Via Sullivan
Seems that John Ashcroft’s Justice Department has run out of terrorists to round up and has both the pro-choice and gay rights movements right where they want them (or are moving toward it), so now it’s time to broaden their reach and start waging the war John’s really interested in: the one against pornography…
…I’ll pause for the collective “Who me?” and then “Well, OK, yeah”…to cross your minds…
And before you google some outrageous abuses of the laws by the industry, please note:
The Justice Department pursued obscenity cases vigorously in the 1970s and ’80s, prosecuting not necessarily the worst offenders in terms of extreme material, but those it viewed as most responsible for pornography’s proliferation.
[Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the division in charge of obscenity prosecutions at the Justice Department] said the department is employing much the same strategy this time, targeting not only some of the most egregious hard-core porn but also more conventional material, in an effort “to be as effective as possible.”
“I can’t possibly put it all away,” he said. “Results are what we want.”
Don’t be surprised if this results-oriented effort means that those sites you’ve bookmarked aren’t there next time you get bored of blogging…
Larry Flynt won’t take this laying down. He’ll bring out the abortion charge lickety split.
I’d be surprised if they started with Internet sites. They’re too decentralized and hard to control. If I remember correctly, last time he tried this. . early in the presidency. . he went after movie producers (and classical statues. I mean honestly. . what a nutball).
[delete, delete, delete, save to CD, delete]
There’s pornography on the Internet?
Two quick points:
1. Like most things, porn has “evolved” from the Playboy at the barbershop (which ain’t too bad) to some real ugly stuff like simulated rape and quasi-snuff films. We should ignore the former, but do something about the latter.
2. Gotta pal, who for 18 years worked as D.A in San Fran, vice division. His stories will chill your spine. Much of the porn and prostitution biz is a form of indentured servitude. Some real bad actors FORCE these girls (many of whom are under-age runaways) to debase and degrade themselves (thru violence, rape and heroin) for dirty movies, Johns, strip clubs — you name it. The girls don’t get squat — the pimps, panderers and mob get all the spoils.
Once the girl is in, it’s damn near impossible to get out. Once the girl reaches the grand ole age of 30 or so– they send her packin’. If she ain’t dead or strung out, she’s pretty well-used up.
So, there is a real ugly, evil side to the porn/prositution industry (several billions $$). There’s a lotta exploitation — it ain’t just horny geeks surfin’ the web.
My 2 cents.
As to the latter point, if John Ashcroft wanted to lead the nation’s prosecutors and courts in a crusade to start taking the criminal and civil complaints of sex workers seriously, which absolutely does not happen currently, I would be all for it. Change the rules so that an actress who gets stiffed for payment does not get laughed out of court and a prostitute who gets beaten and robbed can go to the police rather than a pimp. What Ashcroft wants to do means moving sex workers further beyond the legal pale, into darker territory than they currently occupy. I will not buy this as in any way genuinely aimed at easing the plight of women in the industry. Ashcroftism is the problem, not the solution.
Also, simulated rape is not rape. It’s fiction. Avedon Carol has had a lot to say on that matter.
What Jim said. Navy makes great points that are very likely to be totally unrelated to anything Ashcroft does. I would be 100% on board guaranteeing the rights of women in the porn industry and possibly putting limits on work that fetishizes crimes (though I’m not sure how those limits wouldn’t also apply to non-sexually explicit films like True Romance or Gangs of New York).
Except the focus in the past has been on stamping out ‘obscenity’, which usually equates to particular position or acts that weird the DA out.
acts that weird the DA out.
let’s not open it up that far, please…remember this department is headed by the man who draped the statue.
Pornography is a poison; that the soft-core variety is a near-constant wallpaper in our lives does not make it any less vile; and the idea that the First Amendment was designed to protect it is about as solid evidence as we have that republican virtue is dead.
That a man (Larry Flynt) who made is money by publishing a magazine which routinely featured such creative endeavors as bloody female genitalia on fishhooks and gang-rapes with razorblades, can be lionized as a hero of freedom, is a testament to the ease and impunity with which corrupt men can deceive and traduce.
Change the rules so that an actress who gets stiffed for payment does not get laughed out of court and a prostitute who gets beaten and robbed can go to the police rather than a pimp
Nice sentiment, but naive. Beatings, humiliations, rape, forced addiction to heroin are already fully integrated into the industry — no different than “casual Fridays” for us boring, professional types.
It’s a sub-culture — nice, polite folks yappin’ about politics on web-blogs don’t hang out there much.
Now, there may be a valid argument to LEGALIZE all this vice and try to shine some regulatory law to protect some of the exploited. That’s a valid argument. It may well be the wave of the future.
But, simply sneering at Ashcroft, and tacitly siding with the thugs running the porn/pimping industry, who ruin the lives of a lotta young, vulnerable, folks (mostly girls) ain’t exactly a profile in courage.
Interesting topic, though.
Paul,
re: soft porn…can you describe where you’d draw the line?
I see you as reasoned but definitely to the right on this issue (and am not surprised by your comment), but, say, using the movie rating system, where by “R” means some nudity and highly erotic content, but “X” means that it’s crossed over clearly into graphic depiction, would you advocate banning “R” rated materials (and here I should clarify, because “Passion of the Christ” is rated “R”, I’m limiting this to discussion about ratings based on sex…although that does open up the question of what’s actually “obsene” to general population…)
Still, let’s leave it at sexual material for the moment. Is “R” OK…or would PG be where you’d draw the line?
Not trying to poke fun here, honestly…just trying to gauge the spectrum of opinions here.
simply sneering at Ashcroft, and tacitly siding with the thugs running the porn/pimping industry, who ruin the lives of a lotta young, vulnerable, folks (mostly girls) ain’t exactly a profile in courage.
I tried to limit the discussion by focussing on the “conventional material” Navy, knowing that extreme examples are usually thrown up to warrant total license in crackdowns of this sort.
Personally, I admire Reno, who shifted to focus to child pornography and made a real difference there, much more than I do Ashcroft. He lost all credibility when he covered the statue’s breast.
Navy, as was clearly pointed out in Jim’s comment (and mine), the welfare of women in the porn industry is a valid concern and the problem with Ashcroft is that that does not seem to be his fight, and as Jim points out, his tactics could likely exacerbate the problem.
Therefore your arguments are with phantoms, and you have no grounds to question anyone’s courage.
“Pornography is a poison; that the soft-core variety is a near-constant wallpaper in our lives does not make it any less vile; and the idea that the First Amendment was designed to protect it is about as solid evidence as we have that republican virtue is dead.”
Pornography defined as that which intentionally causes sexual stimulation; evidence derived from whether a reasonable person is sexually stimulated. To be distinguished from obscenity.
