Posted on 10/10/2005 1:05:39 PM PDT by Drew68
By Gretchen Gallen
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
ALTA DENA, Calif. – The offices of Max Hardcore’s Max World Entertainment were raided Wednesday under the authority of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department. The FBI seized five video titles, Hardcore’s attorney Jeffrey Douglas told XBiz, including (ed. movie titles ommitted)
Additionally, the FBI seized all servers belonging to Hardcore with the purpose of copying and returning them, Douglas said. It is not yet known what other office items have been taken as the investigation is ongoing.
By Thursday afternoon, Hardcore's servers had been returned and the website was active.
Hardcore was not present at the time of the raid, and according to Douglas, is presently attending a trade show in Barcelona, Spain.
Douglas said this is the first federal obscenity investigation involving Hardcore and is in any way related to 2257 record-keeping enforcement.
“Once again the government is wasting tax dollars and otherwise invaluable law enforcement resources to try to force a minority view of morality on all of America,” Hardcore said in a statement. “Five of my movies have been targeted by the federal ‘prude’ patrol. There is no indication of any crime to be alleged except obscenity. If indicted, I will fight to protect my liberty as well as the liberty of consenting adults to watch other adults engage in lawful, consensual, pleasurable sexual action. Shame on the Department of Justice. I am proud of my movies and of those who sell them.”
In 2001, Hardcore was prosecuted by the city of Los Angeles for obscenity, which was not resolved until 2004 with a company plea to a public nuisance.
Born Paul Little in 1956, Hardcore’s films have long been considered some of the most controversial in the industry.
But "loose" definitions of interstate commerce are exactly the problem. I agree with Justice Thomas that what is needed is a return to a limited, tight definition and use of interstate commerce enforcement.
I don't know, however, about how that works with the Internet...maybe the answer there is for local communities to decide what level of commercial porn production or site hosting they want to allow? That wouldn't prevent people from downloading porn in their own homes, of course...but it would prevent internet porn producers from taking up residence in their communities, IF that's what they wanted to prevent.
You'll find the Libertarians here defending him to the death, just as they do heroin addicts their "right" to shoot up, or mary jane potheads and how they aren't "hurting" anyone by lighting up. And then there is the whole "legalize prostitution" debates brought on by the loony Libertarians as well. I'm sure someone choking on their own vomit from a heroin overdose (i.e. Chris Farley from SNL) is probably reminiscent of Max's films, no?
I'm not for the "big bad gubmint" either, but in this case, if the Feds don't go after this guy, who will? The local lea? He'll just move across state lines and set up shop elsewhere. Hence, the Feds involvement, while rarely a good thing, IS a good thing in this case.
You should really read the Federalist Papers (Madison, etc) on this issue.
Yes! And what is not mandatory is prohibited. I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I disagree that it's too late, though. Let's take our exchange here as an example -- I come from a small-l libertarian-minded, and you come from a socially conservative perspective. Yet we can find strong common ground here on the root of the problem (i.e. lack of local citizen power to decide for themselves what they want their communities to be). I've even been using the ascendency of republican control of government to sell my liberal friends on the need for local, rather than federal control (they're MUCH more receptive to this argument now that the 'toon is out of power...hee).
I guess my point is that it's a better tactic with a much broader potential constituency to fight this on the principle of local control ("you want to live among wall-to-wall porn shops? Fine. But that means I get to live in a community that bans porn shops altogether. Win--win.")
Reagan won by fighting these issues based on broad Constitutional principles rather than on pet issues, and that wasn't so long ago. I think that can happen again. When we give up on that principle and simply start wrestling over which party gets to make the suffocating federal government rules, then federal control wins either way.
"There are lots of examples of citizens effectively taking matters into our own hands -- for example, the citizen border patrols in Texas and Arizona."
Symbolic. Won't do any good unless/until it changes actual policy. Your ideas sound kind of nice but believe me they're useless. What are a few people holding signs in front of the local pornshop going to do to internet porn conglomerates?
The problem with your argument is that SCOTUS and associated courts have stolen power they were never meant to have, and everyone has joined in with the theft. So the SCOTUS has stated (since we're talking about porn) that naked dancing, or now in OR, actual live sex acts, as well as just about every kind of porn except underage kids, is "speech" protected under the 1st Amendment.
It's too late. It's undoable, unless there's some kind of serious upheaval. All the citizen protests, all the people deciding they want local control - useless. The ACLU calls the shots now.
