Parental advisory: This column discusses 'speech' (Ann Coulter) TRIPLE XXX

worldnetdaily ^ | 4/24/2002 | Ann Coulter

[TLBSHOW]

Parental advisory: This column discusses 'speech'

Whenever a Supreme Court opinion is bristling with references to Renaissance paintings, classical mythology, and "art and literature throughout the ages," you know the court is about to invoke the First Amendment to protect "Bisexual Schoolgirls' Porn Pictures."

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down a perfectly sensible federal child porn law last week. Though you might think the attorney general was preparing to rip "War and Peace" off the shelves, the law simply extended the reach of the federal child pornography laws to computer-generated "virtual" images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Without this law, it will be impossible, in practice, to prosecute any child pornography cases.

In order to prohibit, say, "Youngest Teen Sluts in the World!" while leaving the Federalist Papers unmolested, the law carefully defined "sexually explicit" conduct as: "actual or simulated ... sexual intercourse ... bestiality ... masturbation ... sadistic or masochistic abuse ... or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person."

In response to this law, Justice Kennedy expounded on William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" – "the most famous pair of teen-age lovers." He continued: "The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and ... speech is the beginning of thought."

Oh, cut it out.

The last smut prosecutions for works with any redeeming value whatsoever took place almost four decades ago. Since then, pornographers have been running amok, producing the most degrading pornography imaginable – and then running to the Supreme Court to whine about threats to Shakespeare and "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

Some of the more respectable titles taken off the Internet include: "Preteen Pedophilia XXX," "Kiddie Pix," "Mary's Pictures of Young Nude Girls," "Lolita Angels," "Preteen Nudist Camp," "Naked Little School Girls," "Kiddie Porn Lolitas," "Rape Lolita," "Preteen Incest Rape."

Remember: I'm not the one who says "Preteen Sluts" is protected by the Constitution. Pornography defenders always insist on describing this particular constitutional right in vague euphemisms, such as "material dealing frankly with sex" and "sexually themed material." If I have to endure Justice Kennedy's pompous platitudes when we're talking about "Lolita Angels," then I'm not politely avoiding the topic.

The nation is swimming in pornography. You can't turn on TV without seeing simulated sex scenes. And Kennedy is worried that a law banning computer-generated photos of children engaging in sexually explicit acts will put Shakespeare at risk?

If judges pretended to be this confused when interpreting other laws, there could be no laws about anything. Indeed, Depends undergarments would be a necessity on the high court, as justices struggled with whether that feeling in their bellies meant they had to go to the bathroom or needed to burp. Is it "Othello" or is it "Kiddie Pix"?

In addition to Shakespeare, Kennedy claims that if Congress were permitted to outlaw virtual images of children in explicit sex scenes, movies like "Traffic" and "American Beauty" might be made differently. "[L]egitimate movie producers," Kennedy anxiously warns, might not "risk distributing images in or near the uncertain reach of this law."

Justice William Rehnquist points out in his dissent that both "American Beauty" and "Traffic" were made (and given awards) while this precise child porno law was on the books. Not only that, but during that time, four of five federal appeals courts were upholding the law. As Rehnquist says: "The chill felt by the court ... has apparently never been felt by those who actually make movies."

Moreover, the actress who played a teen-age girl in the crucially important simulated sex scene in "Traffic" was not, in fact, a minor. (Why does no one ever say, "'Casablanca' was a good movie – but what it really needed was simulated sex scenes with kids"?) Even high-priced lawyers for the porno industry couldn't come up with more than one "legitimate" Hollywood movie that might possibly – theoretically – fall under the virtual child porn law.

Here is a description, courtesy of an Internet rating service, of just some of the sex scenes from "American Beauty": "a couple has sex with thrusting, her legs up in the air ... a man is seen from behind masturbating in the shower ... a man masturbates next to his sleeping wife in bed ... a girl stands in front of boy, then takes her bra off and we see her breasts ... a man thinks a male couple is performing fellatio (they are not) ... a father kisses his daughter's teen-age friend, caresses her clothed breasts and pulls off her jeans until she's down to her underwear, and opens her shirt, exposing her bare breasts ... a man has several daydreams of a girl in a bathtub with rose petals covering her; he reaches his hand under the water at her crotch level as she puts her head back and moans."