Having just discussed the 2nd Tarzan movie, and the glories of Maureen O’Sullivan, such glories soon after deliberately diminished by the Hayes commission so that virtually no movies not enjoyable by children were made after 1935, I find Mr Cella extremely dangerous. This is not a joke, folks, we have been here, done that. In my short lifetime.
He means the earliest Playboys. He means the Masters of our Domain in “Friends”
Edward,
re statue
Misplaced focus. Nobody on the planet cares whether a statue’s breast was covered up or not.
Sidereal,
re courage
The issue ain’t me. The issue is a FULL VIEW and UNDERSTANDING of the porn/pimping industry. Nowhere have I given a “holier than thou” speech.
All I have done is alert a few folks to some of the REAL UGLINESS that supports the industry.
Analogy: In the 80’s, few of the rich, white frat boys who snorted coke, gave a moment’s thought to the Columbian peasants, pressed into indentured slavery by the warlords to harvest the coca plants.
It’s called looking at the roots, not just the leaves.
Paul Cella,
Good post. Moral dimensions should not be forgotten, either.
Gotta run
He means the Masters of our Domain in “Friends”
wasn’t that in Seinfeld?
Personally, I don’t see Paul’s point of view as threatening as you do, Bob. First, he’s clearly entitled to his opinion, and second there are political (read: money) forces working against this crackdown:
I’m willing to bet Ashcroft’s guys aren’t looking that closely at ComCast’s porn offerings at least…
Nobody on the planet cares whether a statue’s breast was covered up or not.
I care whether it is or not (and last I checked, I’m still on the plant)…I’m willing to bet that so did the artist who made it. He/she had a clear intent that prudish Ashcroft had no right to interfere with.
Drawing lines is difficult, and in most cases arbitrary. There is that old “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” quip; and it contains real practical wisdom, which brings us toward a point that I have made here with some regularity.
Legislative assemblies, in a healthy republic, should not be restrained from legislating against obscenity, pornography, etc. The constitutional warrant for just such restraint is thin as thin can be; and political speech and pornography are about as alike as chalk and cheese.
It is true that the voting constituency for pornography is pretty small, and assuming the application of the republican principle to censorship of this sort, any politician outside of a major urban area (and even inside some) with half his wits about him would see rather quickly that pledging to outlaw indecency would be a strong vote-getter. Obviously, I am not bothered by that.
Let us also note that the opening-up of Hollywood to indecency has hardly helped it financially. The public seems not to desire sex and violence quite so extravagantly as the self-serving apologias of the entertainment industry PR claim.
It is hard for me to see how men rest content as soi disant republicans or democrats (small “r,” small “d”) while they endorse a regime that prohibits the people from speaking its legislative mind of decency, obscenity, etc.
Navy – fair enough. I still don’t apprehend where you’ve disagreed with anyone here. There’s no wholesale defense of the porn industry going on. We should both find Ashcroft’s apprach equally dangerous. The article states he wants to go after softcore HBO series. Total waste of effort and distraction.
bob/Edward/Paul – The determination of whether Paul’s attitude towards pornography is dangerous or simply a minority voice of chastisement rests entirely in whether he advocates imposing his morals on the disagreeing. Pornography is damaging to the spirit as all gluttony is and denying it is an important step towards enlightenment and spiritualism. But the problem with evangelism is that it usually favors the appearance of that step over its actual existence. In other words, deny gluttony by means of authority in order to simulate an environment where people have denied gluttony by means of their own inner peace. In the end it is inevitable that this hollow semblance will destroy itself. Better effort is spent fostering right action and right thought itself. . the symptoms will die of their own accord.
“…critics say that Americans’ tolerance for sexually explicit material rivals that of Europeans.”
What’s wrong with that? So what? Who cares? There seems to be an implicit comment that Europeans are somehow soiled by their tolerance.
To my mind, the issue is two-fold. To the extend that nobody is hurt, it shouldn’t be anybody’s business what an individual does. Navy Davy has some good points in this respect. Secondly, the converse should also be true–if you don’t want it, you shouldn’t have to put up with it. That’s the choice issue that made the whole “wardrobe malfunction” thing so objectionable–unsuspecting folks had their choice taken away. We hate that.
But some folks seem to have wrapped themselves around the axle at the mere thought that someone somewhere is enjoying something they find objectionable. If it’s not hurting anyone, then I say tough. Deal with it. But even that line in the sand is getting hard to defend. It seems to be pretty easy these days to come up with a societal-harm argument for just about anything some group doesn’t like. Witness smoking bans and helmet laws (I don’t smoke, and I always wear my helmet). I just don’t like the gov’t telling me what to do when I think it should be a personal choice. Slippery slope and all that….
I’ll take my 1st Amendment without the side order of “except for stuff that bugs me”, please.
And Michael Medved should have more faith in capitalists, even if they do like to make movies which get him hot and bothered.
Sidereal: Yeah, I guess another way I could express my views is that I should be allowed to develop at my own pace, without the retarding effects of false achievement. Talk about your idolatry….
Paul:
they endorse a regime that prohibits the people from speaking its legislative mind of decency, obscenity, etc.
The way you phrase it makes it sound like there are two parties — (1) the “people”, who want to do X, and (2) the mean old nasty federal government, which wants to keep people from doing X.
In fact there are three parties: (1) the individual, who wants to do Y; (2) the state government, who wants to stop the individual from doing Y; and (3) the federal government, who wants to stop the state government from restricting the freedom of the individual to do Y.
I know you know this, but your rhetoric obscures it. Isn’t it the state government that’s closest to being a “regime”, since it’s attempting to restrict the freedom of some of its individuals?
We can have a productive discussion about the appropriate roles for each level of government, but let’s not set up a false dichotomy between “the people” and “the regime”.
“wasn’t that in Seinfeld?”
Sorry. I have actually never watched either show. Not once. That may be a wow moment for some. But, tho very permissive, I find the casual vulgarity of the modern sitcom boring. Like a 10-yr-old with a new vocabulary.
….
I by no means think Mr Cella has no right to his opinion, quite the opposite. I come closer to his than many here perhaps, we are in a disgusting state of license and what passes for eroticism today is probably actually violence. I do have Playboy as wallpaper, along with many old master Madonna’s, but my collection stops at 1975. I would contend that the Playboy pictorials of the sixties were closer to 19th century Academic nudes with a deliberate avoidance of sexual intent, but that would involve a post, not a comment.
Last post on a good discussion:
1. If them “Girls Gone Wild” videos advertised on late night T.V. (basically drunk sorority girls flashin’ their titties) was the norm, then the anti-Ashcroft crowd is probably right. Mere ditziness and stupidity shouldn’t be criminalized.
