And that is the problem. When all of the stories that are of the Red Rose caliber become censored and forbidden, it?s just a matter of time before less offensive (but STILL offensive) stories like Lolita will get put on the banned list. And then what? For those who don?t think that the slippery slope is very real you are sadly mistaken. In history you can see it happening again and again, and in both directions.

Just look at civil liberties in the USA. When blacks won their freedom, they slowly but surely gained other civil rights which eventually spread to other groups. When black men gained their right to vote, it slowly spread and eventually women got the right to vote. The slippery slope can be observed positively (as in this case) as well as negatively all throughout history.

You don?t have to agree with the Rose stories. You can hate her with a passion. But if she goes down for her (and other contributors at her site) use of freedom of speech it is just a matter of time before other will too. And when all of ?those? are gone, do you really think they will be content to stop with that? Fuck no they won?t, and they will eventually move on to less-offensive material to ban as they see fit.

notabook, this is where we disagree. The redrose stories don't pass the stink test... even the most hardened pornographer can tell that these stories are way over the line. Even if the "community standard" applied is pornographers, we could pretty much all agree that these stories depict acts that we find obscene, in as much as the concept of the acts themselves but moreover the explicit detail in which those acts are discussed and wallowed in.

They cannot "ban as they see fit" because it isn't open ended. In each and every case obscenity would have to be proven, in the same manner that it is proven with images. Obscenity is obscenity, regardless of how it is produced. Would it be more or less obscene if it included cartoons. stick figure images, or perhaps 3d rendered models? Why would the inclusion on any sort of image add or remove from the level of obscenity?

Free speech and obscenity are NOT opposite ends of the stick.

Different societies view different things as being obscene, and thusly, obscenity must be decided (at least partially) by society. Right now at this point in time the Red Rose caliber stories are considered the "most obscene". Let?s hypothetically say that they are all banned out of existence? then the next ?most-obscene? materials get on the chopping block. Then those get banned. Then the next ?most-obscene? materials are next, and so forth and so on. So yes of course they will be able to ban them as they see fit because the level of 'obscenity' will become less-and-less tolerated. We?re all on dangerous footing here on such a slippery slope. If we don?t fight for freedom of speech now we may be looking at a future where the thought police do indeed exist and freedom of speech is nonexistent.

For those interested, the full article I posted excerpts from earlier is now live on YNOT.

- Q.

Notabook, again, nice concept, but reality is different. You are reciting what is to me a total brainwash deal that free speech people are forever spouting: the idea that if even one letter, one item, one iota is somehow supressed, suddenly you have given up everything and the game is over.

Sort of like playing football, and as soon as the offence gets 1 yard, the defence leaves the field and allows them to score directly - why bother? They have proven they can get 1 yard, so they might as well have them all, right?

The other mistake is to assume that there is some sort of "slippery slope" that goes all the way to the basement. The assumption is that we will all be goose-stepped into some sort of one party state because certain stories that depict the violation of children are somehow censored or removed from distribution. It is as if a single ruling about a single piece of material would suddenly make the drudgereport illegal.

Again, does making, example, bioengineered grasses illegal suddenly make it against the law to have a lawn?

Alex

Fantastic article Quentin. :thumbsup

It made me think about a few things.

Sorry Alex, that dog won't hunt. Words are words, images are not words. No matter how hard you try to equate the two, they are not the same.

At the time the US Constitution was penned, it was considered treason.

You mean like in a movie or tv show?

No, it would mean it would be illegal to have lawns with bioengineered grasses. Then sooner or later, and in all honesty sooner rather than later, you would have some zealots come along and capitalize on the fact that bioengineered grasses have been outlawed and strive for pure organic grasses only. They will decide that the chemicals to help your grass grow brighter and greener are unlawful, and they will end up citing precedent over the bioengineered grasses, saying how since they were bad that these nasty horrible chemicals are ruining our grass and have got to go. Soon enough, chemically-enhanced grasses will then be outlawed and the only type of lawns that are legal are pure organically grown yards.

... and if you beleive that, you better get a strap for your tin foil hat before it falls off! ;)

Even AG Gonzales has admitted that some porn is "protected free speech". "speech" can take many forms including images.

As for "treason", well, I invite miss redrose to go form her own country, I vote her off the island. ;)

Alex

So if they (lobbyists or whomever) have the power to get bioengineered grasses outlawed you think it is outside their power to get chemically-enhanced grasses outlawed? If so, why? Do you think they?ll be content at stopping at one ridiculous issue? If they win on one issue (in your hypothetical case of bioengineering grasses) what is to stop them from going after another, then another, then another??? WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

This is a tough subject sure and I'm torn on it. Yes a slippery slope situation can happen no matter how much you stick your head in the sand RA.