So Congress can't ban virtual kiddie porn because the law might make producers think twice before making movies with scenes like that? This is the doomsday scenario? A little chilling might lead to "virtual" watchable movies.

[Rule of Law]

Having failed to produce any evidence for your position, you have now gone back to where we started, the preconceived idea of "limited government" which you impose on the Constitution.

I did produce evidence. You claimed that that evidence strongly supported your theory -- seizing on the word "a" as support for your argument. Now you ignore the evidence of all of the founders and at least 130 years of constitutional jurisprudence, which held that the federal government was intended to be limited in scope.

At least we now know where you stand. You stand for unlimited federal government. A government that may do anything it wants. Impose any law. Regulate the minutest details of our lives. A totalitarian federal government with the authority to enslave the citizenry.

You may say that you are not in favor of a totalitarian government. You may even believe that you are not. But when you reject the notion of limited government, you are, by definition, in favor of unlimited (i.e. totalitarian) government.

[Southern Federalist]

I do not reject the notion of limited government. I reject twisting the Constitution to fit your theory of limited government. Rest assured that my reading of the Constitution would challenge the inflation of the Commerce Clause as well as yours - mostly by insisting that it only applies to actual commerce, buying and selling. But I will not distort the Constitution into a charter for your libertarian utopia.

You have not produced any evidence whatsoever for your claim that the only interstate power given to the United States in the Commerce Clause is the power to prohibit interstate tariffs. You have simply asserted that this is so, and abused me for disagreeing with you. Beyond that, you have offered one irrelevant quotation from Madison and a flawed article which, like you, relies at crucial points on sheer assertion without evidence.

Your denigration of my observations on what the Madison quote actually says as "siezing on the letter 'a'" only shows that you are not interested in evidence or logic, but only in having your way. Yes, I do think that "siezing" on the actual words of a document is a pretty essential path to understanding it.

I am at this point quite tired of your abusive ranting, and will continue this "discussion" no further. Feel free to have a further hissy fit in response to this post, but I have no more time for you.

[Rule of Law]

Your denigration of my observations on what the Madison quote actually says as "siezing on the letter 'a'" only shows that you are not interested in evidence or logic, but only in having your way. Yes, I do think that "siezing" on the actual words of a document is a pretty essential path to understanding it.

First of all, I have worked very hard not to be offensive. I am sorry if I have offended you. Though perhaps your skin is a little thin for the rough and tumble that we are accustomed to here at FreeRepublic.

Other than sending you my apologies for any offense I may have inadvertantly caused, I would not offer a response, except for the fact that you seem to be under the impression that I have somehow unfairly characterized your arguments. I ask you to reconsider.

I have stated that the purpose of the commerce clause was to prevent states from discriminating against trade from other states. You argued that my interpretation is wrong. I cited Madison's explaination of the purpose of the commerce clause in Federalist 42. You now say that Madison's opinion of the commerce clause is irrelevant. Why Madison's veiws on the matter are irrelevant is not stated -- perhaps because they disagree with yours.

You then state that Madison's views strongly support your argument -- even though they directly contradict what you have said. You seized upon Madison's saying that "a" purpose of the commerce clause was to prevent states from discriminating against trade from other states as supporting your argument. You claim that he would have written that this was the only purpose.

I then pointed you to an article that discussed the commerce clause at length along with the history of its interpretation. This is also considered irrelevant -- again with no more explaination than because it disagrees with your position.

You say that my argument is flawed because I seek to impose my flawed notion of limited government to the Constitution. When I point out that the choice is between limited government and totalitarian government, you grow angry.

You now claim to be for limited government. But the limits you seek to impose are illusory. As pointed out in the article I pointed you to, anything can be considered "commerce". In fact, the law you are defending is not a regulation of commerce, but a regulation of pornography.

Pray, sir, how have I unfairly characterized your arguments?