I see I'm going to have to have to remind the new legislators of the content of the First Amendment on a regular basis:

No law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I'm not against porn, but I do wish it wasn't everywhere. I mean, when I flip through the hotel channels with my kid the categories that come up are TV, Porn and All Other Movies. It'd be nice if you had to, you know, go looking for it beyond just turning the TV on.

There is a distinction between private and public that needs to be made.

Get off of my lawn! You'l scare the horses.

In 2007, Romney swore that if he were elected president, he would put a porn filter on every computer.

Bollocks.

Here is what he really said:

While running for president last cycle, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2007 cut a campaign ad called “Ocean,” where he vowed to “clean up the water in which our kids are swimming.”

“I’d like to keep pornography from coming up on their computers,” Romney said in the ad.

He also expressed a desire in the ad to “keep drugs off the streets” and “see less violence and sex on TV and in video games and in movies.”

But hey, don't let an annoying thing like facts get in the way.

BTW, I wonder if Stagliano is looking forward to a career in porn for his daughter?

Amy, please forgive the thread hi-jack but this is kind of related.

Remember in June, when I posted about the New Haven police arresting a woman and confiscating her cell phone because she was videotaping an over-zealous cop with it? Well, apparently all charges against her have been dropped. I know Patrick had said he wondered how that would turn out, so (from the WTNH website):

"Charges dropped in videotaping case

Updated: Friday, 14 Sep 2012, 10:32 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 14 Sep 2012, 10:32 AM EDT

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Charges have been dropped against a woman who was arrested by New Haven Police for videotaping the arrest of another man.

Jennifer Gondola captured the video on her iPhone outside a city nightclub back in June.

Sergeant Chris Rubino was suspended by the force after an internal affairs investigation found he violated department rules and showed poor judgment."

I'm glad justice prevailed in this case! Sometimes the system does work.

Actually, what Romney said in 2007 was “I want to make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography, and that parents can click that filter to make sure their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on their computer.”

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K61UADVD4VA

Frankly, being curious about the efficacy of such filters, I came across this this article re: the issue of library's trying to filter out porn. See http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/IT-Management/Library-Filtering-Remains-Controversial-581401/

An expert cited in the article said that such filters are only 85% effective. And a rep from the ALA further added: "The practical effect is often simply that students learn how to bypass the filters using proxy servers and other hacks, she says."

“I’d like to keep pornography from coming up on their computers,” Romney said in the ad."

How would he do that without putting a porn filter on every computer? How does Best Buy know whether a computer being sold is for a child's use?

The only way Romney (as opposed to parents, whose job it should be) can keep porn away from kids is to keep it away from all of us.

Unless he has some magic way to do it, which, to be fair, seems to be his strategy to do some of the other bullshit he's promised. (i.e. cut taxes, cut the deficit, not touch the military, Medicare, or Social Security)

I'd rather see the government crack down on trafficking and raise the legal age for participating in making porn to 21, instead of hassling hotels. If you're too young to buy a beer, you're too young to do porn which will follow you around for the rest of your life.

Blahblahblahblahblah. This is just designed to rile up Special Interest Group #632 with sky-is-falling predictions and propaganda so they go vote.

The NRA, as one of many examples, does the same rabble rousing on the right. "Obama is coming for your guns! Oh, just because he did little if anything against gun rights in his first term just means it'll be WAY worse in his second term! Liberals and tigers and bears, oh my!"

How would he do that without putting a porn filter on every computer? How does Best Buy know whether a computer being sold is for a child's use?

Mostly, if not exclusively, content filtering is done through web browsers; you are about as likely to find a web browser without a filter as you to buy a car without wheels.

Anyway, suggesting we should keep pron away from children is not only obvious, but also leagues away from "stopping consenting adults from making, selling, or buying it."

At least for anyone not looking for an axe to grind.

Fun fact. The channel guide on my DVR contains, for a few examples:

18-Year-Old Insertions Petite Boobie Bang Ride Me Hard Lustful for Lesbians ...

Users can set a code to restrict adult content, but there is no way to block the titles themselves.

My kids need to see this stuff while channel surfing? Really?

You bring up a point that is too often missed. People do not want to ban Mary had a Little Lamb and My Fair Lady. They want to ban unpopular, vile, disgusting, bigoted, offensive speech and art.

The First Amendment exists only to protect the depraved and detested not the sweet and admired. As long as the expression is not part of committing a crime (e.g. child pornography), it needs to be defended regardless of how much we hate it.

I agree with JoJo, better yet lets raise the age of consenting to sex to 25 and just castrate all the guys and burn at the stake all the women who participate in such a filthy fucking act.

Age of consent rules are such a fucking joke in this country. And so are moral busybodies

Jeff,

You should complain to your TV service provider about that. They can then alter their programmed Channel Guide to be work better for you, their customer.

Sorry about the grammar,
to be work good grammar is not.

I meant to work better for you.

Gee, Jeff. Wrong, I see.

Now, just how do you intend to stop a picture of Jenna Jameson's latest gynecological workout from appearing? Filenames don't work. Suppose you see a file named, "Lilies of the Field.jpg".

There's no way to tell what it actually shows - especially if the file extension is wrong, but the intended recipient knows that - without opening it.

Here we go again. Who do you want to pay to protect you? Government? If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't object, right?

"The First Amendment exists only to protect the depraved and detested not the sweet and admired."
This is popular, but totally fabricated bullshit. The authors weren't protecting your "right" to call a cross dipped in urine "art". They were making sure government could not suppress speech about the future course of government.

The use of the amendment to protect income came much later. You don't have a right to watch anything!

Jeff:
First off, you didn't answer my question, that is, what specific steps, as an elected official, can Romney take to prevent children from having porn that won't restrict adults?

Also, web browsers do not come standard with porn filters.

And of course, kids shouldn't watch porn. But it's parents job to keep kids away from porn, not Mitt Romney's.

And finally, fun fact, nobody forced you to have your illicit-porn-title-filled DVR in your house. You paid for it, and probably waited at home for several hours for the cable company to deliver it.

IMO, porn's popularity is the symptom, not the disease.
The Age of Piracy was about miserable life on land. That Age faded when life on land began improving.
Start giving people better lives today and porn will go away.

Actually, what Romney said in 2007 was “I want to make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography, and that parents can click that filter to make sure their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on their computer.”

Why aren't parents capable of shopping for and choosing a computer themselves, and selecting one that has filters pre-installed, or buying one separately and installing one? Why should the government dictate how the product is designed and marketed when there are market choices for consumers to address the issue?

Those seem to be questions that real conservatives, as opposed to social-nanny-staters, would ask.

[spqr 2008:] You should complain to your TV service provider about that. They can then alter their programmed Channel Guide to be work better for you, their customer.

I did, they can't. (Well, to be perfectly accurate, I can set up a favorites list that excludes those channels, but that list must be selected each time I turn on the DVR. So yeah, there's a solution, but it is worthless.)

[Radwaste:] Here we go again. Who do you want to pay to protect you? Government? If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't object, right?

Amy attributing to Romney a position he did not, in fact, come close to taking is what I'm objecting to.

Jeff:
Amy is attributing to Romney a position which is exactly precisely the position he expressed ON VIDEO.

Here is the link:
http://bit.ly/ON0ORO

You are wrong. Absolutely wrong. Couldn't be any wronger if your name was H. Wrongy Wrongenstein.

And again, who was it that forced you at gunpoint to have the salacious DVR in your house?

Dont all non TIVO dvrs have the capability to change the title manually?

Clinky, you need to get your ears cleaned. Where in that video does Romney say he wants to throw porn producers in jail and throw away the key? He said exactly what Jeff reported him saying: that he wants computers to have filtering capabilities that parents can use. In fact, his position almost precisely echoed the position that Clinton took with his call for televisions to be equipped with the "V-chip" (whatever that was supposed to be).