"In the UK Parliament passed the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act in 2005 banning protest without permit within 1km of Parliament. The first conviction under the Act was in December 2005, when Maya Evans was convicted for reading the names of British soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed in the Iraq War, under the Cenotaph in October, without police permission. [1]"

I'm pretty sure the same person that thinks the stories discussed in this thread are "clearly over the line" would find this situation not over the line. Too bad the UK government doesn't agree.

And RawAlex, it doesn't matter if 99.9999% of people think this should not be protected. What about all of the material that 51% of the population doesn't think should be protected? Better yet, what about all of the material that 51% of lawmakers, congress, or judges find offensive? Just because something crosses your moral line does not mean it should be written into law. That is not what the laws were intended for.

By sheer fucking odds you will always have times in the course of decades that you will get a super conservative group calling the shots on one level or another. I guess people only give a damn when it touches them personally.

To sum it up, if someone beat this person to death tomorrow I would not feel bad for them at all. If however they end up in jail over the written word I will feel sorry for this industry, this country, and everyone who has fought to protect our freedoms from simple minded people that think their personal line is good enough for everyone.

P.S. Arguing about censoring speech on gofuckyourself.com is a bit retarded. :2 cents:

I couldn't have said it better myself.

yes, but our system is set up as "government for the people and by the people", and even Thomas Jefferson suggested that there can be revolutions and major changes in government.

The Supreme Court can be skewed to have serious impact upon constitutional interpretations based upon who the president is able to nominate and get approved. Things like Roe v. Wade could change just like the viewpoint on obscenity and what is "free speech" or protected speech.

The Supreme Courts ruling on Eminent Domain was truly disturbing.

In all of these obscenity cases, it is a few small percentage of the overall population that is affected, but the resonance of such actions might spread over a slightly bigger percentage of population (ie.online adult websites), but its still very small compared to the greater population like say, counting the "NASCAR dads", etc. (if the adult community were large enough, it would have been able to affect more change in elections, but the sad fact, is the population of adult biz is very small... while the population who looks at porn is very high... FSC Michelle wanted to expand FSC to be like the NRA, to have like 2-3M members comprised of surfers/consumers of porn... and she was right.. that is what is needed to get the kind of membership numbers to truly make effective change and show representation).

I reject the notion that once conservatives are done with "extreme" content, that they will keep going to eliminate porn.

"Conservatives" are consumers of porn. NASCAR dads are consumers of porn. Jokes, news items, etc in everyday have some mentioning of porn.

Porn would not be relegated to prohibition status. These are much different times. The internet has brought out instant communications and awareness to issues.

There is always a balance point where the pendulum of morality will swing from side to side, and clearly, the news items on "attacking" obscenity is one such swing, but the other side of the swing is mainstream acceptance of porn with the balance that its not in their face, its not polluting their emails, it's not putting them in pop-up hell, etc.

If people want to see porn, they will find it. If they don't want to see porn, they have the right not to see it.

I am all for the notion of "what you do inside your home is your own business", and even if that includes writing truely perverse stories such as what redsose was distributing, but if some DA, AG, or law enforcement has a problem with it as crossing some legal line, then that content, and the propreitor of that content is going to have to face their responsibility for engaging such activity.

I try to not go into the moral/ethical impacts of society of the Redrose content, but stay in a more pragmatic place of evaluation that so much of the problems that our society faces, in every facet of life, is due largely from the lack of taking responsibility for your own actions and for the actions that affect others.

Our laws come down to one basic fact... if you don't like the law, do something to change it, otherwise, you have to work within the law. Those that push the envelope of the law or break the law, find themselves in the defendant position, while everyone else stays within the lines.


Fight the box!

Solidbob, consider the concept that booze was at one time entirely banned. You know exactly what happened with that. At the end of the day, regardless of what the high and mighty and moral politicians of the day thought, the people thought otherwise and in the end, the situation was resolved.

My approach on how things should be approached is "how would this look on the O'Reilly Factor... or how would this sound on Rush Limbaugh's show"? You can just picture them all there getting huffy and indignant because all these porn people are protecting this person's right to publish baby rape and snuff stories. You know exactly how the media would treat the rest of us, and public opinion won't be in our favor. Suddenly we are all distributors of child porn and supporters of raping children and killing them.

You don't think that the conservatives can have a field day with that stuff? Every restrictive law (including the changes to 2257) have been written in the name of "protecting the children". Itis the hot button issue that these politicians can use to pretty much legislate us out of business. Every time we stand up for a RedRose or some distributor or scat or bestiality or whatever, we end up making it that much easier for those that oppose porn in general to paint us with an ugly stripe and get the public on their side.

