I have nothing to add to this ‘debate’.
However, that supery00n believes he/she is “right”, and that her arguments are sound, have to be about the most disconcerting notions I’ve encountered in a long while. Truly frightening.
It most certainly is not.
No constitutional rights are absolute. They are all circumscribed to one degree or another.
Even the most cherished of them (free speech). For instance you cannot slander me and claim free speech. Famously you cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire and claim free speech as a defense. Hate speech and inciting to violence are also restricted.
There is a lot of debate about where the lines should be drawn in free speech but no one with a clue suggests it should be unfettered from any restrictions.
That said pornography is fine as long as the people participating are willing participants and old enough to make those choices for themselves. No one is harmed.
It also may be noted that rapes have decreased since the internet came to be (and we all know the internet is for porn ;)). Granted correlation is not causation but it is suggestive and if porn increased sexual crimes then one needs to find another reason why such crimes have decreased. Been awhile since I looked at those stats but IIRC no other mechanism for the decrease suggested itself.
What would be the negative effects of banning pornography?
Well, we’d have less pornography for a start.
If the OP thinks pornography is bad, then the OP should not read or see pornography. But the OP shouldn’t make decisions for everyone else. I think Dan Brown novels are bad but I wouldn’t make them illegal.
I guess I should back that up.
Here are statistics for rapes going back to 1973.
Note the internet started getting into full swing in the 90’s. See the precipitous drop at the same time?
Again, I know correlation is not causation but if porn was a social ill that pushed men to commit sex crimes then you need to find an explanation for why, when porn became ever more available, rape decreased.
I’m not arguing that point, I was just referring to the strict text of the amendment.
However, Congress can’t, in fact, make a law criminalizing slander, if I remember my education correctly.
Are you aware that that quote comes from a Supreme Court decision that held that distributing fliers in opposition to the military draft was not protected speech? You’re citing one of the most straightforward examples of government abuse in violation of the first amendment when you repeat that quote.
Hate speech is explicitly protected in the United States. (See R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul.) Only incitement to violence is unprotected speech.
Again, I was really only referencing the text of the first amendment. I understand that it has to be interpreted as having some limits.
Does anyone seriously think that a government ban on Internet porn would significantly affect the amount of porn available? The government can’t even keep drugs or illegal immigrants out, and those can’t be streamed over a broadband connection.
Criminal no. Civil penalties yes. Point is you can be punished for slander/libel. You are not free to say anything you want about me regardless of the truth.
So?
It is a commonly used example which most people can get a grip on immediately. We can all grok how walking into a theater and shouting “fire” when there is none is not a free speech issue. I know of nobody who argues such a thing should be allowed.
Hate speech can be protected but hate speech tiptoes close to defamation and fighting words which are not protected.
That said I agree there is not exactly a bright line delineating this. Case-by-case basis is the best we can do and that will produce inconsistent results.
What do you propose the penalties for viewing porn or creating porn would be?
The negative effect would be you’d be making millions of people criminals. Making it illegal isn’t going to make people stop pursuing it.
This would be very similar to the government banning alcohol in that respect. Do you think the ban on alcohol helped us as a country?
Banning pornography would have the same effect that banning alcohol did in the prohibition era - make the mafia rich! Can’t imagine how much bootleg Playboys would cost. Not to mention the inherent downside for the police department. I can’t even begin to calculate how many man hours of the police’s time is going to be wasted trying to enforce that law. Time and money which could be better used to catch violent criminals.
It certainly would. If porn sites can’t be viewed or accessed via the Internet, then they won’t be able to make a profit advertising, and hence won’t keep their site up because the cost of the domain name and server space won’t be worth it anymore. Very few people pay for porn nowadays (I think?)
We have laws against child pornography because we think it is harmful to children, partly because we don’t feel like children are able to make their own decisions on such matters and may be forced against their will to partake in such activities, and also because we want to protect our children’s innocence.
But isn’t this position arbitrary? For if there was an underage person who was involved in what we call child pornography, and that child willingly consented to being filmed in the porn studio, and furthermore insisted that the experience wasn’t harmful to him/herself, this argument wouldn’t be a mitigating factor in the criminal offense that the pornographer committed, according to law. The 18 year old age threshold is most definitely an arbitrary one. (But this is exactly my point, that sometimes, a law that is arbitrary or seems to go against our ‘liberties’ to do as we wish are sometimes justifiable).
Now let us assume that the child says it’s not harmful at all to him/her. But what if the reason he or she thinks it’s not harmful is because the collective moral standing of the society has been lowered so much from what it could be otherwise that people are unable or unwilling to recognize the harm. Our society reserves the right to and exercises the right of saying to these children, “even if you think it’s not harmful for you, we as adults know from experience that it’s better if there’s a law prohibiting child pornography, and will enforce it.” And we should place that same standard upon ourselves as we do to children; otherwise, it would be hypocritical, no?
I claim that the government, which represents the people, similarly reserves the right to legislate morality to even adults. For if adults cannot enforce upon themselves standards of decency and morality, and live by them, why should we reserve the right to teach children these same standards, and to protect them from the base and profane?
This is not to say that sensual pleasure is by any means bad or sinful. But I cite Aristotle in saying that moderation is the ultimate virtue, and that the porn that’s on the Internet these days has far passed moderation, and it’s getting to the point where society is unable to critique and moderate itself…
So your argument boils down to the fact that you think the government should treat all U.S. citizens like children who have no right to make our own decisions or live the way we choose, because it’s not good for us.
Well, I’m sure convinced.
People who make porn should have to register as sex offenders if they are caught, and people who host pornography on their websites (even though they didn’t make it themselves) should be required to register as sex offenders if they are repeat offenders (3 strikes law). There’s no way of punishing people for watching porn - and even if there was, it would be absurd to enforce such a law. If it’s online people will watch it.
The key is to clear the Internet of porn - whatever stuff that is downloaded by people before the law comes into effect is okay. 
After all your talk comparing regular porn to child porn, this is strikingly inconsistent.
I also fail to see the benefit of making the actress who just finished taking three facials have to live 2000 feet from any school or daycare center for the rest of her life, or knock on the neighbor’s doors to explain to them every time she moves to a new neighborhood.
And how on God’s Green Earth is the government going to accomplish that? As it is, child porn is an ongoing problem that pretty much everyone has agreed will never be fully taken care of. If they can’t stamp out child porn, they sure as hell can’t stamp out regular porn. A much larger number of people enjoy the latter.
When I said banning porn from the Internet, I didn’t actually mean banning people from watching it. The sex offender registration, if I were ‘in charge,’ would only apply to the people who make the stuff in the first place (the ‘producers’ and not the ‘actresses’), or if it is of the ‘amateur’ or ‘homemade’ variant, would only apply to the people who maintain and host the material. (And it certainly wouldn’t be for life). I want our nation to be exceptional, and not for being the porn capital of the world.
What a great opportunity to invite the new neighbor in for a cup of coffee, to fix the plumbing or maybe deliver a pizza.
They can have my porn when they pry it from my warm sticky fingers.
Yeah, and a great alternative distribution system after internet porn gets shut down.
“I just moved in down the street and am required by the state of California to tell you that I am a known distributor of lewd materials… here’s my card, let me know if you need anything!”
Yes, I saw earlier when you said the same thing, and so I repeat myself: after all your comparisons between regular porn and child porn, it is strikingly inconsistent for you to then advocate that consumers of regular porn not be punished, since we of course punish people in our society for consuming child porn.
Who are you to dictate morality? In some societies it is immoral to show your ankles. Would you be ok with them telling you to cover yourself head to foot? If not then where do you stop? Who can tell you what is and is not ok for you to do?
If no harm is done then what business is it of yours?
I really hope you can see the slippery slope here.
supery00n, the question in the thread’s title has been answered in several ways, to which I’ll add that millions of Americans depend (in whole or in part) on pornography to make their living. Your proposed ban would put lots of people out of work and create a not-insignificant disruption in the economy. Further, many of these people (and others) would simply continue to produce porn, except now they’re part of a black market – this opens them up to all sorts of depredations (including incarceration), and kills much of their incentive to behave honorably (why should I check to make sure this girl isn’t 15 when this is already illegal and her age and identity will be totally untraceable anyway?).
If you want to continue with this thread, you need to do two things. First, you need to address at least some of the negative effects that people have been mentioning. More importantly, you need to make an actual argument in favor of your position. You have not done this yet. You’ve stated that you believe pornography is “unnatural” and “evil.” Why? How? Everyone here disagrees with you; why is it that you are right and we are wrong? You have also argued that the age cutoff for child pornography is arbitrary, in a roundabout way of showing that we may ban pornography. I think that’s a very weak case both legally and rationally, but, more importantly, it says nothing about why we should ban pornography. Talk about that first. How is it harmful? Evidence?
If you don’t want to post along these lines, then you’d do better to bow out of the thread, IMO.
I believe you are, in fact, misremembering. Off the top of my head I don’t see why Congress would be forbidden from adding criminal penalties, and Google turns up nothing.