However, you are correct in that even if the government mandated such a thing (thereby making the cost of computers go up), it would not do much good. The private sector has already produced an almost endless variety of net-nannying software packages and services. These may only be 85% solutions, but for younger children with parents who give a damn, that's good enough; a government mandate would accomplish nothing further. As for teenagers, if they want to find porn, they will. Hell, we found porn when I was a teenager, and we didn't even have an Internet.

Finally, as to which speech the First Amendment protects, the correct answer is: All of it. Because, if you say "The sky sure is blue today", there is somebody out there who thinks that your saying so is disgusting and perverted and ought to be be banned.

Clinky, you need to get your ears cleaned. Where in that video does Romney say he wants to throw porn producers in jail and throw away the key?

The part where he talks about enforcing obscenity laws?

I don't believe in censorship of any kind. And I wish my belief enforced in my household, not the beliefs of government empowered busy bodies. I don't want to pay for government required crap that I will not use. I simply want the government to stay out of my home, is that too much to ask?

Does anyone else remember the US Government mandated "V"-chip for TVs?

Did your great-grandmother get arrested because her bathing suit stopped before reaching three inches below the knee?

Or Newt Gingrich proclaiming that divorce is aborrhent - two wives ago?

Like prostitution, I do not consider "porn" a problem in itself: rather those involved who use force (whether physical or psychological) to get/keep participants.

Hell, we found porn when I was a teenager, and we didn't even have an Internet.

As I recall from my days as a horny teenager, I didnt even need porn to jerk of, a shift in the wind and a half remembered hip hop video more than sufficed

clinky, ken, Amy:

It is perfectly clear the Romney wants provide parents--not government--the ability to block objectionable content.

And he also wants to enforce existing obscenity laws, which are ... well, what exactly? (Other than selling adult content to minors, I can't think of any.)

So if you can find a federal law that will punish people for producing or consuming content that is protected by the 1st Amendment then by all means I am wrong.

But, I'll bet you can't.

And since you can't, the Amy's whole premise collapses. Whether through negligence or uncritical willingness to believe anything that confirms her prejudices, it is hard to say.

And again, who was it that forced you at gunpoint to have the salacious DVR in your house?

Wow, you missed that point by a mile. The question should be: why must people be exposed to titles that they are perfectly entitled to find revolting (BTW, apologies for bad typing. It isn't a DVR thing, it is the way the cable system works. Users cannot block channels without establishing a favorites list, and that list must be specifically called up each time the cable box is turned on. Sounds like that is the sort of thing Romney thinks is a bad idea. Anyone care to argue he's wrong? Anyone care to argue that parents shouldn't be provided the means to block that stuff?)

If you're a parent, YOU censor what your children can see. Don't try to make the rest of us pay extra for censoring software or other things that take the place of doing your job as a parent.

What vapid nonsense. Oh, wait, you are right, kids NEVER do things they aren't supposed to when their parents aren't watching.

I am woefully inept when it comes to technology, but why don't you contact your cable provider and find out if the titles can be removed?

Alternatively, you could cancel your cable subscription. Nobody forced you to order it.

Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but your kids (I don't know how old they are), are most definitely gonna get their hands on some pornography. They're gonna masterbate to it too. Sorry to burst your puritan bubble.

>>Hell, we found porn when I was a teenager, and we didn't even have an Internet.

We found porn in the woods near my house, when I was a kid. Didn't kill me or warp my mind looking at it.

Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but your kids (I don't know how old they are), are most definitely gonna get their hands on some pornography. They're gonna masterbate to it too. Sorry to burst your puritan bubble.

Meloni, please re-read what I've written, this time for comprehension.

Perhaps I misread, but I dunno. I still think it's your job to monitor your kids. We shouldn't all have to live on Sesame Street because you can't monitor their every move, and I wouldn't be suprised if your cable box is programmable. Just call your provider.

Oh I see. There was an extra chunk of the paragraph you quoted that got nixed somewhere. Not sure it will make a difference to you, but I'll see about getting it back. Sadly, I'm not independently wealthy and must finish my workday first.

