Impromptu Debate

As mentioned earlier I will be arguing against the idea that sexist and racist portrayals should be removed from television and other media. I would like it to be noted that I do not approve of Racism or Sexism. My arguements will be as follows, First contention: Definitions Second contention: It is illegal Third contention:It is quite impossible to carry out Contention 1:Definitions Now I know that usually definitions are not considered an argument in and of itself however in this case it is. Why? it is because in this situation who is to define what is considered sexist and what is not. For example my Debate teacher considers the Disney movie Hercules to be incredibly sexist and degrading towards women, I on the other hand think it is a good kids movie. So the first problem with this resolution is that of, "Who decides when something is racist or sexist? " Contention 2:It is illegal Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson[1] This was a case argued before the Supreme Court. In this case the Supreme Court overturned a New York Law that would not allow the commercial showing of films that were considered sacrilegious (I am paraphrasing a bit here) saying that it violated the First Amendment. A Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Massachusetts[2] The Attorney General of Massachusetts sought to prevent the continued publishing and distribution of the book "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" due to the fact it contained obscene content, the Supreme Court held that the book could continue to be published and distributed as it was protected by the first amendment Freedom of Speech. Yates v. United States[1] In this case before the Supreme Court it was ruled that the First Amendment protected Radical and Reactionary speech unless it presents a "clear and present danger. " Marsh v. Alabama[1] In this case brought to the Supreme Court it ruled that a person could distribute religious material even on privately owned property. Near v. Minnesota: In this case a newspaper owner who published anti-black anti-sematic anti-labor newspaper sued because he was forced to stop publication the court found in favor of the newspaper owner and held that except in rare cases censorship is unconstitutional. Board of Education v. Pico[1] In this case students of a High School brought suit against their school board when the board tried to remove books it classified as anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-[Semitic], and just plain filthy. The Supreme Court found in favor of the students and ruled that a board could not restrict accesses to ideas simply because they found them distasteful. I have just presented six supreme court cases that all held that materials could not be presented simply because they are found to be distasteful or offensive towards others. The Supreme Court is the interprets the constitution which is the supreme law of the land in the United States, and therefore on six separate occasions that I have presented the Supreme Court has upheld that people are allowed to distribute material that others find obscene, blasphemous, offensive, or distasteful. Therefore the resolution which holds we should ban sexist and racist content in the media is not legal. Contention 3:It is impossible to carry out This resolution is quite frankly impossible, due to one simple reason. The internet. The resolution calls for the banning of all sexist and racist material on all media, this is an impossible task to carry out because you cannot control the internet. It is something that cannot be achieved as of December 2009 there have been 234 million websites and there are 187 million registered domain names. [3] The government simply cannot monitor and control that much information. Now i know there will be some people who would respond to that argument by saying "in China they manage to do it" this is not true the Great Firewall of China as it has been dubbed as many workaround and many more are being developed each day[4].