Archive - Apr 21, 2008 - topic

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John Stagliano
Wikimedia Commons

John Stagliano at the Adult Video News Expo.

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 1 day ago

Should the feds be prosecuting obscenity cases?

Pornography may be mainstream in America, but obscenity is still illegal. The libertarian Reason Foundation and several pro-pornography and First Amendment groups held a press conference today defending pornographer and Las Vegas show producer John Stagliano, who is facing eight counts of trafficking in obscenity.

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Ben likes: The mechanics of cracking down on obscenity

Clayton Cramer

The mere fact that something is illegal to produce will tend to reduce the supply of it in most commercial channels. Yes, if someone really wants to download obscene materials, they will go ahead and purchase it online, and download it. You won't find it available as a "premium" channel when you check into a hotel, however, nor will it be offered by your cable provider. We can argue about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact is that when you make something illegal, it removes it from "respectable" distribution channels.

You always have to ask the question: will removing a commodity from "respectable" channels make much of a difference with respect to the social problems that you seek to solve? Drug addicts will still seek out their drug, even if it is illegal. Most people will not seek it out, even if the drug is legal.

The people that are likely to be removed from the market for the drug are those who were not addicted, but were using it occasionally -- and they aren't usually the problem. The real gain may be the people that do not even start to use the drug because of its illegality, and who wish to avoid the stigma or the risk of purchasing through black market channels. I am not sure that the analogy of obscenity to drugs works very well. While there are people who are addicted to obscenity (in a psychological sense), I do not get the impression that they are the mass market for it. Making obscenity illegal means that a lot of people who occasionally watch the clearly illegal materials will find it more difficult to obtain. For many, this will be enough of a barrier to switch them to erotica that do not violate the Supreme Court's Miller test, or find some other source of entertainment.

 

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Joel likes: The porn prosecutor

Steven Benen/The Carpetbagger Report

After several far-right groups complained that the administration failed to take on porn aggressively in its first term, Alberto Gonzales announced that the DoJ would devote considerable resources to a war on smut, described at the time as “one of the top priorities” of Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The crackdown was separate and independent from child pornography, and was intended to specifically target materials for consenting adults.

As one exasperated FBI agent noted when the task force was being put together, “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror. We must not need any more resources for espionage.”

This seems destined to fail. Miserably. By some estimates, this is a $12 billion industry, suggesting that the free market has spoken. It seems there are a whole lot of Americans spending a whole lot of money on this stuff. Some of them are probably even religious and conservative -- because there aren’t enough heathens with enough disposable income to bolster this kind of lucrative industry. 

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Clinton Obama
The Associated Press

The race is getting sharper in tone.

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 1 day ago

With Pennsylvania primary a day away, which candidate is most negative?

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama swapped some of the most negative attacks of the campaign on Sunday, each unleashing television ads on Sunday that accused the other of maintaining ties to special interests they both claim to reject.

Clinton's ad: "In the last 10 years Barack Obama has taken almost $2 million from lobbyists, corporations and PACs. The head of his New Hampshire campaign is a drug company lobbyist, in Indiana an energy lobbyist, a casino lobbyist in Nevada."

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Ben likes: After this, how much more do we need to know about Obama?

Jim Geraghty/The Campaign Spot

Do you, personally, know anyone who has ever tried to blow up the Pentagon? Do you know of anyone who actually brags that they did, successfully, plant and detonate a bomb at the Pentagon?

Do you, personally, know anyone who has gotten someone killed in an explosion because of their actions?

Even if these bombings and attempted bombings occurred forty years ago, is that the sort of thing you could forgive, and/or dismiss? Could you shake hands with this person? Go to a party at their house? Accept a donation from them? If you knew this about a person, could you look at them and forget that they gathered the explosives, assembled the wires and the parts, scoped out their target, planted it, and watched it detonate with excitement?

Do you relate to having people like that in your social circle?

No, I don't, either.

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Joel likes: The road map to defeat

Bob Herbert/New York Times

The Democrats are doing everything they can to blow this presidential election. This is a skill that comes naturally to the party. There is no such thing as a can’t-miss year for the Democrats. They are truly gifted at finding ways to lose.

So what are the Democrats doing? The Clintons are running around with flamethrowers, gleefully trying to incinerate the prospects of the party’s leading candidate, Barack Obama. As Bill Clinton put it last month: “If a politician doesn’t want to get beat up, he shouldn’t run for office

The issues still favor the Democrats. More and more Americans are losing their jobs, and many of those still employed are working fewer hours and cashing smaller paychecks. Vacation plans are being curtailed because of declining family income and sky-high gasoline prices. The value of the family home is eroding.

Instead of capitalizing on the political advantages presented by these issues, the Democrats, with their increasingly small-minded approach to this election, are squandering them.

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