The Republicans bleat about how they're the party of small government -- which they aren't.

Republicans want government off people's backs...and in their pants.

"It is perfectly clear the Romney wants provide parents--not government--the ability to block objectionable content."

Solutions for that already exist. It took google less than a quarter of a second to return over 11 million results for "Parental Control Software." It takes maybe an hour of your life to research, purchase, and install the ability to block objectionable content. Why would we need the computer equivalent of V chips installed? The technology exists. It's readily available if someone wants it. There is zero need for a government mandate on the topic.

I'm with you Elle - although I'm sure that many kids will find a way around any technology that comes up (God love 'em, LOL).

If complaining to your cable company about the logistics of the delivery of their services doesn't work, I do have a couple of other solutions: (i) switch providers (if possible)/try satellite TV or (ii) CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION (you'll save money and, perhaps, be able to spend more time with your kids).

Late comment! -

It's remarkable that TV providers can't figure out a way to exploit the audience for PG-or-cleaner programming. That's got to be a huge market. There are plenty of people in the world who just don't like explicit material... It's been said that the well-covered nipples of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues are the most profitable pornography in history. That may even be true! And the buyers who made it that successful are neither prudes nor naïve.

(I jus' love them little double-dot ï's.)

Presumably the TV services make so much money on porn that they can't risk losing a sale by putting a signal in your house without offering Busty Coeds on a Nekked Sex Rampage for an extra charge.

But at this point, that's what we're talking about. These are private commercial services. If you don't like the one you're paying for, you should buy another one... Or you should just buy, rent, and download the individual programs you want in your home.

Almost no one gets their television entertainment (etc.) from over-the-air transmitters anymore. The most popular "broadcasters" aren't using public airwaves; they therefore shouldn't put up with Congress telling them how to improve their product.

(I don't see the authority by which Congress can tell non-broadcast services how loud their commercials should be, either: A vendor who offends his audience deserves to lose viewers, and government has no business preventing those viewers & providers from negotiating their exchange.)

This is precisely the kind of intrusion we saw from the White House on Friday, when it asked Google to confirm that "Innocence of Muslims" complied with Google's own (entirely private) guidelines.

Inexcusable. Inexcusable.

(more)

Here— Watch Welch clean Hurlburt's pretty little clock... And be sure to move the end of the clip selection to a few minutes later... For some reason, the best parts of the argument were excluded. The woman is trying to pretend there's an excuse for telling people when to stop talking while simultaneously claiming to be a free speech absolutist.

Pussyfooting has gotta stop.


I sincerely, sincerely sympathize with people who want their children and the rest of their families to move through public life without incessant depictions of exploitation and indulgence.

While I personally prefer a private life full of vulgarity and shamelessness, I agree that our common spaces should be courteously decorous.

But that's it. Private communications should be just that. If you don't want to watch videos of naked people or depictions of Allah, don't.

Leave government out of it.

[elle:] Solutions for that already exist. It took google less than a quarter of a second to return over 11 million results for "Parental Control Software."

Exactly, and thank you for making my main point: Amy's post grotesquely mischaracterized what Romney actually said.

(I would happily agree that Romney is sufficiently ignorant of how computers work that he isn't aware that what he wants is already there, and that the computer equivalent of the V-chip is impossible.)

[crid:] But that's it. Private communications should be just that. If you don't want to watch videos of naked people or depictions of Allah, don't.

Leave government out of it.

One portmanteau: telemarketers

Not sure what you mean...

I only gave up my landline last year (or earlier this year). By the end it was pretty much used only as an emotional relief valve when telemarketers called, because I always felt free to say horrible things to them, expressing hatreds collected from other corners of life. And mine is a life of many corners.

But what I think happened is that the yuppie-ish Iphone-owning lawyers at the FTC lost interest in protecting old-time telephone owners.

Anyway, I'm not sure how this applies to government interruption of other communications. The Do Not Call registry wasn't written to trim the rights of telemarketers to communicate with us, it was about preventing them from seizing our resources for their own profiteering.

