Porn is ok but safety of children is not.

[ReillyT]

in general, a library's art, is not put on display but on shelves, as a museums? understand the naked body may be art, but copulating and getting head is not something that a Library should be compelled to provide the viewing of with my tax dollars

I generally agree with your assessment of copulation and fellatio. However, filter technology will prevent much more than just this, and who gets to decide on the borderline cases what constitutes free speech under the 1st Amendment and what doesn't? This is a tough issue for lawyers and judges. Do we think the county librarian is ideally suited to make this Constitutional determination?

 

[manifold]

I only know that books can't be removed from high school libraries for political or partisan reasons.

I'm having difficulty with the pragmatic application of this:

A. What if they just don't buy it in the first place?

B. What if it goes missing and they decide not to replace it?

How is either of these very real and likely scenarios ever going to be deemed an infringement on the 1st Amendment?

And what if they are found to have removed it for political reasons? What is the remedy? Force them to buy it again, which could easily lead back to B above?

 

[Shogun]

The First Amendment protects more than political speech. It may evaluate different kinds of speech differently, but other than obscenity, all speech is entitled to protection in varying degrees.

thats not true at all. Hell, how many times is the "fire in an theatre" arguement mentioned when the first amendment is brought up? Can you say on the radio "I want to kill the president"? Is Fred Phelps's First Amendment rights being violated by banning his ass from cemetaries? Can I come to your home and write my name in piss on your bedroom wall? Expression, you know.

Listen, I'm all for the interpretation of GREATER liberty but net oprn in the library isn't even close to qualifying no matter how many pieces of classical literature is compared with the net video of one girl shitting in a cup and the other girl eating it.

 

[Ravi]

No offense, Ravi.. but I thnk you need to fill in the blanks and read a lil bit about the actual cases that you mention rather than suggest that "censorship is censorhip"

Feel free to listen to some Lenny Bruce and compare HIS material with what a net porn filter blocks from a PUBLIC venue. Have a gander at Howl and read about the motivation behind shutting down City Lights bookstore. It wasn't a matter of protecting a PUBLIC FUNDED facilty either time.

Not getting your point.

 

[Shogun]

It is not true that the 1st Amendment doesn't protect "vectors" of transmission of ideas. It does. Not all vectors may be evaluated in the same way, but there are protections.

prove it. YOU are asserting something that I am calling shennanigans on. Post your source material and applicable court cases or stop insisting that the first amendment protects the vectors by which your expresstion is posted.

If you can do this you may very well have just made the FCC illegal.

 

[ReillyT]

uh, can the government restrict Lolita from public high schools, dude? What about The Joy of Sex? I love how you people cling to Mockingbird because of it's VOCABULARY but don't even try to reach into the PORNOGRAPHIC pile of literature.

Besides, do you think Mockingbird would be similarly available to your arguement if someone in the book got fucked in the ass? and LIKED it?


Ever read HOWL from a HS library? Is it a slight agaisnt your first amendment rights if every HS in America doesn't have Lolita, JOS, and Howl? No, your vector defense doesn't work and you can't prove it Constitutionally, through amendment or precedent, anyway. How many public libraries have YOU seen stock the entire back catalogue of Busty Magazine?

When does throwing a pie in the face of a speaker become free speach, dude? This is why it's abusing the first amendment to pretend it's a blank check. it's not.

it does NOT protect the right to recieve; ONLY express. cite specific cases otherwise since my opinion filter is getting worn out with this thread.

I don't know about Lolita. I don't know if it has ever been litigated. The point isn't that this or that can be banned. The point is that "vectors" (although I would prefer the word "forum") do matter, and the government is restricted by the 1st Amendment as to what channels it can interfere with.

 

[Care4all]

We can, but frankly the community standards criteria is so amorphous I wouldn't even know where to start or how to evaluate it. It is a silly criteria.



That is the question. The government is definitely prohibited from inhibiting certain kinds of expression in certain vectors (see school libraries). The question is how far this prohibition goes. I don't know the answer, but I think there are valid arguments on both sides with respect to the library issue.

