Hollywood will be in trouble, then.
I think you’re conflating two different things. The part of mine that you quoted dealt only with the issue of identifying the age of an unknown character (whether virtual or real) and not about what it depicts.
I wonder if Sweden has banned access to alt.binaries.nospam.toons. Simpson porn, Goof Troop porn, Beetlejuice (cartoon) porn, etc.
How about this quote then?
Fined or imprisoned, you are saying that you think that possession of a drawing of something illegal is itself illegal, and should be punished. My question is, does this extend to drawings of murder, kidnapping or drug use, all illegal acts, and why or why not?
Let me repeat myself: “Personally, I find that the free speech value of virtual child pornography to be so infinitesmally small that I would be willing to support a law that makes it illegal if it were narrowly written, if there were an adequate showing that it was necessary to “ensure the ability to enforce prohibitions of actual child pornography” and that there was the standard exception for artistic or scientific value. It’s certainly an arguable position, and the Supreme Court of the US has taken your side. I just disagree.” I do not believe that movies or drawings with murders, kidnappings, drug use, or any others effect “the ability to enforce prohibitions of actual [murders, kidnappings, drug use]”. I also believe that movies or drawings with murders, kidnappings, drug use are much more likely to have value and to have “artistic or scientific value”, unlike child pornography.
How the hell did you get that from my statement?
Should we dump child porn laws? No. But the burden of proof should be at least somewhat high, as a society we seem to be moving in the opposite direction of making the definition as vague as possible.
The law that the supreme court overturned in 2002 had a clause saying there was no exception for ‘artistic merit’ in child porn. And images/vidoes which showed people over 18 engaged in sex who looked under 18 was also considered child porn. So two 18 year olds who look 14 (how you determine that, I don’t know) was considered illegal under that law.
http://www.ncac.org/media/19971017~USA~Pornography_Law_Goes_too_Far.cfm
That law passed both houses and was signed by the president. Luckily the supreme court struck it down. But my impression is uner that law you could accuse anyone you want who has seen the statue of David, or watched the movie American beauty of viewing child porn. Its just a question of whether you want to or not. You are giving far too much power to law enforcement, not all of whom can be trusted with that kind of vague power.
In the book ‘the end of America’ Naomi Wolf talks about the attack on civil liberties and talks about how just because we don’t abuse those powers yet, doesn’t mean we can’t. Giving government massive powers to kidnap and detain people doesn’t mean they’ll use them indiscriminately, but they do have that power. And the law which existed from 1996-2002 did give prosecutors the power to charge pretty much anyone on the street with possession of child porn, if they felt like it. The fact that DAs didn’t go around accusing everyone who has seen this photo of possession of child porn doesn’t mean they couldn’t. It sounds like under the 1996 law they had the authority to accuse anyone who has seen this pulitzer prize winning photo of napalm in Vietnam of child porn since historical merit doesn’t matter.
http://www.gallerym.com/images/work/big/pulitzer_nick_ut_vietnam_napalm_kim_phuc_6872_L.jpg
So someone taking photos of them sexually abusing a niece of nephew should be illegal. But digital and animated child porn, or artistic depictions, or people over 18 simulating child porn shouldn’t be illegal. It should come down to whether kids have actually been victimized. If anything, digital and animated child porn, or simulated child porn with actors 18 and over (pretending to be younger) should be legal to drive down the demand for child porn that shows children actually being abused.
The point is that as a society we are in such a moral panic that we pass laws like the 1996 law which makes child porn such a broad term that you could label 100 million Americans as guilty of watching child porn at least once if you really wanted to.
"Giving the courts, police, etc. so much leeway to charge whomever they want with something so serious can’t be good. I don’t support giving the police so much power over something so vague. I don’t trust the courts, law enforcement or DAs to use that kind of power wisely. Being accused of being a sex criminal is one of the most serious accusations you can make, and we are making the laws more and more vague.
But if some cop is a hardass or having a bad day, or he dislikes someone, and he finds photos of them bathing their kids now he has the power to ruin that person’s life."
"Almost everyone can be considerd a consumer of child porn if you try hard enough. You can literally accuse 100 million americans of consuming child pornography.
The movies traffic or american beauty? Child porn
The book Romeo & Juliet? Child porn
Photos of your kids taking a bath? Child porn
This is absurd."
I took those to mean that, since almost anyone can be considered a consumer of child pornography and it was absurd, that you thought absurd laws should be dumped. Apparently I missed a nuance.
I think “beyond a reasonable doubt” is pretty good.
I’ll repeat myself: “…and that there was the standard exception for artistic or scientific value.” I think that law was rightly overturned on that point.
I am aware of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.
As I said to Stoneburg, that is a very teneable position with some very good arguments on it’s side. But I don’t consider “OMG what about Romeo and Juliet!!” to be all that compelling.
And I think the fact that there have been an extremely rare number of those kinds of awful abuses of power to be indicative that your overstating it to the point of absurdity.