When there's a law (enforced) against telephone solicitation, the point is not to interrupt speech, it's to prevent private property (the communications channel) from being waylaid by

Whoops, bad edit. New browser install.

The Do Not Call registry did, in fact, impede free speech (in principle, it is no different from a centralized registry to stop proselytizers from knocking on doors). The reason for it was that there was no means, short of yanking the cord out of the wall, to prevent the intrusions.

IMHO, there is no meaningful distinction between that and wanting the government to provide a means for individuals to establish a barrier against unwanted intrusions of what they view as indecent material, short of yanking the cable out of the wall.

In other words, it isn't at all clear to me on what principle one could think the former a good thing (is there anyone who doesn't?), while decrying the latter as a sign of the impending constitutional apocalypse.

Wow, you guys have a strange idea about "free speech" - even as I admit it has become the popular view.

Why do you think it guarantees income?

And Jeff - if you think that "free speech" means that someone must listen (I'm looking at your assertion about the Do No Call list), you're really off.

> on what principle one could think the former
> a good thing (is there anyone who doesn't?),
> while decrying the latter

The DNC list defended a citizen's private resource, one he'd paid to enjoy; the telephone line by which he could initiate and receive individual communications. Telemarkers were pilfering that investment.

But people don't complain a that a cable or satellite TV service has commercials per se, since those are often the whole point of watching.

I remember an interview with producer Aaron Spelling discussing the phenomenal success of the TV show Dynasty; he gave a lot of sincere credit to the famous designer of the evening gowns, which were sure to be discussed in women's offices the morning after the show. The fashionable ideas in television shows (etc.) are often every bit as commercial as the 30-second ads.

(I love watching F1 races on television. There are often no views of the action which don't have a loud, clear advertisement. Consider all the red you see on this web page, and remember that Ferrari's investment in that racing franchise is absolutely essential for the health of that car company.)

Buying cable TV service and saying you like these particular ads but not those is a discussion of tastes. I don't see that we need to get Congress involved.

> in principle, it is no different from a
> centralized registry to stop proselytizers
> from knocking on doors

Also, you can still use your porch, even if there's a Jehovah's Witness standing on it, which is not how it works with phones. Also, you can be so incredibly rude to a Jehovah's Witness that he'll go back to Provo and tell his friends never to darken your door again, whereas telemarketers work at safe remove from your response. (...Beyond mockery for being high-school educated and needy and unattractive and sexually dysfunctional, which was the best way to handle them.)

the FTC didn't tell people to get out of the marketing business, or to stop communicating: they told them to stop horsing around on other people's phone lines.

[Amy:] Wrong. You have the write to speak your advertising message in the public square. You do not have a right to invade my home, using a device I pay for, and steal my time when I answer it. You likewise do not have a right to walk into my house without my permission, enter my living room and give me a speech.

[Radwaste:] And Jeff - if you think that "free speech" means that someone must listen (I'm looking at your assertion about the Do No Call list), you're really off.

As a matter of now decided constitutional law, you are right. (Just in case you think it is obvious that should be so, google [free speech "do not call registry" volokh]) Here is a quick read on the issues at stake.

However, as an undeniable practical matter, the DNC registry does impede certain types of speech (telemarketers) in favor of others (charities, political campaigns). The government is acting as a content based censor on your behalf.

Which demonstrates my point. You are perfectly happy to have the government categorize and impede speech for you when it involves coming up to your door, or ringing your phone. Yet within practically the same breath, you slam Romney for proposing the government impede commercial speech for you when it involves your computer.

After disabusing yourself of the confusion between ends and means, there is no difference between the two. If you believe that property rights trump some speech rights then that must be the case no matter the means through which the speech is conveyed.

You portray yourself as a 1A absolutist, yet you clearly aren't, and you fail to notice your own inconsistency.

(Note: I completely agree that property rights trump speech rights. I understand there is a contradiction between "Congress shall pass no law ..." and Congress, by distinguishing between types of speech, is doing just that.)

