What do you mean? Are you saying that if people videotaped a child being beaten or killed and then sold the video, people would not have a problem with that?
Can you give an example?
Even if what you say is true, it simply establishes that they are not thought of as analogous, not that they aren’t analogous.
Am I misunderstanding you? Because it really looks to me that you believe that the desire to exploit children- not the exploitation itself, but the desire- should be illegal.
Lamia
So… free speech for everyone, unless it’s inconvenient?
THE RYAN, I am going to require that you address yourself to points I did make, and I am not going to waste my time defending points I did not.
I said “Apparently, we as a society do not have the same hang-ups about violence that we do about sex, which I doubt anyone is surprised by.” To which you reply:
Did I say that? No, I did not.
I said “But if we put ‘protecting children from violence’ in one basket and ‘free speech’ in the other, then the scales tend to tip to the ‘free speech’ side.” To which you reply:
Sure. American Amusement Machine Ass’n v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001): An injunction is directed entered to enjoin a city from enforcing an ordinance prohibiting the playing of graphically violent video games by minors, on the grounds that the ordinance violated the video game manufacturers’ rights to free speech.
I said “The two are therefore not analogous, and one cannot simply be substituted for the other.” To which you reply:
This is simply the semantic quibbling it appears to be. They are not treated analogously in the law because they are not deemed (or “thought of”) to be analogous. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that “violence and obscenity are distinct categories of objectionable depiction.” Winters v. New York[/u[, 333 U.S. 507, 518-20, 92 L. Ed. 840, 68 S. Ct. 665 (1948).
I said “I think the compelling state interest in banning child porn extends to combatting the dissemination of materials that appear to feature children, because the underlying prediliction remains the same – the desire to exploit children or see them exploited.”
To which you reply:
Did I say that? No, I did not. Clearly you misunderstood me, though I’m not sure how. The statement I did make is clear: one of the rationales for banning child porn is the belief that having it exacerbates the demand for it, and encourages the production of more of it. Beyond that, see above re: not defending points I didn’t make.
There have always been restrictions on free speech in the US, and with good reason. If you want to dismiss those reasons as mere “inconvenience” then you can go right ahead, but it’s not going to change anyone’s mind – not mine, and more importantly not the government’s.
IANAL, but I studied constitutional law as it applies to freedom of speech in both high school and college. So take my input with a grain of salt.
First of all, there are at least two other categories of speech that the government has the right to restrict, both of which seem quite reasonable to me:
(1) unauthorized use of copyrighted materials
(2) invasion of privacy
As for the issue of Robodude’s point number 3, well, yes, it’s kinda vague. Which is why we have courts, hopfully with intelligent people on them. It is definitely illegal for a white supremacist to publish a leaflet saying “we’re gathering at 3:00 this Saturday in the town square. Bring kerosene, guns, and ropes. Then we will proceed to the houses of the following n*****s in quick succession, and kill them in the following fashions…”. It is definitely legal for a white supremacist to publish a leaflet saying “white people should rule this country as is their right, and stand up for those rights, with violence if necessary”.
Where precisely the line is drawn is something that we have courts and lawyers and precendent to establish, but the mere fact that it might be a tough line to draw doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to draw it.
First, I think the real evil of kiddie porn (and I speak of live underage “actors”) is not taping and selling it, but the actual doing of sexual abuse to the kids involved. That is the real crime to be stopped, and I think a lot of the adults who film it would be abusing kids anyway, with or without taping it. The videotape is almost incidental, the adult “actors” putting it to the kids do the real damage.
With a videotape, at least you have evidence to bring into a courtroom. You charge the adult “actors” with every possible crime against the child “actors”, and if you can establish identity, you can put somebody away for a thousand years. And if you can’t do it under current law, I would have no problem with amending child abuse laws to hammer the actors and producers.
But I have a real problem with hammering those people under speech/publishing laws.