I agree with you that the CPPA was too broad, but I do not find the reactionary arguments that you seemed to be positing to be persuasive.
Not having seen the event, I would hazard a guess that Dubya set up the whole 9-11 thing with Osama.
See how E-Z it is? :rolleyes::rolleyes:
I would hazard a guess that you found it necessary to snip out the rest of my post and ignore my subsequent explanation. I would hazard a guess that I find that kind of tactic to be incredibly inane.
I’m not clear on your logic.
Why is it not absurd that cartoons are included in the umbrella of “child pornography”?
You did seem to agree that the bathtub photos were over-zealous but this confuses me because at least that was a photo of real people.
Who is the victim of these cartoons? What problem are you trying to solve by fining people for drawing them or possessing them?
"“Personally, I find that the free speech value of virtual child pornography to be so infinitesmally small that I would be willing to support a law that makes it illegal if it were narrowly written, if there were an adequate showing that it was necessary to “ensure the ability to enforce prohibitions of actual child pornography” and that there was the standard exception for artistic or scientific value.”
I think that child pornography, and virtual child pornography, have extremely miniscule value as speech. With that in mind, if there is a showing that virtual child pornography hampers the prosecution of real child pornography, or that there is even a teneable link between virtual child pornography and child sexual abuse, I wouldn’t have a problem with it being illegal.
Now, if there were showings the opposite way, such as (as some have already asserted in this thread) that virtual child pornography actually leads to less child sexual assaults or less real child pornography, I’d have no problem condemning those laws as a waste.
Oh I see now. Because you don’t it, it doesn’t count for purposes of free speech. Gotcha. Interesting how the other depictions of illegal things you do like get to count as free speech.
I think you’re being unduly harsh. Hamlet’s point is that if there is any benefit to be gained by banning virtual CP, there is so little benefit to keeping it legal that a ban isn’t a bad idea. I assume in this argument, “there will be less virtual CP” isn’t considered a valid benefit. To illustrate it numerically, while the benefits of banning alcohol might rate, say, 60, the benefits of keeping it legal rate 100. Conversely, while the benefits of banning virtual CP might only rate a 5 on this imaginary scale, the benefit of keeping it legal is only a 1.
I don’t think there is even a benefit to banning it, though. I have nothing but assertions, but in my view there simply isn’t enough social harm done by virtual CP to justify banning it out of hand. No children are harmed in the making, and as such it provides a safe alternative for pedos to satisfy their desires. Maybe there’s a study that disproves me and shows that virtual CP is gateway porn, but I kind of doubt it.
Really, the lack of anyone being harmed is the clincher. I take a dim view of victimless acts or depictions being considered criminal.
I’m not sure that he is being too harsh. What’s the benefit from having Lolita be legal? Or Michelangelo’s David, for that matter? It’s pretty hard to demonstrate the positive effect of any single work of art, so what’s the specific objection to a law narrowly written enough to ban any of them? Other than, of course, the fact that those works tend to be more popular?
That’s not enough. They might be using fake IDs.
You should only masturbate to manga characters you know are older than 18. How? Well, that’s up to you. You take the risk every time you wax your carrot.
How do cartoons depicting minors (and/or 5,000-year-old vampire elves from outer space who just look like minors) affect society’s ability to prosecute visual recordings of actual sexual abuse of minor children? I mean, I could almost see the argument if we were talking about hypothetical movies involving real flesh and blood actors who were actually 18 at the time the movie was made, but look (and were made up to look) to be 14 year olds. That could conceivably introduce logistical difficulties into prosecutions. (“Your honor, it may look like those were little kids in that movie, but they were really all adults with a rare genetic condition that makes them like like they’re still nine even when they’re in their twenties. And after the movie was made they all moved to South America and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Prove me wrong. Neener, neener, neener.”) But cartoons?
My specific objection is that the government shouldn’t have the power to ban anything without a sound argument for how that thing causes harm to someone without their consent.
That I am not sure about. I could look it up, but I’m not convinced that researching child pornography laws is something I want to do at work 
One thing I do know though is that sex with animals is legal in Sweden and at least was legal in Denmark. I know about Denmark as the infamous “Animal Farm” porno that everyone in the UK knew someone that knew someone that knew someone who had a copy came from Denmark (I have never actually seen it, until I saw a documentary about it a couple of years ago I honestly thought its existence was an urban myth). In Sweden it is quite amusing as apparently when they legalised sodomy (or homosexuality, or both or something) they repealed the entire law. Unfortunately the law also dealt with sex with animals, so they also made that legal again.
I feel sorry for those poor judges who had to witness this filth masquerading as art. It must be terrible when you have to become a pedo as part of your job. I can imagine them ripping off their wigs the moment the case was over, and rushing out into the streets looking for the first little girl with pointy ears and small, but noticeable breasts, in order to slake their now deviant urges, after having their minds contaminated by such images.
Yes, that’s the position my post was arguing in favor of.