Free Speech

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40754159...ity/?GT1=43001

My gosh...it seems like there needs to be limits.

Without commenting on the specific case you link to.

Why the surprise? The Supreme Court has already ruled that there are certain behaviors that free speech does not cover (obscenity - the problem of course is defining that!). One of those areas has been child pornography. The various laws Congress has tried to pass regarding porn on the internet have always used protecting children from it as the stated reason although the courts have consistently ruled that the statutes were either too broad or that other methods for preventing that existed.

Ya think? I hope they fry the ba33ard! I am so sick of people using "being judgemental" and free speech as a way to let lunatics do and say what they want to.

Yea I am judgemental...woopie effin do! There are many things I see here that I think are disgusting, and in the modern world even worse. I won't ever sit back while things like incest are considered appropriate, even in the hobby! Sue me!

Without commenting on the specific case you link to.

Why the surprise? The Supreme Court has already ruled that there are certain behaviors that free speech does not cover (obscenity - the problem of course is defining that!). One of those areas has been child pornography. The various laws Congress has tried to pass regarding porn on the internet have always used protecting children from it as the stated reason although the courts have consistently ruled that the statutes were either too broad or that other methods for preventing that existed. Originally Posted by discreetgent

The specific subject matter is very dangerous for this site, and so I won't comment on it, either.

As dg says, free speech has its boundaries. With porn, the attempted definitions have always seemed to run afoul of a Court looking for more concrete than appeared in the law. It's a really tough area of the law.

The problem here is figuring out where to stop.

Yes, what this guy wrote is abhorrent, offensive, and destructive.

But would you also say that about Nabokov or Roth?

Do we dump Louis Malle in jail for Pretty Baby? Do we burn all the copies of Boys Don't Cry?

And what about art? Are we going to start pulling Balthus and Mapplethorp off the museum walls again?

We walk a very fine line on this subject. There are many, many serious, interesting, and important works of art, literature, and film that deal with this subject. The problem faced by the courts - and society as a whole - is how you tell the shit from the shinola. If you start putting down rules about "you can't say this" or " you can't show that" you end up throwing out a lot of culture that, IMHO, we really should keep around.

I'm sure others will have a different view, but on this one I say that you punish the deeds, not the thoughts.

It's one thing if this guy is shown to have actually abused kids. If that's the situation then you give him all that he deserves.

It's another thing, however, to punish somebody for having an idea and putting it down on paper or film no matter how sick and disgusting that idea may be. We start doing that and we'll find it pretty hard to stop at one book.

Cheers,
Mazo.

The problem here is figuring out where to stop.

... Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

And why to start.

I won't ever sit back while things like incest are considered appropriate, even in the hobby! Sue me! Originally Posted by London Rayne

I'm not going to sue you, and I see (+mostly share) your POV.

Nonetheless it's not all black and white. e.g. certain posts from Sensual Brett and Pamela suggested sexual conduct which is in US in accordance to US law philosophy and US legal practice clearly incest.

However if you look at it from the POV of what the French society still accepts as tolerable and at the French legal practice, you'll see there's no problem in regards to French law.

We walk a very fine line on this subject. There are many, many serious, interesting, and important works of art, literature, and film that deal with this subject. The problem faced by the courts - and society as a whole - is how you tell the shit from the shinola. Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

very well said.

but how do deal with e.g. the movie "A Serbian Film"?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...A_Serbian_Film
http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index....&nav_id=461956

deplorable shit or though-provoking, intellectual shinola?

Nabokov's primary language was russian and he crafted his english prose in such a way that it is equivalent with any literary master whose primary language is english--that is nabokov's great accomplishment. And really, what he should be known for

Boys Don't Cry is a heartbreaking story of some very disturbed young adults.

This guy put together some self-published pedophile-for-dummies book that has all the literary merit of the Nanny Diaries. It's not comparable. I don't think you'll find anybody who reads or writes on a regular basis to find this in violation of free speech.

I'm not going to sue you, and I see (+mostly share) your POV.

Nonetheless it's not all black and white. e.g. certain posts from Sensual Brett and Pamela suggested sexual conduct which is in US in accordance to US law philosophy and US legal practice clearly incest.

However if you look at it from the POV of what the French society still accepts as tolerable and at the French legal practice, you'll see there's no problem in regards to French law. Originally Posted by ..

Spare me the "What's right in the law" theories....I don't care what law has to say vs. what's clearly right and wrong, and moral. Things that are legal are still unethical and the reverse is also true. I am also very aware that in certain parts of the world people don't blink an eye when their own kids are being sold into the sex trade....is it right? Gimme a break! I really don't care about feelings being hurt when it comes to CHILDREN being abused...I will side with those who can't defend themselves!