[Crid:] Buying cable TV service and saying you like these particular ads but not those is a discussion of tastes. I don't see that we need to get Congress involved.

My particular example was not ads, but rather the channel listing itself. It is next to impossible to use the device people are paying for (like a phone) and exclude commercial speech (the program titles) that parents might just as soon their kids not see, and whose preference in the matter might not be diagnostic of crushing sexual repression.

So, just as the DNC registry demonstrates, Congress can have a role in establishing standards allowing individuals the ability to exclude speech based upon content.

(And with regard to my example, it is perfectly doable. There is no reason set-up preferences shouldn't allow me to exclude any channels I want. For example, pretty much all the 700 series, every religious channel, definitely the home shopping stuff, and MSNBC.)

That is different from watching F1 races, because it is an activity I chose (except when I can't: Singapore Q-day tickets are sold out. Sad face.)

It breaks my heart when you two kids can't get along.

Your Mother and I have worked so hard over the years to provide you with a home environment in which feelings of nourishing affection and respectful courtesy are the highest priority... Shown both by the rules we've set for you, but also in our treatment of your and each other. But then you get in the backseat for a long trip to Grammaw's, and all you do is bicker the whole way.

More shortly.

[Amy:] PS Jeff. Logic is pretty. Try it!

You wouldn't know logic if Alan Turing delivered it to your front door on a silver platter.

Despite that, I'll try again to explain. The point of your post (I'll take your lack of response as tacit acknowledgment that through either negligence or gullibility you distorted what Romney said beyond recognition) was content based censorship.

That is an "end".

Regarding the Internet -- this is not "push" technology. If you don't wish to see something on the Internet, don't dial up the page. People are not shoving web pages at you onto your computer.

The internet is a "means". Telephones, newspapers, televisions, et al are means, they are conveyances for speech, not speech itself.

Thanks to the DNC registry, it is now an established principle that individuals may exclude content based speech from the homes.

How that speech gets there is beside the point; means are not ends.

Your mixing them up, which you do when insisting that the content free technical trivia of "push" or "pull" is somehow relevant to providing the means for attaining the end of content based censorship means you are making what is perhaps the most basic of logical errors: a category mistake.

(If you are still having problems with the concept of ends and means, read Cornerstones of Information Warfare. It goes into some detail about the ends & means distinction. Okay, I grant it is a stretch tying that to this, but I wrote it, and it isn't every day I get to engage in shameless self aggrandizement. Or a chance to demonstrate to you what that word means.)

Your comment doesn't rebut mine, but it's cute that you think it does.

Next time I need an example of a non-responsive response, I'll link to this.

Being a charitable sort, I took the most generous possible meaning of your comment. Taken any other way, it is merely empty twaddle irrelevantly restating the obvious, en route to demonstrating your inability to analyze a problem.

BTW, when you so completely goon up what somebody says, fessing up is the classy thing to do.

Plus, it's good for the soul.

> Congress can have a role in establishing
> standards allowing individuals the ability
> to exclude speech based upon content.

Well, they'll do whatever we let them get away with. I think they're making far too much trouble as it is. If the yolks are too runny at Denny's, do we have to call Congress, or can we just take our business to Shoney's?

> it is perfectly doable. There is no
> reason set-up preferences shouldn't
> allow me to exclude any channels I want.

So why not subscribe to a service that does that?

[Crid:] Well, they'll do whatever we let them get away with. I think they're making far too much trouble as it is.

Agreed.

But I don't see how one can coherently argue that DNC is a good thing (I hate telemarketers as much as the next person) and something exactly analogous to DNC is not.

And, FWIW, I don't have any objections to porn*. Further, if porn was at all harmful in the way religionists have insisted it is, then the great social experiment that is the internet would have demonstrated that long ago.

Man, if there was ever a dog that didn't bark, this would be it.

> it is perfectly doable. There is no > reason set-up preferences shouldn't > allow me to exclude any channels I want.

So why not subscribe to a service that does that?

Simple. TiVo is (or was, when I last checked) $15/month more than what the cable company charges, plus around $400 for the unit, and my give-a-damn isn't even close to that.

I meant that as a real world example of the sort of thing people are entitled to not want in their houses, but that is needlessly difficult to avoid. Whether through design, or sh*tty design,(both are plausible explanations), I don't know.

Well, things are never "precisely analogous"... they're just similar in some way. I maintain that the disabling intrusion of telemarketers on your private line is a different class of problem than a minor discrepancy of taste in a fully commercial entertainment signal.

> my give-a-damn isn't even close to that.

This is why I think there oughta be a market solution instead of a governmental one.

I don't worry too deeply that the porn people will suffer too terribly from government busybodies. When Edwin Meese tried to do this in the 80's, he didn't get very far. There's so much porn around nowadays that nobody's making a profit on it, right? Who exactly is going to be prosecuted?

> "precisely analogous"

Did I type that? Really? The English translation of "precisely analogous" would have to be "identical". That's just embarrassing.

You are right, telemarketing was more egregious. However, once commercial speech becomes a separate, and (legally) inferior category of speech then (IMH Not a lawyer Opinion) that cat is out of the bag.

When Edwin Meese tried to do this in the 80's, he didn't get very far.

Nor did Ashcroft. He only managed to drape a cloth over a perky statue.

(Volokh recently had a post on this exactly precisely identically analogous point: enforcing the laws is impossible).

I don't think human nature is particularly flexible, because if it was, communism would have worked. Therefore, I also don't think that porn has any particular impact on anything.

When I was a kid, all I ever got to see was the occasional Playboy, which was scarcely more than all the prior generations of kids.

Now they can see as much of every conceivable kind of porn, including some kinds that should never have been thought of, as they can jam into every hour of the day.

Automatically assuming that isn't going to leave a mark is really a faith based conclusion, not a fact.

Those who slam cultural conservatives need to keep that in mind.

I agree in all respects, but just look at that guy in the blog item... Or just look at how his concerns were described, which is just as damning.

> Trueman believes porn is eroding the very
> fiber that holds America together: ruining
> marriages, altering brains, breaking down
> inhibitions.

1. "The very fiber" is a horrid and dessicated turn of phrase. Whoever decided to use it, whether the subject or the reporter, is not too tidy. It's like they're celebrating the fact that they're on autopilot

2. There are probably some marriages "ruined" by porn or just by masturbation, but it's hard to believe those unions were built for weather anyway.

3. "Altering brains". If only! (see #1, above.)

4. "Breaking down inhibitions". This could do some people a lot of good, depending.

You don't have to like porn to hate those people.

(in principle, it is no different from a centralized registry to stop proselytizers from knocking on doors).

Answering the door naked with a dildo covered in chocolate pudding gets rid of them pretty fast.

Jeff. Which cable/satalite company do you have and what model of DVR?

[crid:] Trueman believes porn is eroding the very fiber that holds America together: ruining marriages, altering brains, breaking down inhibitions.

I'll be he has, ummm, issues.

However, he isn't the only one who thinks the widespread availability and nature of porn is problematic, for different reasons (i.e., plausible, as opposed to anything along the lines of not draining our precious bodily fluids).

[lujlp:] Which cable/satellite company do you have and what model of DVR?

It is an Alaskan cable company, GCI.

I'm on the road, so I can't tell you what model the DVR is.

However, its software is the most hacked up, incapable, error-prone, bizarrely craptastic stuff I have ever seen. And that is after it has gradually become less awful than it once was.

When I lived in Michigan, we had a TiVo through DirectTV. It was brilliant.

I guess we now know my price point to trade dreck for brilliance is somewhat south of $400 + $130 per year.

> he isn't the only one who thinks the widespread
> availability and nature of porn is problematic

The goofy old woman has a point.

But it's pathetic that people would allow ANY part of their lives to be guided by pop media... Whether it's sex, food or politics. When you pay someone to pander, you shouldn't complain that they're not telling the truth.