2. But, I would submit that GGW is way more the exception, than rule. The rule, for at least the past 40 years, has been (1) young girls from broken families, many runaways, (2) comin’ to the big city (3) being preyed upon by some real bad actors, who use them up and discard them.
The end-product may seem fun and harmless, but the process, like sausage-making and politics, is damn ugly.
Good discussion, though.
To continue: 🙂
“Pornography defined as that which intentionally causes sexual stimulation” I stated this for a reason; I was raised Catholic, and that definition allows no “line”. There is no matter of degree here, and the measure is internal. Tho the “that” should have been changed to “artifacts”. Your wife is not pornographic.
…..
…..
Paul and I appear to have complementary yet opposing views of governance, both of which are valid, and differ mainly on emphasis.
To me the key to freedom is minority rights. Period. The purpose of government is to ensure minority rights. The majority can usually take care of itself. Virtually the entire purpose of the Constitution was to declare a Republic, and then take every reasonable step to restrain that Republic.
Perhaps one of the main differences between Conservatives and Liberatarians rests here, in majoritarianism vs individual liberty. I consider both sides essential to a sane and stable society.
But I do find political Libertarianism more consistent with free market capitalism, because both involve getting gov’t out of the way (save its function of ensuring free competition), and allowing competition to deliver the optimum results.
It’s one of those classic irregular nouns:
“They read pornography: you read erotica: I read stimulating adult literature.”
If Paul Cella really believes that anything designed to stimulate sexual feeling is “vile”, I think he has a major problem, but so long as he doesn’t impose his sexual problems on me, that’s his problem.
Pornography in itself needs to be considered in two forms: written and photographic.
Written porn is fantasy: it harms no one directly, and it is (in the US) absolutely protected by the First Amendment. The problem, insofar as it exists, is that these days access to the Internet means that people can stumble across other people’s sexual fantasies and find them grossly offensive. The appropriate response is, of course, to quit reading and/or use the delete key: it isn’t my concern that Paul Cella thinks anything that stimulates sexual feeling is vile, and it isn’t Paul Cella’s concern what fantasies stimulate sexual feeling in other people.
Photographic porn brings up several issues that are legitimately of public concern: the welfare of the models/actors, the right of others not to be imposed upon by pictures (it’s easy to refuse to read print: not so easy to ignore a picture that disgusts), and (connected to the first) the age of the models/actors. Photographic porn is also not explicitly protected by the First Amendment, though I would argue that it is as protected as any other visual production: if The Passion of the Christ falls under the protection of the First Amendment, so must Debbie Does Dallas.
But if we’re talking about being imposed on by photographs, one reason why I will never go to see The Passion of the Christ is because it is (as far as I know) the first movie to be advertised by spam. My livejournal got spammed twice with text and photographs advertising Passion, and personally, I found the photos disgusting. I did not want them in my journal: I deleted them. I object to the fact that some Christian asshole thought s/he/it could increase the audience for Passion with spam. But I have no wish to ban Passion – no more than, I hope, Paul Cella would wish to ban pornography.
I feel free to say that what I’ve seen of Passion revolted me, just as Paul Cella (I hope) would feel free to say that what he’s seen of “stimulating adult literature” revolted him. But that’s as far as anyone in a free country should go. (Though I do have some concern for the welfare of Jim Caviezel … wasn’t he struck by lightning during the filming of Passion? Twice? /tongue out of cheek)
The “regime” in question is better conceived as the judiciary, which has “incorporated” its dubious First Amendment jurisprudence against the several States (and, by implication, every other level of government). By this alchemy the First Amendment has been shorn of its first word (“Congress shall make no law”) and broadened to include all manner things it manifestly was not intended to include,* such as the protection of federal law extended to embrace an industry of base exploitation and depravity.
Understood this way, I do not think it unjustified to point of the divergence between people and regime.
* If anyone has doubts about what the Framers intended in the First Amendment, let him consider Leonard Levy’s The Legacy of Suppression or Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side. Or let him consider that virtually the same group of legislators who enacted the First Amendment, also enacted the Alien and Sedition Act. We may not like the Framer’s First Amendment, and prefer to substitute Huge Black’s First Amendment, but i submit the doing so required a constitutional amendment.
I too think we should do away with the more egregious churches, but I’ll put up with them so we can have a free society.
If Paul Cella really believes that anything designed to stimulate sexual feeling is “vile”, I think he has a major problem
Nowhere did I say that.
Jesurgislac’s premises cannot remain unexamined. “I feel free to say that what I’ve seen of Passion revolted me, just as Paul Cella (I hope) would feel free to say that what he’s seen of ‘stimulating adult literature’ revolted him. But that’s as far as anyone in a free country should go.” Why? Why must Jesurgislac refrain from attempting to have The Passion banned, if he or she believes it is truly a pernicious item (and let us note that many have criticized it as “pornographic”)?
I do not recoil in horror, as many seem to, at the notion of someone trying to “impose” their morality on me, because I do not think morality a relative thing. Moral imposition happens all the time. Usually through more noble or innocuous means such as persuasion, but often through coercion. What is our contemporary church-state-separation doctrine but an exercise in constitutional morality; that is, in a specific philosophy of how best to organize ourselves as a people?
There is no way to avoid the confrontation of moral philosophies. Jesurgislac’s very exhortations against the desire to ban pornography constitute moral strictures.
I’m a “living Constitution” sort, more than an originalist–“government of laws, not of men” means that even men as impressive as the framers don’t get complete authority to say how the Constitution applies. (Anyway, you’d have to decide which framer, which is not easy; and it’s really the ratifiers rather than the framers who gave it its legitimacy and they’re damn near impossible to reach. And the whole package isn’t legitimate without the Civil War amendments and woman’s suffrage, and that colors my view too.)
That said–I don’t agree with the Hugo Black view of the First Amendment. (Black thought that even civil liability for libel was not okay.) I might be closest to the William Brennan view, of the justices who wrote a lot on it, but I’m not there either. (I’m also shockingly close to the Antonin Scalia view, considering I could not stand the guy before I read these cases.)
Paul Cella is more or less right about Larry Flynt, as far as I can tell. And in the famous obscenity cases, most justices, with the exceptions of Black and Douglas, agreed that some forms of obscenity were not protected by the first amendment. But they found it very difficult to draw the line that separated obscenity from the stuff that was protected by the first amendment.
Stewart resorted at one point to the famous “I know it when I see it” definition, which is really not a good basis for Constitutional interpretation. And Brennan eventually concluded that drawing the line was impossible, and all you could do was to regulate distribution so as to protect children and non-consenting adults from exposure to the stuff (any abuses during production would presumably dealt with laws against fraud, child abuse, prostitution, and what have you.)
Mainly, I think we’ve got bigger problems than porn. Violence against women IS a big problem, but if there’s a connection at all–it’s plausible with some of the more disgusting stuff, but I’m not totally convinced–this is a ridiculously indirect way of going after it when there are plenty of direct means we’re not using.
