From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,sfu.general
Subject: Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:47:21 GMT
Reply-To: cmort@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH

As quoted from <1992Aug11.183602.4348@cs.sfu.ca> by jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews):

> >... But I know that the way to counter lies is with
> >truth, not suppression. Censorship only increases the harm, and dilutes
> >freedom with the very tyranny we claim to oppose.
> 
>      Again you are generalizing the argument and then taking
> examples from the specific area that falls outside what I was
> talking about.  I am not against censoring reasoned argument
> that, for instance, "women like rape" or "children like sex with
> adults" (much as I abhor that position).  I am for censoring
> certain material that makes no arguments, presents no opinions,
> and can have the effect of reinforcing and encouraging rapists
> and child molesters.

I'm much more afraid of the censors than I am of NAMBLA et al.  The latter are
always a small minority.  When they violate the laws regarding sexual assault,
feel free to try and hang them.  The censors are legion and never too narrow
as to what must be suppressed for your own good.  Censorship is a bandwagon
mentality.  The more the merrier.

> >	If, as you mentioned earlier, you want to be philosophical, you
> >should defend the philosophical basis of that exception. "Harm"
> >arguments are beside the point, in that if some vague, spread-out
> >social harm becomes the grounds for censorship, nothing is safe.
> 
>      No, I think that "harm" is exactly the basis of what I am
> saying.  You diminish certain freedoms (like Absolute Freedom of
> Speech) so that other freedoms are reinforced more strongly.
> Your "nothing is safe" is just a rephrasing of this irrational
> fear that censorship will lead to Stalinism.

It's hardly irrational.  In fact censorship of whatever doesn't fit the general
line is the sine qua non of Stalinism.  Considering the depth and breadth of
material that the various censors of the right and left want the suppress, they
constitute a veritable Stalinschina reinactment society.

> >	There is no empirical evidence, period.
> 
>      Do you equate the phrase "empirical evidence" with
> "absolute proof"?  I would never advocate accepting seriously
> flawed experimental evidence, but I'm not doing that.  I think
> you've been reading the empirical evidence with your Absolute
> Freedom of Speech blinkers on, Kenn.

There isn't even equivocal proof.  When you have to rely on the words of Ted
Bundy, you don't have an argument.

> >The theory behind the
> >exception goes like this: porn expresses no ideas; rather, it is akin to
> >a sideshow entertainment, whose only justification is titillation.  The
> >intent of the 1st Amendment is read as protecting the free expression of
> >_ideas_, and since porn expresses no ideas, it is not under the
> >protection of the 1st Amendment.
> 
>      That's about what I feel too, though I would say "opinions"
> rather than "ideas".  The difference between me and the
> lawmakers you speak of is that I don't believe that titillation
> is inherently wrong.  Titillation that reinforces seriously
> damaging behaviour is.

What's "seriously damaging behavior"?  I think Marxist-Leninism is "Seriously
damaging behavior".  I also think that suppression of Marxist-Leninist
discourse is more dangerous than the Marxist-Leninism itself.  If you ask a
Teheran cleric, a woman wearing a conservative business suit is "seriously
damaging behavior".  Who's going to decide?  If the cleric lives where you do,
what makes his opinion LESS valuable than yours?  Why shouldn't women have to
where chadors to assuage his moral indignation?

> > ...[Some antiporn people] accuse porn of supporting and defending pernicious ideas:
> >sexism, the dehumanization of women, etc. Ironically enough, were that
> >actually true, it would vacate the logic of the traditional "obscenity"
> >exception, and give porn the same protection that any other work of
> >politics or philosophy enjoys.
> 
>      I'm not one to support the Dworkinist position that
> _Playboy_ dehumanizes women to an extent demanding legal
> sanction, but let me just say that you've got this wrong.  It is
> not an idea, but an irrational prejudice that is being reinforced.

"Irrational prejudices" are also ideas, and in any case, "irrational" in the
eye of the beholder.  I consider both organized religion and socialism
manifestations of "irrational prejudice".  That does not one thing to justify
suppression of ideas which advocate either.