You can say you support RedRose, hold your nose, and try to avoid the smell, but the smell stays on you... and the conservative hunting dogs follow that stench.

Is Nabokov's book "Lolita" child porn?

What is the purpose of the anti-child porn laws? It is to PROTECT actual childen from being abused --not to disallow perverted writers from writing about their sick fantasies.

NAMBLA advocates for child sex right on their website. Sure it is repugnant, but it is protected speech.

http://www.nambla.org/

The "slippery slope" which is so often mentioned in the context of issues like this is emotive claptrap. We accept any number of restrictions on our lives because as communal creatures it would be unrealistic to do otherwise. My neighbor is constrained from destroying my garden, because what might be freedom for him could make my life miserable.

Fortunately for me, the community at large long ago decided it is on the side of those who do not want their gardens to be trashed according to someone's whim. In a myriad more and less serious ways we embrace the concept of "community standards".

Is there a slippery slope at all? If so, is it that while burglary remains a crime, some police forces are so overwhelmed that they do little more than file reports. Or is it that in California the penal system has become so abused that someone sentenced to a year in prison may end up serving four. Is it that the authorities have prosecuted someone for attempting to profit from pandering to tastes which offend many of us, or that protestors against government policy must accept being told where they can conduct their protest.

Ironically, since the principle of freedom of speech would likely not exist except in a democracy, the slippery slope is democracy itself. Thomas Jefferson once commented that "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." He was absolutely right, except that what he did not mention was that if only fifty percent of the people bother to express an opinion, it takes less than twenty-six percent of the population to dictate to the other seventy-four.

I may appear to be rambling, but the point I am working towards is that cases such as the one which prompted this thread should be important primarily because they are a symptom of how far we have gone down a road which few of us, in our hearts, really wish to be travelling. The society in which we live is being changed by things provocative enough to make the headlines, but it is being changed much more by things which do not. And all of these things are able to happen because so few of us give a damn.

This story will generate thousands of comments around the 'net, hundreds of column-inches in newspapers, and enjoy a few moments of fame on radio and TV. But during the days it has sufficient impact to inspire a few people to become more active in their communities, many more will excuse their lethargy by claiming that no-one listens.

That's bullshit. The reason that in some states pharmacies do not now provide the morning-after pill is precisely because those states did listen to the people who demanded that pharmacies stopped doing so. They listened because those were the people talking, or at least, talking loudest and in the largest numbers. In an ideal world, the powers-that-be would attempt to identify the wishes of the silent majority, but here on planet earth, they listen to those with the power to put them into office and keep them there.

In other words, so long as people start bleating every time something like this happens, but otherwise accept whatever comes down the pike, don't expect to be taken seriously. The outcome of this particular case is irrelevant in the broader scheme of things, because around the country there are probably thousands of cases and hundreds of pieces of legislation in progress, with the potential to impact negatively on many lives. Just this month my local TV station refused to show that 911 documentary for fear of FCC reprisals: their fault for being faint-hearted or mine for sitting on my ass and permitting the existence of the rules they fear?

There is no more logic behind fearing the slippery slope in respect of freedom of speech than fearing the slippery slope of allowing speed restrictions on our roads. In both cases you get to decide how far you will let things go before you finally do something about getting your own opinion heard.

i appreciate your parallel paths of reasoning, but in the end, do you feel that Redrose should be defended by all adult webmasters due to the "slippery slope" or that there isn't a "slippery slope" conclusion and Redrose needs to take their own actions with consequences, or some other conclusion?

i couldn't tell your position like i can normally appreciate from all of your other insightful posts.


Fight the clarifications!

An essay on the boundaries/standards of free speech by David van Mill makes a very interesting point with respect to the 'slippery slope' argument and free speech:

"The slippery slope argument is that we should not limit free speech because once we do we will slide our way into tyranny and censorship. Such arguments assume that we can be on or off the slope. In fact, no such choice exists: we are necessarily on the slope whether we like it or not, and the task is always to decide how far up or down we choose to go, not whether we should step off altogether.

It is worth noting that the slippery slope argument can be used to make the opposite point; one could argue with equal force that we should never allow any removal of government involvement with the action of individuals because once we do we are on the slippery slope to anarchy, the state of nature, and a life that Hobbes described in Leviathan as 'solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.'"

I tend to agree with him; laws determine not the existence of the 'slope,' but its incline.

- Q.

great point...


so... how do we measure this incline?

:)



Fight the scientific measurement!