One last thing, Paul–do I misread you, or are you arguing that the First Amendment should not apply to the states despite the Fourteenth Amendment? The implication of that is that if they want to, Massachusetts can censor all critical newspapers, Texas can outlaw Judaism and make Christianity a state religion, California can outlaw criticism of the governor and ban Sylvester Stallone movies. (Unless, of course, their state constitutions prevent it, but state consitutions can sometimes be amended by a bare majority.)
If I’m not misreading you–I suspect you’re in a very small minority in that view.
Mr. Cella, things change, especially interpretations as subjective as the intent of free speech protection, just like the spoken language changes. That’s why the justice system exists, in part. Getting pedantic about terminology avoids the fact that the First Amendment hasn’t been made to include “protection of federal law extended to embrace an industry of base exploitation and depravity”, but rather to maintain protection of civil liberties from those who would otherwise impose their view upon the populace to suit only themselves and like thinkers.
Here’s a sincere question (to everyone): What’s the difference, philosophically, between a picture that invokes sexual stimulation and a picture that invokes some other strong emotion, like anger or horror? Is is simply the level of discomfort with the emotion? Nobody complains about pictures that elicit joy. Someone recently included (in some other post) a picture of somebody doing harm to seals in a posting comment. I found it disturbing. I imagine it was done to make a point (it certainly made me think about how I felt about such things). Now, why didn’t that posting cause as much turmoil as if a nudie picture had been posted? What’s the boundary?
“Why must Jesurgislac refrain from attempting to have The Passion banned, if he or she believes it is truly a pernicious item (and let us note that many have criticized it as “pornographic”)?”
Because, if I may speak for him (and I do so because I’m in agreement with him), he understands that it his not his right to prevent you from watching The Passion. And because he recognizes the difference between advocating against your desire to view The Passion with convincing argument and using the machinery and deadly force of the State to prevent your viewing it (or its creation) despite your desire.
“Moral imposition happens all the time. Usually through more noble or innocuous means such as persuasion, but often through coercion.”
You suggest the difference between these two is incidental. It is not. It is the foundation of the difference in our philosophies.
“There is no way to avoid the confrontation of moral philosophies.”
No, but there are many clever ways devised to maintain a civil society despite them. The one maintained by this nation builds on the foundation of Locke in the belief that each individual (not community, individual) should be given the benefit of the doubt so long as they do not impose on the same right of others. There are other nations where this is not the case. I do not find them preferable.
“Via Sullivan”
Or ya coulda had it via my comments here. Hey, does Sullivan come over here to comment? I ask ya.
🙂
“…quasi-snuff films. We should ignore the former, but do something about the latter.”
Oh, for crisakes, I’ve been reading about the menace of snuff films for over thirty years; it’s an urban legend, and even if one exists, it’s not exactly a major menace. Besides, last I looked, murder was still a crime.
Ditto forcing people into sex acts; this isn’t a problem of “pornography,” but of rape and assault, which happen to be crimes, right?
“Pornography is a poison….”
Fine; don’t look at it; next?
“Legislative assemblies, in a healthy republic, should not be restrained from legislating against obscenity, pornography, etc.”
Yes, they absolutely should. Unless you are prepared to grant me equal censorship rights over what I don’t approve of that you want to read/view/produce. No? I didn’t think so. Otherwise, you don’t get to decide what free speech is, bub.
“Why must Jesurgislac refrain from attempting to have The Passion banned, if he or she believes it is truly a pernicious item (and let us note that many have criticized it as ‘pornographic’)?”
You really completely don’t get what “free speech” means, do you?
It’s either that, or you simply feel that you, yourself, are sufficient authority as to be entitled to rule on what others should be allowed to read, view, and produce. In which case I simply must disagree with you.
Katherine says: “And in the famous obscenity cases, most justices, with the exceptions of Black and Douglas, agreed that some forms of obscenity were not protected by the first amendment. But they found it very difficult to draw the line that separated obscenity from the stuff that was protected by the first amendment.”
Katherine, free speech must protect that which we find the most vile, the most offensive, the most despicable, speech, or it defends nothing. “Semi-free” speech is not “free” speech.
I support the right of neo-nazis to march and call for my death (so long as they do not cross the line of incitment-to-riot and call for my death right there); I support the right of calling for killing Jews, blacks, men, and women. I support the right to publish pictures of people being evicerated, tortured, or raped, men or women. I support the right of expressing any idea, no matter how vile.
Because if I don’t, I’m in danger that sooner or later, the law I’ve allowed will be used to come after what I say. And, then, having chopped down all the trees of protection of speech in England, Richard, what will protect me from that wind?
Do you know what happened when earnest, well-meaning, Canadian legislators passed good liberal laws to protect women from pornography, a decade and a half or two ago, Katherine?
The Canadian government promptly went after lesbian publicans, and feminist publications.
That’s what happens when one makes “exceptions” that you can “point to” in free speech. It’s not you, you, or you, whoever is for the exceptions, who gets to decide.
And once they’ve finished coming for the Catholics, the union workers, and the Jews, they come for you.
“I think we’ve got bigger problems than porn. Violence against women IS a big problem, but if there’s a connection at all–it’s plausible with some of the more disgusting stuff, but I’m not totally convinced” …Katherine
Much of the classic industry had plots of sorts, often framing its sex as between couple or married couples. This has been abandoned.
Skipping a modern universal of porn features that many of you understand but I choose not to mention. The precise context of much of todays’s porn is women having sex with strangers. Usually for money. Perhaps it betrays an old fashioned sexism in myself, but I do not think this a common practice among women, or something most women desire. And so I see most of today’s porn as intentionally depicting women doing something they do *not* want to do.
And thereby in the mildest forms still violence against women.
Flame away, I guess
“Debbie Does Dallas”, a classic if there ever was one, doesn’t involve women doing strangers for money?
Paul, by your original intent argument (even if we were to grant a jurisprudence of original intent and a Congress populated by the framers) the First Amendment doesn’t apply to political speech either, since that is precisely what the Sedition Act was intended to target. On textualist or original-meaning grounds, I think the strong interpretation of the First Amendment has a fair amount to recommend it. (And if you have a problem with incorporation of the First Amendment against the states, Michael Kent Curtis makes a pretty good case for incorporation on _originalist_ grounds in his book _No State Shall Abridge_.)
Let’s say you’re right, though, about the First Amendment’s protections (or lack thereof) for pornography. Where do you (personally) draw the line? What is forbidden for adults to see, read, and buy under your ideal legal regime?