> > By making "obscenity" the deciding factor, it keeps the
> >logic of the censorship restricted to porn, and is useless for censoring
> >something like _Mein Kampf_ which, however offensive and harmful, is not
> >sexual and cannot be found obscene in that sense.
> 
>      "Offensiveness" is (IMHO) irrelevant.  Harm is more
> relevant.  There are other laws in Canada which prevent things
> like "Mein Kampf" from being published as-is, which incidentally
> would probably not prevent an annotated edition from being
> published.  But arguing about this would take us way away from
> the argument about a.s.b.

How about Lenin's "What is to be Done"?  Is that also suppressed?  What about
William F. Buckley's "Up from Liberalism"?  Why is one more or less "dangerous"
than the others?  None that I can see other than totally subjective opinion.
What's the rule?  You get to suppress everything else which would challenge
YOUR beliefs, whatever they might be?  How do you achieve that position of 
responsibility?  Democracy?  How when a free exchange of ideas has been
foreclosed?

> >Once we accept the notion that something should be censored because its
> >effects are more negative than positive, there is no theoretical limit
> >on what may be censored.
> 
>      I still fail to see the difference between this and traffic
> laws.  Just because there is no theoretical limit does not mean
> we're going to turn into a Stalinist state.

There's no practical limit either.  When you define "harm" as the dissemination
of ideas you don't like, what's to stop you from making the list of ideas as 
comprehensive as you like?  You make the same mistake that Bukharin and co.
made regarding Stalin.  You're leaving a loaded gun on a table and assuming
that nobody will ever pick it up and use it against you.  It's invariably a
self-correcting error.

> >If skin flicks should be censored because they're
> >demeaning to women, doesn't it follow that a well-written and persuasive
> >philosophical essay that argued the natural superiority of males must be
> >censored on the same grounds?
> 
>      No.  See above, on "opinions".  (And before someone says
> for the 10,000th time "who are you to impose your views on me",
> let me say for the 9,999th time that I am just adding my
> opinions to the pot, and that the decisions are made by
> lawmakers, judges and juries, same as anything else.)

So were the decisions that led to the terror famine, the holocaust, and the
internment of the Japanese-Americans.  You can't set up this mechanism of
repression and then abdicate responsibility for it.

> >	Think it through, Jamie.
> 
>      Oh please Kenn.  What is this, "proof by patronization"?
> I have been thinking it through for about 15 years, reading the
> literature and philosophical arguments very intently.  It was
> only recently that I finally decided what I think about rape
> and kiddie porn; you will notice that I do not include other
> sub-classifications in my arguments, and that I can be found on
> soc.women from time to time arguing against the Dworkinist
> position that non-violent porn encourages violence.  (And for
> you ad hominem fans, no, my personal tastes do not dictate my
> views.)

Please define "kiddie porn".  Is it textual, photographic, what?  I would 
suppress photo/video child pornography, but not from any obscenity doctrine, 
since I consider obscenity an invalid legal concept.  Consider consent and 
intellectual property issues and you may understand....

> > The terrorist
> >(and his bosses) are responsible for blowing up the building, not Karl
> >Marx or Mao ZeDong or the authors of PLO manifestos; the rapist is
> >guilty of the rape, whether porn had a negative effect on his character
> >or not.
> 
>      Well, I can think up other analogies (such as incitement to
> riot).  I think this is where we have to agree to disagree.

No, they are totally lacking in similarity.  If Mao MET WITH the terrorists or
contributed materially to their enterprise, you'd have a point.  Mere philospo-
phizing doesn't merit more dangerous self-inflicted oppression.

> > Maybe the censorship of what
> >was worthwhile in [a.s.b] strikes you as a necessary and reasonable
> >price to pay to suppress the obscene stuff; if so, say so, don't claim
> >such a price won't have to be paid.
> 
>      Sure, I'll say so.  If _Playboy_ published "Cindy's
> Torment", I would be for censoring it too, regardless of what
> other worthwhile stuff it had in it.  If _Playboy_ doesn't want
> to be censored, it won't publish stuff like that.  Likewise
> a.s.b.  The institutions in question took a reasonable action to
> avoid legal consequences.