Suppose, I plant a video camera in my …relative/neighbor/babysitter’s… house/bedroom/workplace… because I suspect someone is abusing a child. In fact, they are and I catch it in graphic detail. I go to the police with it. They convict whoever for rape/endangerment/whatever using the tape because they acquired it from a civilian and did not themselves violate the rights of the accused. A few years later some notable psychol/sociol/biol/ogist gains, maybe by a lawsuit against the city/state/whoever,access to the tape for scientific study. And it’s viewed at medical conventions by shrinks, docs, waitresses and AV technicians. Somewhere along the way, it’s copied, digitized and posted on the Web. No one had ever copyrighted it, but some sites sold it to the gullible/weird and some sites just give it away. And just so we don’t muddy the issue, the kid victim and the perpetrator and all the close families of both(maybe including me)died in a (massive) car wreck so nobody’s around to claim that ongoing distribution of the tape is causing them personal injury. And then somebody sues a Website because they claim the tape was used as a “How To” primer in the rape of their own child.
I’m sure there’s a few crimes here aside from the conviction for rape/endangerment, etc. , maybe even two or three by me, but how many of these things should be construed as crimes?
I have addressed myself to what I, in good faith, understand your points to be. I did so in a polite and non-presumptious manner. And yet you still insist on replying in a tone that I find overly combative and insulting. I really do not find you to be as committed to civil discourse as you claim to be.
We are discussing people videotaping the sexual abuse of children, and the consensus seems to be that that is bad. During that discussion, you said that we do not have the same hangups about violence as we do about sex. It struck me as a valid inference from those preceding observations that you either do not think that videotaping violence against a child is bad, or that you do not think that there would be consensus to that effect. However, as you had not explicitly stated so, I asked for a clarification. You responded with an implication that I had been putting words in your mouth, something which I think was completely uncalled for. If that is not what you meant, what did you mean, and how is it relevant to this thread?
That is not an example of the government wanting to protect children from violence. This is an example of the government wanting to protect children from viewing violence. As there is less of a compelling interest on the part of the government, it is not surprising that there is a greater reluctance to abridge freedoms.
It is not semantic quibbling; it is a perfectly valid criticism of your argument. Are you seriously claiming that poniting out that “people think X is true” != “X is true” is “semantic quibbling”? (Note that once again I am trying to determine what your position is, not trying to tell you what it is). If that is not what you are saying, then how is it semantic quibbling?
Yes… and your point is? I am not trying to be flippant here; I really don’t see any logical connection between either “they are not treated analogously” or “they are not deemed analogously” and “they are not analogous”. This is a blatant appeal to authority/mass appeal, made even more egregious by your approbation of me for calling you on it, rather than conceding the point.
So is the USSC an authority on truth? If they ruled that pi is exactly three, would that settle the issue? Their authority is restricted to law, and the issue of whether violence and sex are analogous is not an issue of law (at least not exclusively).
You said (as far as I can tell) that the reason for the compelling state interest is that the desire to exploit children remains. In other words, the existence of a desire to hurt children is sufficient to restrict freedom. You clearly said that the reason that “the compelling state interest in banning child porn extends to combatting the dissemination of materials that appear to feature children” is because “the underlying prediliction remains the same – the desire to exploit children or see them exploited.” You said nothing about a compelling interest in preventing harm to children. The only reason you gave was preventing the desire to harm children. If you feel that I have somehow made an incorrect interpreation of your words, perhaps it would be more constructive to look for the source of confusion, rather than simply making the minimally informative statment that I have misunderstood you and not telling me what the misunderstanding is. Would you find my statment more accurate if I changed it to read “…it really looks to me that you believe that the desire to exploit children- not the exploitation itself, but the desire-[strikeout]should be illegal[/strikeout] constitutes a compelling interest.”?
Well, I find the terms “demand” and “desire” to be pretty much synomynous. So aren’t you saying that child porn should be illegal because it increases the desire for child porn?
