Fair question. And I don't mean to be to push the point too far but I do very much appreciate your willingness to discuss the issue in this fashion.
More tea, vicar? (I'm sorry RandFan, but your increasing attempts to paint yourself as the White Knight to curry favour from those easily influenced is as insincere as it is nauseating. It's typical political vote trail tactics that anybody with a modicum of intelligence can see straight through like a cellophane rain mac, and you're insulting those to whom you direct it, whether they see it and/or are prepared to admit seeing it or not!).
I truly do find the material upsetting and disturbing. Before I address the hypothetical let me just say something. I suspect that such a prohibition would not lead to a slippery slope and the loss of freedoms. Then again I don't think that had
Larry Flynt lost his case it would have lead to any such landslide. In fact, I think most such cases, in and of them-self wouldn't lead to serious deleterious effect. However, the best way to ensure that we don't lose our freedoms is to avoid death by a thousand cuts. Each loss weakens the security we enjoy. It's inconsistent to say, "well, just this once"?
Now
THAT has to be the biggest and most blatant combination of contradiction and commission of the straw man fallacy in a single statement that I've probably ever seen. I can see, now, why you saw fit to particularly presage it with an appeal to emotion ("buttering up", would actually be more accurate).
But regardless, the "well, just this once" comment - what "loss", exactly, are you alluding to? Being the absolutist that you clearly are, I take it you disagreed with
everything written in Section 3.3 of Part Two: Chapter 3 of the Meese Report (see Post #1482 above, for ease of reference), and that it's simply a "loss of freedom" - period.
On to your hypothetical. Intuitively I'm tempted to say yes. I find nothing redeeming about virtual child porn. But then I find nothing redeeming about daytime soap operas either. I don't mean to be glib. Yes, I do see a difference between the two. It's just that I'm not sure that I trust my instincts as to what is redeeming.
And why, exactly, should the vague and spurious characteristic of "
redemption" be the measure against which objective comparisons should be drawn?
That said, we still have our first Amendment rights and I would speak out against any nation that didn't value free speech rights above speculative harm.
And out comes the absolutist safety net again!
There are both less and more plausible challenges to the Supreme Court's approach to obscenity. Among the least plausible, and usually more rhetorical device than serious argument, is the view that the First Amendment is in some way an "absolute," protecting, quite simply, all speech. Even Justices Black and Douglas, commonly taken to be "absolutists," would hardly have protected all spoken or written acts under the First Amendment, and on closer inspection all those accused of or confessing to "absolutism" would at the very least apply their absolutism to a range of spoken or written acts smaller than the universe of all spoken, written or pictorial acts. This is not to deny that under the views of many, including Black and Douglas, what is now considered obscene should be within the universe of what is absolutely protected. But "absolutism" in unadulterated form seems largely a strawman, and we see no need to use it as a way of avoiding difficult questions. [emphasis added] (Meese Report, Section 3.1, Part Two : Chapter 3).
Let me give you a hypothetical. A police officer illegally breaks into a suspects home and seizes a stash of child pornography (real not virtual). There's no question the sleazeball has harmed children and it is likely that he will do it again. Should we honor the law and throw out the evidence or should we allow the evidence into trial? [emphasis added]
Do you see the problems with this wonderfully thought-through hypothetical (I've highlighted them)? I'll spell them out to you:
On what basis is there "
no question the sleazeball has harmed children" [and therefore committed a serious crime] and that it is "
likely" that he will do it again"?
If there
are valid bases why was there a need to "illegally break into" the premises? Why not simply obtain a warrant and arrest the guy in the "normal" manner?
So in answer to your question, the police work here seems so shoddy that
of course we should honor the law. This seems like a classic example of the
very reason for which inadmissible evidence rules were introduced.
Wow Randfan - you've certainly excelled in this post, haven't you!
Took a minute to see the humans.