Ding ding ding ding....a winner
I understand your frustration, and I do think the battle against federal suffocation in all its forms is an uphill, if not futile, battle. But I don't know how to concede defeat without also conceding that the Constitution is dead and obsolete. I just can't do that -- not when so many people have made so many sacrifices for it.
SCOTUS is a problem. However, if we can get more pro-10th-amendment justices like Thomas on the bench, then there's a stronger argument, for example, to overturn the definition of porn as free speech and return to community obscenity standards. We fight one Constitutional argument with another. And in general we redefine the traditional right/left arguments so we're not so deadlocked, beginning with one very simple argument: "who knows more about x issue: you? or some bureaucrat in Washington?"
I've also been encouraged by some recent stirrings in various state and local governments to defy higher levels of government, including SCOTUS (regardless of whether I agree with the particular issue at hand). For example, the federal speed limit was finally undermined when states told the feds to pound salt with their highway funds. A lot of states are defying the feds on medical marijuana (not trying to open up that can of worms, because I know there is a big range of opinion on it -- but I do think it's encouraging to see the states and localities beginning to reassert their power even in the face of SCOTUS rulings). Some cities are even defying the states and feds on terrorism! Please understand that I completely disagree with this, since first of all it's *insane* and second, defense is a legitimate federal power...but I am interested in the precedent set by local defiance. It's a start...
I totally disagree. Policy is merely a means to an end (i.e., the goal is not to have a policy...the goal is to decrease/stop illegal border crossings). The beauty of those patrols is that they completely end-ran policy and made it irrelevant...because the citizen patrols actually yielded results! They decreased border crossings in the places they patrolled, and rendered crappy government policy moot. That's my point -- we can't go through traditional government channels to fight governemnt, because that would be useless. We have to end-run it altogether.
If my goal was to fight the decaying effect of porn on society, I don't think I would start with internet porn conglomerates. It's like a war -- you don't start with the most impregnable target...you start with the vulnerable ones. Local porn operations in communities that dislike them are vulnerable. They also cause more of a problem for those communities than at-home, private porn downloads -- because they're flagrant, out in the open, etc. Start by making life unfriendly for them, and you've solved a lot of the local community problems. Aren't you more concerned with a general community openness and acceptance of porn than you are about some guy surruptitiously downloading things in his living room in the middle of the night?
OK, I'll bite. Forget the FACT that I have both the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers within arms reach, not to mention the Constitution as well as numerous books regarding Constitutional Law, forget all that. Will the Great Scholarly Windsong feel any obligation to point out what Madison (etc) had to say regarding the institution of a National Police Force, much less a National Morality Police Force?
I'm not for the "big bad gubmint" either, but in this case, if the Feds don't go after this guy, who will? The local lea? He'll just move across state lines and set up shop elsewhere. Hence, the Feds involvement, while rarely a good thing, IS a good thing in this case.
Did you get dizzy spouting that circular nonsense? Blackbird.
Thought police is what's next...
Now you're trashing Clarence Thomas personally? You really need to get laid.
The gun grabbers use the exact same argument. "There's no way the founders could have predicted these scary assault weapons"
Here, you touch upon the ultimate fear of people like madprof -- the realization that the war against the current enemy of civilization will banish theocratic politics from polite society in much the same way the war against the Nazis banished genteel anti-Semitism.
Nonsense. There is a simple, 100% effective, thing people can do -- refuse to patronize the objectionable business.
Of course, that requires one to believe in the favorite economic system of FReepers, rather than that other one favored at Berkeley and the DUmpster.
It happened after they rounded up ALL of the ISLAMOFASCIST SAVAGES WHO WANT TO DESTROY WESTERN CIVILIZATION, and found themselves with nothing useful to do....
If he'd have just ponied up those campaign contributions to the "right" candidates and party..............
And if we don't like the meth problem, we should just stop patronizing the meth dealers.
Liberalitarianism makes SO much sense!
Funny that the guys who wrote the Constitution didn't figure out that porn was okay.
As I recall, a major item of testimony during his confirmation hearings was his supposed fondness for porn. I had forgotten about it until this particular case came up, and I can't otherwise acccount for his voting with the radicals.
You really need to get laid.
You guys argue so splendidly. After Miers withdraws, maybe GWB will nominate you for the Supreme Court.
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