:: Shrug :: You totally misread my posts, which IMO are clear on their face. You re-cast them in terms I did not use, and twist them to mean things they very obviously do not say. An exchange with you goes like this: Me: “Y. Y, Y, Y. Y Y Y, and Y.”. You: “So you mean X?” In light of your pronounced and repeated tendency to misread what I say, you will have to take my tone as you find it. Though I assure you, if I intend to insult you, you will know it.
This is clearly an insupportable inference – in fact, to assume from the general statement “society is more tolerant of violence than of sex” that I, personally, “do not think videotaping violence against a child is bad” is a surpassingly ridiculous inference. Hence my irritation.
Then stop misreading my posts. When you do so, you are misrepresenting what I said, even though what I did say is right there for you and everyone else to read.
What did I mean? I meant “Apparently, we as a society do not have the same hang-ups about violence that we do about sex, which I doubt anyone is surprised by.” Meaning, society does not treat violence in the same manner, with the same scrutiny and the same disapproval, as it does sex. I was speaking of depictions of sex and violence, which is after all the subject of the entire thread. I was more particularly addressing ANDROS’s point, which specifically dealt with violence in film. For you to extrapolate from that exchange that I would think actual violence committed on real children would be “not bad” is ridiculous – so ridiculous, in fact, that I could have been far more irritated about it, and rude to you about it, than I in fact was.
In this thread, only you are talking about actual violence committed against children, as opposed to depictions of violence versus depictions of sex. That case is, in fact, a perfect example of the government deciding that depictions of violence, no matter how graphic, are protected by free speech, even if viewed by children. It is safe to say that the court would not have ruled the same way if what the children were viewing was images of graphic sex instead of images of graphic violence. Let me parse out the exchange for you:
HAMLET: I believe X about computer-generated sex.
ANDROS: You could just as easily say “I believe X about computer-generated violence.” (Inference: Sex and violence are treated the same.)
ME: That’s not a valid substitution, because depictions of sex and depictions of violence are not treated the same. Free speech will generally trump depictions of violence, but will generally be curtailed for depictions of sex.
ANDROS: I know the substitution (and inference therefrom) wasn’t perfect.
THE RYAN: JODI, are you saying that people wouldn’t have a problem with a child being killed on film?
I mean, really. How the heck could any person possibly get that from what I said? No one else took that to be my meaning – because it very obviously wasn’t.
And why is the government’s interest “less compelling”? Because we as a society do not have the same hang-ups regarding depictions of graphic violence as we do about graphic sex. My point.
Yes. In this context, where I said “sex and violence are not analogous” and you incomprehesibly reply “people only think they’re not analogous” (your point being . . .?), I consider your statement to be a shining example of semantic quibbling. I highlight “in this context” given your tendency to read only part of what I say and then misconstrue it. So take note of “in this context;” that’s important. Excuse me if this is an unnecessary clarification, but given your misreading of what I say and your assertion that you do it “in good faith,” I must needs over-explain.
Sigh. THE RYAN, do you think sex and violence are analogous? If so, how? And why? You realize of course, that by disagreeing with my assertion that they are not, you must now defend your implicit assertion that they are. So where’s the analogy between them? Recall that the context of this thread is societal views and law. I fail to see how anyone could claim the two subjects are analogous in either context.
In the realm of the law, they are very obivously an authority on what is or is not an analogy. Is the meaning of pi a legal issue, or even one open to subjective interpretation? Is what does or does not constitute an analogy an objective, mathematically provable proposition, as is what amount equals pi?
This discussion deals with society and law. Every post of it does, except yours. What context you are arguing in, I’m at a loss to guess. Again, if you wish to argue that violence and sex are analgous in the realm of law or societal opinion (heck, in any other realm, even), then go for it.
Can you not read? You quoted the language yourself! I said the underlying prediliction to be combatted (which provides the compelling state interest) is “the desire to exploit childrenor see them exploited.” THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Jeezamoe, man, help me out here. Read every word I post. I say “A or B.” You reply, “So you think only B?” Why do you do that? If you take it that I said “nothing about preventing harm to children” it is only, apparently, that you do not consider harming children to be within the rubric of exploiting them – despite the fact that it very obviously is.
