From: grimlok@hubcap.clemson.edu (Mike Percy)
Subject: Not Re: Cable TV 
Organization: Clemson University
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 13:27:43 GMT

[This didn't even mention the Cable bill (sorry, law)]

jack@myamiga.mixcom.com (Jack Decker) writes:

>In article <1992Oct2.022013.12344@fid.morgan.com> dated Fri, 2 Oct 1992
>02:20:13 GMT, sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote:

> > That means you're not even going to try to find proof.

>Give this man a cookie!  He finally figured it out!

>NO, I am not even going to try and find proof.  It's a waste of my time to try
>and find "proof" that will just be pooh-poohed by this crowd.

>This whole thread has been one message of opinion after another.  Oh, sure,
>there are vague references to this study or that study, but no one has given
>any real citations that would indicate they have done any serious research on
>the subject.  You folks who are casting stones are living in your own glass
>houses.

Carl has recently posted quite an extensive list of studies on
causality vis-a-vis pronography and sexual crimes.  Scanning that list
and the summarires of the results of the various studies would seem to
indicate that any claim of causality is very tenuous at best, highly
unlikely in the large, and may in fact be wrong (meaning that porn might 
be causal in decreasing sex crimes).

>Why don't you folks just admit that NO ONE here considers this newsgroup to be
>such an important medium of social change that we are willing to spend hours
>doing research to prove a point? 

Again, Carl is almost anal in his efforts to present corroborating
references.  It certainly takes him many hours to do what he does.  I've
spent hours researching and composing articles posted here.  I've seen
many other posts quoting (sometimes at length) relevent items and giving
more references.

Your refusal to even try to present compelling evidence plays against
you, identifying you as one of those slackards you rail against as
causing a no-win situation.

> >> Thus, in the case of TV, there may be unwilling
> >> victims... not necessarily folks who actually saw the program, but people
> >> who just happen to be in the wrong place when some guy decides he's had
> >> enough of just watching and wants to go out and emulate what he's seen.

> > And in the case of censorship, there are unwilling victims, not just
> > those who were prevented from watching the program, but those who were
> > attacked by the criminal who wasn't home watching tv instead of
> > committing rape and murder.

>This is one of the most ridiculous suppositions I've seen in a newsgroup, and
>I'm truly amazed that supposedly educated people would post such assertions.
 
I'm truly amazed that you even thought for a moment that the assertion
was meant to be taken literally.

[Sadist, rapists...]
>I'd rather have them locked up where they can't hurt anyone, but since you
>can't lock them up until they've already destroyed the life of at least one
>innocent victim, I'd prefer they didn't have any external stimulus to commit
>their crimes.
 
Sadism is not a crime unless it is practiced on a non-consenter.
Thousand of S&M couples live happily day to day.  Rape is a crime of one
person sexually violating another against their will.  What a priori
restraints do you propose?  How do you identify potential rapists as
targets of this a priori restraint?  Oh, I see, everyone is a potential
sex offender who must be denied any possible sexual stimulus...

>And if you think they're going to be satisfied with TV, then how
>come we still have ever-increasing numbers of sex crimes, even in areas where
>hard-core pornography is freely available?
 
Bad tack, Jack.  In the US, hard-core pornography is not freely
available.  It is typically relegated to the "bad" side of town in dingy
run-down establishments, whose clientel is exposed to ridcule and
persecution.  Of course, in many states, even this is illegal. 
There is mail order, and many more people than "perverts, sadists, and
rapists" buy porn otherwise it wouldn't be such a huge business.

Countries where porn is more freely available, and where nudity and sex
aren't treated as something dirty or sinful in the eyes of a prurient,
puritan society have non-existent sex crime rates (compared the the US).
Our country/society embodies people with the notion that sex and nudity
are evil, but violence is glorious.  What a weird way to think, no
wonder we produce so many sickos.

Of course, the wonderful War on (some) Drugs is also a factor in the
increase in sex crimes.  Stiff mandatory minimum sentences do not allow
non-violent, drug related criminals to be released early or given
suspended sentences.  Someone's gotta go to empty a cell for Joe
Drugdealer.  Who can be paroled?  Who's often not a problem in jail
(non-violent, at least not in the presence of bigger stronger men)?  Sex
offenders. [This is of course, speculation on my part, but it is
reasonable, and I could get numbers, but you'd just "pooh-pooh" them.]

Mike Percy             | grimlok@hubcap.clemson.edu  | I don't know about
Sr. Systems Analyst    | mspercy@clemson.clemson.edu | your brain, but mine
Info. Sys. Development | mspercy@clemson.BITNET      | is really...bossy.
Clemson University     | (803) 656-3780              | (Laurie Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk