensible people around to stop precisely
> > that from happening?
> > 
> How many does it take?  I suspect the vast majority don't care
> much one way or the other.  They don't read,  they don't care what
> or if other people read, hell, I haven't even read Lolita myself,
> saw the Kubrik film though.
> 
> 
> > >Nor is "self labelling" acceptable under the First. My words are my
> > >words, my pages are my pages. I don't have to "rate" them for how a
> > >Muslim might feel about them, or how Donna Rice might react, or whether
> > >I included material "offensive" to Creationists.
> > 
> > Agreed. But I do think self-labelling is a nice gesture, and may even afford
> > one a direct means of targeting a site specifically for the kind of people
> > most vocal about banning online speech.
> >
> 
> Self-label if you choose.  But don't be too surprised when others 
> choose otherwise.  More to the point,  don't be too surprised when
> others self label and rate their content in a way radically different to
> the way you would.
> 
> George 
> > Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy at iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111
> > student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
>