In light of the fact that I honestly believe that what I have said (and what I have meant) is very clear from my posts, I really don’t think you want me to speculate on the source of your confusion. If I say “A” and someone replies “So you mean B?”, the source of their confusion seems apparent to me, if impolitic to comment upon.
No. In light of the fact that I VERY CLEARLY said “exploitation OR desire to exploit,” I would be just as aggravated at this misconstruction. This is actually a clear example of the problem: I VERY CLEARLY – it’s right there for all to see – said “A or B.” You reply – right up there, in the quote above – “It really looks to me like you’re saying B – not A, but only B.” This is so obviously not what I said that I am flummoxed by your protestations that you have “in good faith” read it to mean something it does not say. I mean really: Does it say that? No. It don’t.
I am saying that one of the rationales for making child porn illegal is because having access to it and viewing it increases the demand (or desire) to see/have more of it, which in turn increases the likelihood that children will be exploited to make more of it. To over-explain again, the thought process is A->B->C. The ultimate rationale is C, not B, and you if I say (as I have) that the rationale is “A leads to B leads to C,” the someone else (you) cannot reasonably recast that as my having said that the rationale is only “A leads to B.” Because it ain’t, and I never said it was.
So, is it worse for someone to do a photoshop image of him and a 13 year old, or to do a real act with a 13 year old. If someone wants to spend their time making photoshop images of themselve with underage people, that should not be illegal. What should be illegal is if it is distributed or used to lure a potential child. Should someone be put in jail for something that is technically not hurting anyone, except maybe themselves? Lets say a man, named Charles, finds a picture of a 12 year old girl on the internet, and he puts his face and her face on some random porn picture he finds. Charles does not give this picture to anyone, nor show it to anyone. Charles computer stops working so he takes it into a shop. The person fixing the computer finds the image on it and reports it to the policy. Charles is arrested and put in jail. This is the only image Charles has like it on the computer. Is jail the solution for the problem? Does the 12 year old get hurt? No. There is no question that Charles is a sick individual, but it is a victimless crime, so why should he be punished the same way that someone who makes and sells child porn?
I think some people are missing the point of what the judges were discussing. They are afraid of heat from Hollywood and their free speech talk. Although free speech is one of the most important parts of the Constitution (if not the most important) you have to make sure it is not used to cover something wrong. That excludes obvious exceptions. I think that big time actors take their job a little to seriously. I mean, the Godfather could be considered art, but what is the definition of art. You can’t call a big-budget movie that shows oh let’s say, 2 seven years olds having sex art and then call some dark alley movie with 2 seven years olds havig sex the filth of teh Earth. Child porn is sick, but the definition of child porn should not be how much money it cost to make it. One last thing to consider, obviosly some movies have sex in them just to put people in the thertre (yes I know thats spelled wrong) seats, what stops Miramax of Fox or someother big-budget company from showing blatant child nudity just to sell some more tickets and bring in a new audience.
I know this was long but once you start typing, it is hard to stop.
I really think the evil of kiddie porn is that children are sexually abused while making it, which doesn’t apply to simulated kiddie porn. This is the crime that should be punished.
The resultant product of the abuse, the tape, is evidence of that crime. The people who participate in the abuse, or profit from it directly with knowedge enough about it to prevent it or stop it in the future, are the criminals. I can also imagine confiscating “genuine” kiddie porn under the theory of protecting the privacy of the minors involved.
But I just can’t support laws that treat this under speech and obscenity laws. And go further than that, they lump other, completely different behavior (such as computer programmers who synthesize kiddie porn) into the same boat.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Schenck v. United States, described it in this way:
The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.
In 1969, the Supremes, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, developed a two-part test for determining when a state can proscribe the advocacy of force. First, the advocacy must be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action.” Second, the advocacy must be “likely to incite or produce such action.” They also made a distinction between the general advocacy of force and the actual direction of imminent violent action would not be.
These cases set the bar pretty high for the State to suppress speech of that nature. The examples you gave could, of course, not be suppressed.