Additionally (just to add another layer of complexity), when we are discussing fundamental rights like the First Amendment, the government also has to employ the least restrictive means to accomplish its compelling interest. Even if we assume that protecting children from pornography is a compelling interest under the circumstances, is filter technology the least restrictive means? Are there other ways to accomplish the goal and still allow unlimited access to the internet for adults?

with the least amount of cost and burden on to the taxpayer and citizen also, you would think in this day and age, where the money of ours is short....

also the consideration of use.....do you pay thousands for a private room for adults only for only one patron that is insisting on getting his porn?

do you want to attract pedophiles to a children's environment should be considered also....

afterall, we are the rulers of the gvt government....our sovereignty rules it..... it, does not rule us.

care

 

[ReillyT]

prove it. YOU are asserting something that I am calling shennanigans on. Post your source material and applicable court cases or stop insisting that the first amendment protects the vectors by which your expresstion is posted.

If you can do this you may very well have just made the FCC illegal.

Scroll up. The case is Island Trees School District v. Pico, 457 US 853 (1982). School Districts (the gov't) cannot remove books from high school libraries because the school district disagrees with the political content of the books. It is irrelevant whether the books can be obtained elsewhere.

 

[Shogun]

The vector thing was already addressed, but with respect to pornography and obscenity, it isn't necessarily the case that because something is pornographic, it therefore must be obscene. In addition, a large part of this discussion must acknowledge that there are gray areas of materials the pornographic nature of which is arguable.

no shit. I didn't ask if net porn was obscene. I already know that. IM asking you for the specific criteria that NETPORN must pass according to the SCOTUS standard of the Miller court.

and no, the Vector thingwasn't already addressed. I expect more than your word and opinion when makeing assumptions about constitutional coverage.

prove it, dude.

Gray areas? sure. NET PORN is not gray.

 

[Ravi]

Thank you. I applaud your intellectual honesty. A few others around here could learn a thing or two from your example.

But here's the rub.....ready...wait for it...






...as long as nobody cops to the reason being content, then they haven't broken the law, nor infringed on any rights, and that's one mighty huge loophole making the whole content based argument largely symbolic, academic, and almost totally moot.

And to finally bring closure to my original point. If I found out my local library didn't carry Mockingbird, I'd consider that a literary travesty. And I'd vote to make sure it finds it's way onto the next purchase order. I wouldn't file suit against them for infringing on my 1st Amendment rights.

So you were being intellectually honest when you said you'd support legislation to unban it?

 

[manifold]

If someone requests it, I'm pretty sure the library can not deny the request because they deem it offensive.

And what if they just say, "sorry, we don't carry that title?"

 

[Shogun]

See my previous reply to Reilly.

what IDEAS are being offered from www.ampland.com?


PLEASE show me a single ******* example

 

[ReillyT]

with the least amount of cost and burden on to the taxpayer and citizen also, you would think in this day and age, where the money of ours is short....

also the consideration of use.....do you pay thousands for a private room for adults only for only one patron that is insisting on getting his porn?

do you want to attract pedophiles to a children's environment should be considered also....

afterall, we are the rulers of the gvt government....our sovereignty rules it..... it, does not rule us.

care

I'm pretty sure that the least restrictive means test has a practical component. If something would be unreasonably expensive, I can't imagine a court requiring it. My guess is that in practice it means "the least restrictive means practicable."

 

[manifold]

So you were being intellectually honest when you said you'd support legislation to unban it?

I conceded that my post could have led you to the wrong conclusion concernig the point I was trying to make. I've since clarified if you care to take the time to read the rest of the thread.

 

[Shogun]

maybe you think more of the decision the librarian will make about what to filter out than I do.

maybe I can comprehend that net porn isn't at all simlar to works by the great ******* bard.

 

[ReillyT]

no shit. I didn't ask if net porn was obscene. I already know that. IM asking you for the specific criteria that NETPORN must pass according to the SCOTUS standard of the Miller court.

and no, the Vector thingwasn't already addressed. I expect more than your word and opinion when makeing assumptions about constitutional coverage.

prove it, dude.

