Re: NY AG--defender of children?

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:36:42 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think digital child p__n should be illegal--very illegal. The state has a sufficient interest in preventing the corruption of its citizens to override freedom of expression in that instance. It's ridiculous to contend that during the 200 or so years in which pornography was illegal, the political freedom of Americans was harmed. It's the equivalent of Rudy Giuliani cleaning up Times Square--everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

I agree with much of what you've written on this as well as this part,
but you've introduced a strawman of sorts here. I'd imagine the
argument isn't strictly limited to one about "political freedom."

Sure, that is probably the most protected form in the US -- in terms
of speech, for example, that is certainly true in that political free
speech is more protected than any other form of speech in the US.

There are some who may argue there is more to protect than just
political expression. It might also be about what we are allowed to
think about in private, for example, and whether or not society has a
right to intrude at that level. I haven't given this detailed
thought. Although you appear in the above to restrict the argument to
that, I can readily imagine a debate that involves more than deciding
things purely upon some one dimensional scale of political expression.


I don't mean that only political speech is protected--it's just that the concept of 'freedom' has become debased in the last 20 years or so--there used to be a commonly-agreed distinction between freedom and license, and there isn't anymore. What I meant to say was that a law that prevented people from producing and consuming that ugly stuff didn't abridge free speech as understood for the first 200 years of the Republic. So for "freedom, political", read "freedom" (historical sense).

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs
.

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