As I said before to rushtopher, the evil of the abuse is separate from the evil of taping, distributing, and possession of child pornography. Child pornography is the evil we are discussing here. If I understand your point correctly, then if there is no harm to the victim (i/e the victim is dead) then even live real child porn is O.K, as long as the distributor can prove the victim is dead?
Again, the difference between the act and the speech rears it’s ugly head. They are BOTH bad. To say that the actual abuse is worse than the videotaping is true, but is of no importance to the discussion of the speech. The fact is that the Courts, and I, agree that the harms from child pornography go beyond that of just the victim protrayed. Otherwise once the victim is dead, all child porn would be O.K.
That’s the heart of the discussion we’re having. The harm that child pornography does goes well beyond just the harm to the victim in the depiction. Reread Sua’s post, or my post about the findings of Congress for the reasons why child pornography has such harms.
I never made such an inference. If you’re going to complain about me misinterpreting your statements, it’s rather hypocritical for you to not pay attention to what I am saying.
There is a big difference between misreading and misrepresenting.
So are you specifically speaking about the analogy which andros made, or are you speaking generally?
Again, I never made such an extrapolation.
I really do not see how making claims about who discussed what is at all relevant to my statment. But you did say “But if we put ‘protecting children from violence’ in one basket and ‘free speech’ in the other, then the scales tend to tip to the ‘free speech’ side.” You did not say “protecting children from depictions of violence”, you said “protecting children from violence”.
There is no basis for that inference. andros was only implying that they should be treated the same, not that they are.
That’s not what you said.
People have a problem with children being filmed having sex (general knowledge).
People treat violence differently than sex (your position).
If (2) applies to situation (1), then it follows that people do not have a problem with children being filmed being beaten (logical inference).
If people have a problem with children being filmed having sex, and people have a problem with children being filmed being beaten, then it follows that your claim does not hold for this case.
Yet again you show your unwillingless to extend the same courtesies that you claim that I am failing to show you. I stated that the government has less of a compelling interest in preventing depictions of violence than in preventing violence itself. Our hang-ups regarding sex are completely irrelevant to whether the government has less of a compelling interest in preventing depictions of violence than in preventing violence itself. Which you would have realized were you actually paying attention to what I wrote.
So, are you really saying that “people think they’re not analogous” and “they are not analogous” are logically equivalent? And if you can not comprehend why I would respond to your statement that “people think they are not analogous, therefore they are not analogous” with the point that “no, that only establishes that people think that they are analogous”, then I don’t see why I should give much credence to your claim that your position is “clear”.
No, I do not realize that. Perhaps it is another example of my obtuseness that I do not see how you can make any claim you want, using whatever logical fallacies that you want, and anyone disputing it assumes the burden of proof. Could you explain in further detail how that works?
As I said before, this is not a legal issue.
I read your statement as “the desire to exploit children or the desire to see them exploited.” Are you saying that you meant it to be literally read “the desire to exploit children or see them exploited”? If so, just what does “the underlying prediliction remains the same – see them exploited” mean?
So absolutely none of the responsibility for a miscommunication lies with you? Anytime you are unable to get your point across, it must be 100% the other person’s fault? How do you survive in the real world?
No you didn’t! You said “the desire to exploit children or see them exploited”. That’s a direct quote. Straight from control-c to control-v. No paraphrasing or rewording. Geez, you can’t even quote yourself, and you complain about me misquoting you? You didn’t even say “desire to exploit or exploitation”. The phrase “see exploited”, as opposed to “exploitation” makes no sense in this context without the phrase “the desire to” preceding it.
Where did I ever say “It really looks like you think that the desire to exploit children- not to see them exploited, but the desire to exploit them- should be illegal”?
I didn’t say that the rationale is B, I said the compelling interest is B.
THE RYAN, your continued obtuseness is either intentional, in which case it is trolling, or it is unintentional, in which case it is tragic. In either case, I have no intention of wasting any more pixels attempting to explain to you points that you are apparently unable to grasp.