“Much of the classic industry had plots of sorts”
“Much” Debbie herself involved a courtship of sorts, even perhaps a little romance, and an obvious mutual desire. I cannot defend the “classic” stuff too strongly on these grounds, just slightly. I do find most of the stuff being released today simply reeks of misogyny and aggression, and if Katherine thinks otherwise, she simply needs to watch the productions of our Showtime Hero in “Family Business” I know what he makes, and do not watch him or his productions.
This may or may *not* extend to the interesting phenomenon of exhibitionist couple videos. Having just watched “Chasing Amy” the other, I could argue there also.
I honestly do not much like my gender sometimes, and I do find much of my culture irreparably debauched.
Well, we are the new Roman Empire, right? 🙂
Well, slopes aren’t always slippery. If you can draw a principled, legally and morally defensible line–say, “free speech until it is more likely than not to lead directly to violence,” or “freedom of the press, except someone can sue you for printing false information about them if 1) it could plausibly be believed, 2) you knew it was false, or were recklessly indifferent as to its truth or falsehood,” or “free speech but you can’t defraud people out of their life savings”* or what have you–there’s a limited danger.
In this case, the problem is that you can’t draw the line. Which I thought I made clear, but obviously not.
Also–the reason the Warren court upheld some obscenity exception to the first amendment was not that the speech wasn’t vile–plenty of “obscenity” isn’t, to me, and very little is as vile as Mein Kampf–but that they though it was apolitical and could be distinguished from political speech. Increasingly, they seem to be concluding that it can’t, and I think they’re right.
*I’m sure those exceptions are somewhat sloppily phrased, but I think they show what I’m getting at.
“…”free speech until it is more likely than not to lead directly to violence….”
I believe the only exception along such lines is at the most narrowly possibly drawn line, which is to say that, after a riot, if someone can be shown to have done the equivalent of pointed at someone and shouted “there’s the [FILL IN THE BLANK], get him/her!,” and serious violence is then inflicted upon the victim, then they are guilty of “inciting to riot,” which is, to be sure, done by way of speech.
That’s about it for that.
I’ll agree with a narrow law for libel so long as we still have unequal power between, say, the the NY Times and a blogger; the law would remain the only possible balancing force to protect someone from the damage done me when the Times publishes a false story that I am a pig-f–ker (I much prefer sheep, as every fule kno).
But if in future, blogging starts to balance out such power, I’ll think that libel law should Go Away. However, we’re not there yet.
As it is, I no longer believe “slander” done on a 1-to-1 basis should be preserved as a sueable offense. (In case anyone isn’t clear, “slander” is oral, and “libel” is written; “slander” can still be done via broadcast, though, so my opinion applies to that as it does to libel.)
Fraud isn’t a limitation on free speech, as I’d define it. It’s the fraud that’s the crime.
There’s also the crucial, but hitherto unmentioned here (that I’ve noticed) distinction between “prior restraint,” which Mr. Ashcroft very much wishes to impose, and punishment-after-the-fact (which he wants so as to achieve prior self-censorship — I’m sure he’d agree with that himself).
“Increasingly, they seem to be concluding that it can’t, and I think they’re right.”
As should be obvious, this is my position.
“I’m sure those exceptions are somewhat sloppily phrased, but I think they show what I’m getting at.”
Yes, they did.
It’s Mr. Cella’s position that both scares the bejeezus out of me, and that I find utterly repugnant and reprehensible, as well as downright totalitarian.
Here is a good, spanking fresh (pardon the expression) G. Beato piece on the subject.
“It’s Mr. Cella’s position that both scares the bejeezus out of me, and that I find utterly repugnant and reprehensible, as well as downright totalitarian.”
Conservatives often seem to take pride in a hard-headed and pessimistic view of human nature, and yet simultaneously argue for policies that contradict that view. I am positive that Mr Cella believes his community of fair-minded citizens will not ban Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
Because he is majoritarian. Not totalitarian, your word betrays your own prejudices about your fellow citizens.
Here is a link to excerpts from, and a link to the whole article, on a related topic.
It seems to me that wanting to control what other citizens can write, read, paint, sculpt, create, make as movies, and so on — to control both artistic expression, and all forms of sensory input, according to one’s own judgment, or to, at least, award that power to some agency of the state, is “totalitarian,” no matter that, perhaps, a majority of citizens might agree with it.
But definitions vary, so I don’t insist on mine in this.
I am against banning pornographic material. The vast majority of porn out there is not violent, unlike what many people believe. It’s easy to denounce the violent stuff, but most people find it to be a turn-off, so there isn’t as much production of it as you would think. Add in the fact that it’s more expensive since you have to pay a pretty hefty premium for actors and actresses who are willing and able, and you’ll see that the really kinky stuff isn’t as lucrative as it sounds.
As far as defrauding the talent goes, that only works once or twice. After that, reputation is usually enough to prevent anyone else from trusting the person, putting them out of business. Remember, these people are in it for the money, not because they like being evil. The vast majority of them are as upstanding as you’ll find for pornographers, and laws against fraud and nonconsensual sex should be vigorously enforced to get rid of those that don’t play by the rules.
Understood this way, I do not think it unjustified to point of the divergence between people and regime.
Except that “the people” in your formulation are still the ones attempting to constrain the freedom of one or more persons, and the judicial branch is defending the freedom of those individuals (at least in the case under discussion). That justices are not directly elected has no bearing on the fact that your term “the people” submerges an oppositional relationship, i.e. the majority of the people vs. the minority.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you — I agree that 1st amendment protections have been pushed far beyond not only the original intent but also the sense of the written words themselves. However, it’s an odd sort of tyranny that protects individual liberty rather than constricting it, don’t you think?
The precise context of much of todays’s porn is women having sex with strangers…..I do not think this a common practice among women, or something most women desire.
I saw some comedian who said that all porn movies should have the same title: “S[tuff] You’ll Never Get To Do, With Women You’ll Never Meet.”
Paul Cella, you said: Pornography is a poison; that the soft-core variety is a near-constant wallpaper in our lives does not make it any less vile
Pornography is designed to stimulate sexual feeling. That’s the only thing that the many varieties of porn (whichever of the irregular noun forms you choose to use) have in common. If you dismiss all pornography as “poison” or “vile”, what conclusion should I draw but that you believe that anything designed to stimulate sexual feeling is vile? If you intended any other meaning, please be more definite.
Why must Jesurgislac refrain from attempting to have The Passion banned, if he or she believes it is truly a pernicious item
Nowhere did I say that I think Passion is “a pernicious item”. What I have seen of it disgusts me. But unlike you, Paul, I see no reason why I should enforce my personal feelings on anyone else. I consider that adults in a free society have every right to decide what they will or will not watch.
Jesurgislac’s very exhortations against the desire to ban pornography constitute moral strictures.