An interesting concept.  How about "If homosexuals didn't violate the sodomy
laws, they wouldn't be prosecuted for doing so."  You seem to be unwilling to
address the basic desireability of the laws.

> > No one presently has the
> >power to control what gets posted to the group. If you give someone that
> >power you've got censorship, and all that entails. You certainly _don't_
> >have Usenet any more.
> 
>      This is disingenuous, Kenn.  You and I both know that
> Usenet chugged along very well for many years with admins
> cancelling other people's articles all the time.  That _was_
> Usenet.  It's only on the liberated altnet that people are now
> claiming the "right" to post anything, anywhere.

Then why shouldn't your calls for censorship be censored?

> >... You've
> >argued right along that porn is censorable because it demeans women...
> 
>      No I haven't.
> 
> > and
> >encourages sexual violence against them.
> 
>      Certain kinds do.  I'm not a Dworkinist.

Certain political discourse encourages violence against multi-national 
corporations and their employees.  Should the works of Abimael Guzman be 
censored?

> > Well, I've decided to change my
> >name to John Norman and write a philosophical work arguing that the
> >natural role of women in society is as slaves to the men, and that a
> >firm hand (beat 'em up occasionally) is best.
> 
>      Fine.  I'll argue against your *opinions*.  If you progress
> into all-out fictional glorification of rape (as Norman never
> has done), I'll want it censored.  Note, *I'm* not going to
> censor it -- I'm just adding my $.02.

Then of course radical lesbian material that advocates castration and other
violence against men should ALSO be censored?

> >>     So if, say, someone were to produce a magazine called
> >>_RAPE_, with erotic stories involving women getting raped and
> >>loving it, pictorials of rapes (produced by consenting adults,
> >>of course), and features like "How to Convince People You're Not
> >>a Rapist Anymore", and if they were to distribute this magazine
> >>in prisons for convicted rapists, you would think that's OK?
> >
> >	One technical quibble: convicted felons don't have full legal
> >rights; temporarily depriving them of these rights is part of the
> >justice process.
> 
>      Oh I see, so you *don't* believe in Absolute Freedom of
> Speech.  Where else are you for abrogation of this important
> Right, Kenn?  Copyright law, by any chance?  Incitement to riot?
> Conspiracy to commit murder?  Gee, I guess Freedom of Speech is
> just another right, to be balanced against others.

"Absolute" freedom of speech is a strawman, ably pioneered by Ed Ni[hi]lges.
Apparently "absolute" freedom of speech is one word more than you like.

> >>Sorry, but that's not the kind of society I want to live in.
> >
> >	You already do.
> 
>      Obviously what I meant was that I don't want to live in
> a society where that's legal.

Tom Metzger doesn't want to live in a society where Blacks aren't property and
Jews aren't soap.  You'll understand if some of us object to the millenarian
vision of others....

> > Censorship has _never_ succeeded in suppressing
> >anything people want.
> 
>      Neither have murder laws.  Should we throw them out too?

It depends upon whether your more afraid of speech you don't like than you are
of murder.

>      Sigh.

Try to think through the vast power you'd confer on others and you might sigh
again.

>      The people who pass around the pen-and-ink drawings of
> children having sex with adults, and the stories glorifying
> rape, do not need official blessing for what they're doing. 

Nor is there justification for wasting time and money to try to stop them.

> They don't need reinforcement for the feeling that acting out
> their desires is a good way of dealing with their pain.  What
> they need, for their sake and ours, is to understand that doing
> these things is wrong; understand at a deep, emotional level,
> which goes beyond rational argument and into the realm of
> therapy and emotional healing.

And what if they DON'T understand that it's wrong?  How will censorship of non-
photographic material change that?  Remember the murder laws?  Amazingly, there
are people who don't know that murder OR child molestation are wrong.  I 
suggest that you imprison or execute them.  They won't be ABLE to do these 
things and it won't MATTER what they THINK.

>      Many of them understand it already.  Others don't.  The
> rights of the people who understand it are not more important
> than the rights of the victims of the others.

That's why we have jails and electric chairs.


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