Spare me the "What's right in the law" theories....I don't care what law has to say vs. what's clearly right and wrong, and moral. Things that are legal are still unethical and the reverse is also true. I am also very aware that in certain parts of the world people don't blink an eye when their own kids are being sold into the sex trade....is it right? Gimme a break! I really don't care about feelings being hurt when it comes to CHILDREN being abused...I will side with those who can't defend themselves! Originally Posted by London Rayne

London, I doubt you will find any argument here about that. What constitutes crossing the line is the question here. Can a book cross the line? Considering that in the US the presumption is that speech is protected from government interference ruling otherwise requires a very good basis.

IF his book is clearly only an expression or a theory, sure. If the guy is a wack job, well you know what I think.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40754159...ity/?GT1=43001

My gosh...it seems like there needs to be limits. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

There will always be a group of wack job that will protest anything, regardless of how vile it is. Whether it be for the money, the attention, or because they have no soul.

I want to know exactly how this made it onto the Amazon database. This is a private corporation is it not? Do they not review material before they agree to sell it? I appreciate that they pulled it but that it was listed on their website in the first place is absurd.

very well said.

but how do deal with e.g. the movie "A Serbian Film"?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...A_Serbian_Film
http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index....&nav_id=461956

deplorable shit or though-provoking, intellectual shinola? Originally Posted by ..

It's a really tough call, isn't it? And I don't think there is a good answer when you attempt to call one thing "moral" and another not. Who's gonna make that call and how?

If you let "the majority" decide you wouldn't have Lolita or Sabbath's Theater in a lot of places.

If you try to put a scientific basis to it and say that you won't allow anything that could "inspire" or "tempt" a potential pedophile then you might as well take a match to The Guitar Lesson or the Thérèse series or any of the numerous other Balthus works that dwell on pedophilia.

There are some on this board who were born into a world were selling a copy of Tropic of Cancer was a criminal offense in the US. Censorship of great works isn't such a far off memory.

So where do you draw the line? I think you have to go with Orwell and draw it on action versus thought. To me, once you start punishing ideas for the sake of the idea you're into dangerous territory.

What this guy wrote was horrible and disgusting. But so what? How did his words or ideas hurt anyone? What makes it wrong to write down a bunch of horrible and disgusting stuff? What was it about reducing his thoughts to written word that suddenly made those thoughts a crime?

And what if this guy hadn't published it? What if he just wrote it down and kept it in his basement and the cops found it there? Was it his sharing of an idea that made it worthy of criminal punishment?

And if writing it down or sharing is so bad, then isn't just thinking such thoughts equally as horrible and disgusting? Should we make that a crime too?

I react with just as much deep-seated nausea to this stuff as anyone, but I just don't see how you can fashion a remedy here based on what somebody thinks or believes versus what they do. And what good would it be to allow people freedom of thought if you're not going to allow them to share and express those thoughts - no matter how vile others consider those thoughts to be?

On this topic I take the literary equivalent of the NRA's position: "Books don't rape children, people rape children"

I just don't see how you can start punishing people for an idea or a belief without ending up with a real 1984. Manifest an idea into action and harm someone else - child or not - and you should be punished to full extent of the law. But until those ideas come off the printed page and turn into deeds I say we just have to live with them. If we don't we'll lose so much more.

There's also a lot of hypocrisy that I don't like on this subject. The Turner Diaries is still on the shelf. That book's inspired a lot of pain and mayhem too. Where are all the picketers screaming for Pierce's head? And why stop at just at harming children with sex? Isn't the murder or mutilation of a child just as horrible? Should we ban all works in which a child is killed or maimed and throw the authors in the clink? If so then you better throw out your John Irving before the cops kick in your door.

As much as I hate the fact that such people exist, I have to defend this guy to the extent that his "crimes" were restricted to the printed page. Whether he actually laid hands on a child is a different story all together. Arrested for publishing a book, though, is over the line for Mazo no matter what kind of filth is in the ink.

Cheers,
Mazo.

Boys Don't Cry is a heartbreaking story of some very disturbed young adults. Originally Posted by macdeft

. . . which happened to center on a 19yo who, in real life, had a sexual relationship with a 14yo.

But if you don't like that example, how about all the books and movies based on the life of Mary Kay Letourneau? She's a convicted child rapist, but we've had made-for-TV films about her that depict the whole incident as a caring and loving relationship between a 35yo woman and 12yo boy. Why aren't we censoring that?

This guy put together some self-published pedophile-for-dummies book that has all the literary merit of the Nanny Diaries. It's not comparable. I don't think you'll find anybody who reads or writes on a regular basis to find this in violation of free speech.

Funny, I've heard almost the exact same thing said about Lolita. Who's opinion on that one should I believe?

Cheers,
Mazo.