Absolutely. The moral stricture I am exhorting is that all adults should have the freedom to choose to read and view what they want, not to have other people decide for them. Your moral stricture is based on the idea that other people should get to decide what I should be allowed to read/view.
Sidereal, you’re right, except that I wouldn’t even want to argue against people watching The Passion (except on the narrow don’t-support-spammers grounds of it being advertised by spam).
I don’t want to watch The Passion because, from all I’ve seen or heard about it, I think I would spend a couple of hours in the cinema being disgusted by its violence. And that’s as far as I go: I would object to anyone who tried to force someone to watch TP against their will: I would object to anyone who tried to ban TP. In a free society, people should get to decide what they want to watch: no one should be in the position of moral censor to the adult population.
And the same goes for porn. I don’t much like what porn movies I’ve seen (prefer the written material where I can make up my own visuals!) but I would certainly object to having any porn movie banned purely on the grounds that it might disgust someone who watched it. The solution to that is very simple: don’t watch it!
Sorry to drop out of so interesting and fruitful a discussion. I’ll throw out a few replies to my detractors, and then wait and see if anyone is paying attention anymore.
Mr. Farber accuses me of not understanding the Free Speech ideology. Not true. I understand it well; and reject it.
He then goes on to speculate that I consider myself “sufficient authority as to be entitled to rule on what others should be allowed to read, view, and produce.” A more comprehensive (and, I fear, tendentious) misreading of my arguments could scarcely be imagined. The sufficient authority in a republic is the people, its views articulated through assemblies of duly-elected representatives. How this emphasis in my contentions could be overlooked, as Mr. McManus writes, “betrays [Mr. Farber’s] own prejudices about [his] fellow citizens.”
As for my more serious interlocutors: Yes, Katherine and Mark, I do have grave doubts about the Incorporation doctrine, though I am not altogether settled in my opinion of it. Katherine presents us with a host of rather preposterous examples of what might happen without said doctrine (“Massachusetts can censor all critical newspapers, Texas can outlaw Judaism and make Christianity a state religion, California can outlaw criticism of the governor and ban Sylvester Stallone movies”), but even these do not fill me with horror. The vital thing retained is the invaluable right to exit, which is increasingly threatened as the Court arrogates legislative powers to it.
It is fascinating to me that Sidereal invokes the named of John Locke. For it is not at all clear that Locke was as solid an individualist as he is often assumed to be. He seems, at many points, to follow Hobbes in arguing that the individual yields up his natural rights when he moves out of the state of nature and into civil society; and that these rights are then vouchsafed to civil society for protection by none other than the majority*. As it happens, I am not a Lockean, precisely because his majoritarianism is too absolute, that is, not restrained by any any conception of moral law — and neither, I think, were the American Framers. This digression has gone too far field already, but let me just note the irony that (as I see it) Sidereal is citing a philosopher whose teaching is profoundly majoritarian, too majoritarian for my taste, against what he sees as my own wayward majoritarianism**.
Jesurgislac: The moral stricture I am exhorting is that all adults should have the freedom to choose to read and view what they want, not to have other people decide for them. Your moral stricture is based on the idea that other people should get to decide what I should be allowed to read/view.
My political philosophy holds that the best, fairest, most prudent way to adjudicate this conflict is through deliberative assembles of citizens legislating based on their common sense of the duties we owe to God and to one another; and of how best we can “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
What I object to is Jesurgislac claiming, on the one hand, that it is wrong absolutely for one man to impose his morality or “personal feelings” on another; and, on the other hand, that it is right absolutely to impose this very morality — the libertarian morality, we might call it — on other men. You are imposing the libertarian moral philosophy of atomistic individualism on me — and I don’t like it. So the question is how to reconcile our differences. My answer — and I am happy to entertain alternatives — is the Republic.
* The groundbreaking study on this question was Willmoore Kendall’s 1941 book John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule.
** On the question of Locke’s posture vis-a-vis the Western traditon, I’ll acknowledge, of course, that the debate still rages.
Link followed, studied, saved. Predictably challenged by the content. Appears to be some dispute about the extent of Locke’s liberalism.
Paul, your argument fails on the jagged rocks of reality. Sorry. (And sorry that you have to bow out, though I do understand that RL often gets in the way.) You assert that it is fundamentally wrong for me to impose freedom of choice on everyone, whether or not everyone wants it. Well, I don’t impose “freedom of choice” (though I certainly would if it were lacking but I had the power to do so): the Republic has in fact already imposed “the blessings of liberty” (freedom of choice being one of them) on you. It’s your right, in a free country, to refuse the right to choose.
You assert that you’re willing to accept what “the Republic decides” you should be able to watch: but your very complaints about the easy availability of “soft porn” strongly indicate that in fact you are unwilling to accept what “the Republic decides” – if what “the Republic decides” is contrary to what you believe to be right. You are unwilling to accept the current status quo, even though, quite evidently, the current status quo is exactly what the majority of people in the US want. So, since you assert that is is your moral guide, what’s your problem with it?
Paul, a couple of responses. I would still be interested in your response to the issue of the First Amendment and its protections for speech.
Re: the issue of conflicting political philosophies: you haven’t really explained, AFAICT why the position that adults should, within broad limits, be free to read/see/buy what they wish is harmful to individuals and society. You don’t like it. fine. why not? or to put it slightly more bluntly: why should individuals have the power to dictate to adults what they should be able to see and read?
If they do have that power, where do you personally draw the line? Hard-core pornography? Soft-core pornography? the SI swimsuit issue? _Ulysses_? _Sisters_? _The Color Purple_? _Sex and the City_? How far do you think my freedom should be infringed in this area?
You say that the best way to resolve these kinds of differences is through legislative bodies, (as I read your argument) through civic republican deliberation. Where do societal minorities come into this discussion? What protections do you and your model offer them? _Should_ they have any protections, in your opinion?
Where does the Constitution fit into this picture? The Constitution as written, and certainly as amended, is in a bunch of places a counter-majoritarian document. Should we allow that countermajoritarianism to affect the decisions that we reach? How does that countermajoritarianism (see for example the Bill of Rights) fit into your republican model? What is the role of the courts, as you see it? Should we have judicial review? If so, then what do you think should happen when judges overrule elected majorities? If not, what do we replace it with when arguing about the constitutionality of government action?
If the First Amendment isn’t intended to protect (or shouldn’t be enforced to protect) “non-political” speech, who determines what is non-political? And how do you get from “make no law abridging the freedom of speech” to “make no law abridging the freedom of political speech,” anyway?
For a slightly more public-policy oriented look at this question, see Eugene Volokh’s recently-osted take:
http://volokh.com/2004_04_04_volokh_archive.html#108139970585761138
“unwilling to accept what “the Republic decides”
ya know, “what the Republic decides” is kinda dynamic, and impermanent, and politics is like about losing and getting up and trying again and making adjustments and stuff
The Republic is a document (a set of tools), a process, and a people.
