Posted on 07/13/2004 10:11:42 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Do you ever wonder why the internet is so polluted with pornography? The Supreme Court just reminded us why: it blocks every attempt by Congress to regulate the pornographers.
From its ivory tower, the Court props open the floodgates for smut and graphic sex. Over the past five years, it has repeatedly found new constitutional rights for vulgarity, most recently invalidating the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).
This latest judicial outrage happened on the final day of the Supreme Court term, after which the justices headed out for a long summer break. Lacking teenaged children of their own, the justices closed their eyes to electronic obscenity polluting our children's minds.
For decades, pornographers have enjoyed better treatment by our courts than any other industry. The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography.
The flood of pornography started with the Warren Court when it handed down 34 decisions between 1966 and 1970 in favor of the smut peddlers. In mostly one-sentence decisions that were issued anonymously (the justices were too cowardly to sign them), the Court overturned every attempt by communities to maintain standards of decency.
The judges' obsession with smut is astounding. Even though five Supreme Court justices were appointed by Presidents Reagan and the first Bush, graphic sex wins judicial protection in essentially every case.
Woe to those who transgress an obscure environmental law, or say a prayer before a football game, or run a political ad within two months of an election. They find no judicial sympathy, as courts now routinely restrict private property rights and censor political speech.
But the pornographers can do no wrong in the eyes of our top justices. The most explicit sex can be piped into our home computers and the Supreme Court prevents our democratically elected officials from doing anything about it.
COPA was enacted by Congress in response to the Court's invalidation of the predecessor law, the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But decency lost again when six justices knocked out COPA in Ashcroft v. ACLU.
COPA was badly needed, as filth plagues the internet, incites sex crimes, and entraps children. COPA banned the posting for "commercial purposes" on the World Wide Web of material that is "patently offensive" in a sexual manner unless the poster takes reasonable steps to restrict access by minors.
You don't need to look very far to find a tragic crime traceable to the internet. In New Jersey in 1997, 15-year-old Sam Manzie, who had fallen prey to homosexual conduct prompted by the internet, sexually assaulted and murdered 11-year-old Eddie Werner, who was selling candy door-to-door.
COPA did not censor a single word or picture. Instead, it merely required the purveyors of sex-for-profit to screen their websites from minors, which can be done by credit card or other verification.
But minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are most easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young.
Justice Kennedy declared it unconstitutional for Congress to stop porn flowing to teens, shifting the burden to families to screen out the graphic sex rather than imposing the cost on the companies profiting from the filth. His reasoning is as absurd as telling a family just to pull down its window shades if it doesn't want to see people exposing themselves outside.
In a prior pro-porn decision, Kennedy cited Hollywood morals as a guide for America, but this time he relied on the prevalence of foreign pornography. "40% of harmful-to-minors content comes from overseas," he declared in holding that the other 60% of obscenity is wrapped in the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court insisted that individual internet users should buy filters to try to block the vulgarity. Should those who do not like air pollution be told to buy air masks?
The Supreme Court protects pornography in books, movies, cable television, and the internet, real or simulated, against all citizens' clean-up efforts. The Court is no longer the blindfolded lady weighing a controversy, but is dominated by media-driven supremacists forcing us down into a moral sewer.
This latest pro-porn decision was too much even for Clinton-appointed Justice Breyer. He said, "Congress passed the current statute in response to the Court's decision" invalidating the prior law; "what else was Congress supposed to do?"
The solution to these ills foisted on us by judicial supremacists is for Congress to exercise its constitutional powers to remove jurisdiction from the federal courts over pornography. The Court has abused its power, and it's Congress's duty to end the judicial abuse.
Porn is not speach. It is a part of commerce. It is a product. It should be treated as such. Until that happens nothing will be done.
You can call porn illegal, a crime, or prostitution all you want. But saying it over and over again will not make it true. Pornography is a LEGAL business. Period.
A college girl can have a legal gang-bang tonight with no criminal repurcusions, but if she charges $20 for a BJ, she's a felon. Makes no earthly sense at all. It just defies logic.
Also, porn has been around since the beginning of man.
You missed the point. Prostitution isn't universally illegal.
speach=speech Grrr.
Or she can trade it for goods, such as a dinner!
No it hasn't. It didn't start til the 60's . ;-)
Darn that ole Constitution.
Bella, I know your smarter than that.
That is false. It is illegal to sell tobacco and alcohol products to minors on the internet.
Yes and no. A minor can purchase both on the internet. It only becomes illegal when the product is delivered if the delivery person does not verify age.
Saying it won't make it true, but legislative action will. You had better hope Kerry gets elected so the Supreme Court stays leftist.
www.xxxswedes.com may or may not be in the business of delivering real goods. It could just be in the business of charging $5 to view some pictures electronically, or maybe even for free. Either way, it's a Swedish website, and congress lacks the authority to do anything about it.
Then there is not an undo burden requiring porn companies to assure that the delivery of porn is not to minors through the use of an ID card. You can't have it both ways.
Stupid analogy. Pictures and text are not real goods. They can be delivered electronically via computer. Alcohol and tobacco are real goods that must be physically delivered. ID would be made upon delivery in these cases, not purchase.
Quite true. But minors can and do buy tobacco and alcohol routinely over the internet.
And legislative action banning the production, distribution, and possession of Playboy would stand no chance of getting through congress. And if it did, the SC, regardless of who appointed the judges will shoot down any such law faster than a stripper can get naked.
You are right about the market responding to provide proper controls.
But as you well know, this is not about protecting children.
That is but thinly veiled cover for their real intent...
moralistic nannystate enforcement of restrictions on freedom to "sin."
The "holier than thous" don't want OTHER, free men and women, to choose what they view over their own computer, or TV, or at their local bookstores either.
And they want to make america "morally righteous again" by doing it via the aegis of laws and interpretations thereof that violate the bill of rights.
government run amouk.
When religion joins with political power, you get the inquisition... something a group of conservatives here a week or so back... actually defended.
disgusting.
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