Gray areas? sure. NET PORN is not gray.

I just told you. Look at the Pico case.

With respect to Miller, I am not sure what you are asking. You listed the criteria yourself.

 

[Ravi]

I only know that books can't be removed from high school libraries for political or partisan reasons. The protections of the First Amendment might go much further even with respect to high school libraries, and they may go much further with respect to public libraries. That was just the case that I found after searching for a couple of minutes. That was only meant to demonstrate that the 1st Amendment does limit the government even in government provided forums. I don't know what the precise limits are with respect to different forums.

People try to get books banned for all sorts of reasons. As far as I can tell they lose eventually because of the 1st.

For instance, a lot of the reasons on this list have nothing to do with political speech:

3 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Reason for challenges: racism, homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

18 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language, violence

24 Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Reason for challenges: racism, offensive language, violence

31 Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Reason for challenges: homosexuality, sexually explicit

39 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language

42 Beloved by Toni Morrison
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, violence

67 The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language

71 Native Son by Richard Wright
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language, violence

75 Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language, occult

85 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Reason for challenges: racism, sexually explicit, offensive language

86 Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Reason for challenges: sexually explicit, offensive language

Other books written by authors of color challenged during this period include Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry (offensive language) by Mildred D. Taylor and American Indian Myths and Legends (sexually explicit) by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/challengedauthorsofcolor.cfm

 

[Shogun]

We can, but frankly the community standards criteria is so amorphous I wouldn't even know where to start or how to evaluate it. It is a silly criteria.


SILLY, eh? well, thanks for your opinion. Now, did you want to address the precedent of the Miller court regarding obscenity or not?


That is the question. The government is definitely prohibited from inhibiting certain kinds of expression in certain vectors (see school libraries). The question is how far this prohibition goes. I don't know the answer, but I think there are valid arguments on both sides with respect to the library issue.



so, what HS did YOU go to that had the joy of Sex available to 15 year olds? You don't think the .gov CANT prohibit hustler mag from the high school mag rack? Come on, dude. You are not defending Ulyses here.



Additionally (just to add another layer of complexity), when we are discussing fundamental rights like the First Amendment, the government also has to employ the least restrictive means to accomplish its compelling interest. Even if we assume that protecting children from pornography is a compelling interest under the circumstances, is filter technology the least restrictive means? Are there other ways to accomplish the goal and still allow unlimited access to the internet for adults?

sure. Nixing internet access. The net is a great resource but it's no more required, CONSTITUTIONALLY, than any other method of communication or technology.

Is pushing free access to net porn on public grounds worth it?

 

[Ravi]

uh, can the government restrict Lolita from public high schools, dude? What about The Joy of Sex? I love how you people cling to Mockingbird because of it's VOCABULARY but don't even try to reach into the PORNOGRAPHIC pile of literature.

Besides, do you think Mockingbird would be similarly available to your arguement if someone in the book got fucked in the ass? and LIKED it?


Ever read HOWL from a HS library? Is it a slight agaisnt your first amendment rights if every HS in America doesn't have Lolita, JOS, and Howl? No, your vector defense doesn't work and you can't prove it Constitutionally, through amendment or precedent, anyway. How many public libraries have YOU seen stock the entire back catalogue of Busty Magazine?

When does throwing a pie in the face of a speaker become free speach, dude? This is why it's abusing the first amendment to pretend it's a blank check. it's not.

it does NOT protect the right to recieve; ONLY express. cite specific cases otherwise since my opinion filter is getting worn out with this thread.

I hope you aren't trying to make a case that porn magazines are somehow educational.

 

[ReillyT]

Gray areas? sure. NET PORN is not gray.

Most internet pornography isn't gray. However, there are always borderline cases. Take Playboy for example. I know it is cliche to say that one reads it for the articles, but over the years Playboy has actually had a lot of famous interviews with people of interest. Does Playboy get banned?

Actually, I am pretty sure that Playboy is subscription, but hopefully you get the idea. Even with (perhaps it is better to say especially with) pornography, there are gray areas.