To be distinguished from the product of the above three things.
Appears to be some dispute about the extent of Locke’s liberalism. Well there is an understatement, Mr. McManus, if ever there was one. There is also “some dispute” about the extent to which the Framers were Lockeans: a dispute which might be suggested by pointing out that in the Constitution there not one whiff of the kind of “rights-talk” that is so prominent in the most famous passage of the Declaration of Independence.
Mark asks me to account for my entire political philosophy right here, right now. I admire his boldness, and his confidence in my cogency, but I’m afraid that book is still years away. Perhaps he could get a sense of my thinking from these essays: “The Virtuous People” and “The Federalist and the Fall“.
I want to emphasize that I am only a very qualified majoritarian. Plebiscitary innovations are about as foreign to the American polity as royalist ones. I conceive of majority-rule as only valid through the operation of deliberative assemblies — assemblies containing many counter-majoritarian forms and devices within themselves, and — and here is the crucial point — assemblies which, being composed of citizens who take the phrase “sacred honor” seriously, understand themselves as subordinate to higher things, namely, to the nature of man and society as created things.
I do agree that the First Amendment does bind Congress, but (1) I have already expressed my dislike of Incorporation and (2) even that Amendment still operates within the structure of the Constitution, the purposes of which are set out in the Preamble, among which are included unity and domestic tranquility.
Personally, my inclination is to be generous with anything with even a remote claim to being “political” in some way; less generous but still tolerant of anything with a claim to being “art”; mildly tolerant of anything with a claim to being entertainment of a variety other than pure sexual arousal; but altogether ungenerous with pure pornography.
Paul! You’re back. To save you time, here’s shorter Jesurgislac:
You argue that we ought to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” but you disagree that this entails freedom of choice for all (my argument). So what are the “blessings of liberty” if they do not include the right for adults to choose what they want/do not want to read or view for themselves?
Paul Cella writes: [various cogent things, but I want to ask about this one] …being composed of citizens who take the phrase ‘sacred honor’ seriously, understand themselves as subordinate to higher things, namely, to the nature of man and society as created things.”
I’d like to see if I’m reading you incorrectly or correctly. By “created things,” are you suggesting that atheists will not be acceptable citizens for such assemblies?
Jesurgislac:
My point is that the “blessings of liberty” purpose is not absolute, in the sense that it must be reconciled with five other purposes. that reconciliation, in a word, is the business of the American people, organized for action in history. Your argument seems to be that we crowd out the other purposes because we like “blessings of liberty” best.
By “created things,” are you suggesting that atheists will not be acceptable citizens for such assemblies?
Well, I think it is pretty clear from any candid reading of history that the American Founders thought openly-professing atheists to be unfit for public office. Just being honest, it is hard for me to disagree with them. I would say that agnostics should not be considered unfit to hold public office; and I think that an atheist who could convince us that he does not contemn our faith and our institutions, and still conceives of a natural or moral law higher than the human will which binds men, could show himself to be fit.
Okay, Paul: so in what respect does the right of every individual to decide for themselves what they want to read/view, without any moral censorship being imposed on them by government, interfere with (a) a more perfect union, (b) justice, (c) domestic tranquility, (d) common defense, and (e) general welfare.
My argument is that “the blessings of liberty” are essential to the good practice of (a) to (e). I find that an ancient document agrees with me on this one:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness .–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
You evidently disagree with this proposition: if you have time, feel free to justify it.
Well, I think it is pretty clear from any candid reading of history that the American Founders thought openly-professing atheists to be unfit for public office. Just being honest, it is hard for me to disagree with them.
So, in your view, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Olive Shreiner, Clarence Seward Darrow, Albert Einstein, Margaret Sanger, Pearl S. Buck, Charles Laughton, and B. F. Skinner were all intrinsically unfit for public office because they were all atheists? (Further, I suppose, in your view I am “unfit for public office” because I’m an atheist?)
I think you really do need to explain why simple disbelief in God, in your view, “unfits someone for public office”. It’s such a serious criticism to throw about so blindly that it looks like simple bigotry, as if you had claimed “openly-professing Jews are not fit for public office” (something the Founders might also have agreed with)….
PS: I’ll add before anyone else can – I can think of a multitude of reasons why I’m not fit for public office, but I don’t see that my disbelief in God is one of them.
“I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.” – Bush pere.
Mr. Cella‘s purity test makes me tempted to run for office – but there are too many crooks and criminals in govt for my taste.
Umm. Well ouch 🙂
1. Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche scholar and atheist, once said that a profession of belief in God was so vague as to be without meaning, and most marked a certain social conformism. Indeed. One might wonder why an atheist could not commit what, in his terms, would be such a little white lie. Unless he had a desire to deliberately profess a anti-social non-conformism. Hmmmm
2. Certainly in most cases, the weight of tradition and common sense will guide atheists and believers to the same conclusions on policy. The difference would be in the methods of justification. However there would sometimes be exceedingly difficult cases where the differences would be insurmountable. Capital punishment maybe?
Nothing humorous here, Mr Cella and I know our differences, and I appreciate even a strained civility. Perhaps Mr Cella may take comfort in my minimal influence on policy. I actually take some comfort there myself.
3. “Natural or moral law higher than the human will which binds men.” Would a Benthamite utilitarianism (as an example) satisfy Mr Cella here? Such things seem to be acceptable substitutes for many people, tho mere rationalizations in my judgement.
It interferes with domestic tranquility by producing a situation where CBS/MTV felt emancipated to show my 4-year-old a bared woman’s breast at prime time during the most watched TV program of the year. It interferes with unity by making of woman mere objects, and of sex mere animal pleasure. It interferes with the general welfare by advancing all the trends in modern sexuality which emancipate the predatory male, rend families apart, and inflict upon women and children deep and lifelong wounds. Etc., etc.
Is pornography included in the pursuit of happiness? If so, I’ll reply by asking: what is happiness? and answering with Aristotle — prosperity combined with virtue.
On atheists and public office: I only answered a question which was put to me. I did not mean to offend, or even inflame.
Also, let me turn the question around: Do my atheist interlocutors really truly believe that someone who regards the Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God, protected from doctrinal error by the Holy Spirit, as I do, is fit for public office?
At least we now have our disagreement out in the open . . .
Also, let me turn the question around: Do my atheist interlocutors really truly believe that someone who regards the Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God, protected from doctrinal error by the Holy Spirit, as I do, is fit for public office?
Er, yeah. (I waver between agnosticism and atheism, but I think I’m close enough for the purposes of this question.) Why would I think that a person like that would *not* be fit for office?
It interferes with domestic tranquility by producing a situation where CBS/MTV felt emancipated to show my 4-year-old a bared woman’s breast at prime time during the most watched TV program of the year.
Paul, I know 4-year-olds. Odds are, if you’d ignored it completely, your 4-year-old would never have noticed – or never thought it mattered. (You’re not seriously arguing, I hope, that the mere sight of a bared breast is going to permanently traumatise a 4-year-old? After all, a 4-year-old may have a younger sibling still being breast-fed.)
It interferes with unity by making of woman mere objects, and of sex mere animal pleasure.
Now you’re switching word meanings on us. The Preamble to the Constitution runs: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Even if I were to accept as true your assertion that pornography “makes of woman mere objects, and of sex mere animal pleasure” (which patently is false) plainly the writers of the Preamble were referring to a political union between states, which is plainly not affected by how the writers of the Preamble may or may not have regarded women.
(Your assertion is patently false because pornography is fiction: it no more changes the nature of women or of sex than Moby Dick changes the nature of whales.)
It interferes with the general welfare by advancing all the trends in modern sexuality which emancipate the predatory male, rend families apart, and inflict upon women and children deep and lifelong wounds. Etc., etc.
Huh? How on earth do you assert that pornography does any of these things? Show your chain of evidence.
On atheists and public office: I only answered a question which was put to me. I did not mean to offend, or even inflame.
Fair enough.
Do my atheist interlocutors really truly believe that someone who regards the Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God, protected from doctrinal error by the Holy Spirit, as I do, is fit for public office?
Unlike you, I prefer not to make sweeping judgements based on someone’s private religious beliefs or lack of them.
I would certainly argue that anyone who believes they have the right to abridge the freedoms that are defined in the Constitution and that are firmly asserted in the Bill of Rights, because their own religious beliefs tell them that those freedoms are wrong, is unfit to hold public office in the US. That would appear to include John Ashcroft.
But I would certainly assert that you have a right to believe what you like (my support for freedom of choice) and still run for public office. I merely assert (my support for freedom of choice) that you have no right to impose your beliefs on others, whether or not they voted for you.
“…my detractors…”
Maybe within the context of this discussion and the related ideas, but certainly not in the general case, Mr. Cella.
I agree that the exegesis of Locke is a little far afield and I hope you don’t mind leaving it for another time. . I appreciate the link. It’s thought provoking. I’d also hope that the proponents of the principles I described do not base their authority on their descendence from Locke or any other single mind but on their natural merits and the libretto of history.
“I did not mean to offend”
None certainly taken. And any vigorous reaction would be out of place. We already live in a society in which at least nominal belief in God is a near-requirement for high profile public office.
But..
“Do my atheist interlocutors really truly believe that … is fit for public office?”
since you asked. Yes, entirely. Your fitness for office would be determined by the manner in which those beliefs are translated into policy, action, and effectiveness. I might even vote for you. There’s ample evidence that even among proponents of a rigorous and detailed set of beliefs there is (at least in this country) enormous variety in implementation.
An interesting and quite pertinent question here, being “discussed” at gunpoint today in Iraq.
Should the more radical fundamentalist Sharia elements in Iraq be allowed representation, or representation proportionate to their numbers?
I have argued that they should, to considerable resistance from a crowd more religious, and more conservative than myself.
Should the US/CPA/IGC encode into the Iraqi constitution certain “rights” in opposition to Sharia, directly in order to protect those rights from majoritarian abrogation?
Umm, not that there is any comparison, of course.
….
I suppose I could be tendentious here and say that a committed believer lacks an open mind on moral judgements, and is therefore unfit, but experience informs me that religion appears largely irrelevant to how most people act. Which is not say they act badly, but simply to say they act independently of their religion. So I fear it little
….
I would also suggest that radical skeptics would be wise and consistent in practicing some *humility* in judgement
but experience informs me that religion appears largely irrelevant to how most people act. Which is not say they act badly, but simply to say they act independently of their religion.
Very good point.
I really enjoyed reading this discussion. (Found it intriguing that Sidereal, clearly influenced by Buddhism, and Paul Cella, conservative Christian, found a bit of religiously-inspired common ground in the first third.) Thanks.
Conservatives often seem to take pride in a hard-headed and pessimistic view of human nature, and yet simultaneously argue for policies that contradict that view.
As a voting member of the VRWC elite, I have to say that there’s a substantial fraction of conservatives who have no beef at all with pornography. Speaking for myself, I’d much rather deal with the looming specter of pornography than with the looming specter of hordes of DoJ agents invading households to confiscate said pornography.
As far as broadcast pornography, I’ll say that I’m a little relieved that Big Brother is policing the airwaves of the major networks. If that ever ceased to be the case, I’d probably have to ditch the TV, because I don’t want my three-year-old seeing cumshots between episodes of Dora The Explorer.
BTW, in my humble opinion, Paul’s pretty darn close to right w/r/t the likely majority intent* of the founders with respect to the First Amendment. So, if your goal is interpret the Constitution in line with the best-guess as to the majority intent of the founders, I think that Paul’s view prevails.
My view is that you try to interpret the words actually written in the Constitution, giving them the meaning that they would’ve had to a learned audience at the time they were written, and not try to guess what the Founders really meant. Which puts me very close to Scalia on the First Amendment. And, on this, quite far from Paul.*
Hugo Black, IMHO, went awry on the 1st Amendment when he started interpreting the words as a 20th century shopkeep might. By divorcing the words from their historical context, he rendered them meaningless.
von
*Paul’s in pretty good company, though. George Anastaplo, my favorite law school professor, would generally agree with his view. I once had the pleasure of watching Professor Anastaplo tell J. Scalia that Scalia was “fiddling while Rome burned,” to general laughter from the crowd.
Did Slarti just express a reasonable or consequential libertarianism?
Did von just confuse me with two opposing versions of “original intent”?
I need more coffee. Napped after lawnmowing.
Volokh wrote well today on pornography, expressing enforcement consequences weighing heavily toward greater tolerance….or maybe a nightmare if DOJ gets serious, nor sure which
Did von just confuse me with two opposing versions of “original intent”?
Bob — sorry, it is confusing. Original intent and original scripture are two different things.
Sorry — the apology was because I didn’t explain it well enough. And I won’t — the Apprentice is on (see most recent post).
Yes, I’m a loser.
Randy Barnett is pretty good for explaining the difference between original meaning and original intent originalism…if you feel like reading one of his law review articles on the subject. 🙂
I feel kind of bad for posting this, since the thread seems to be drying up, but Paul, the Constitution itself addresses your concern about atheists serving in public office:
This from Article VI. It has not, to my knowledge, been amended.
I’m not sure if this thread is still alive, but here are a few rejoinders.
I don’t know how Jesurgislac can argue with a straight face that the American Fathers conceived of forming a more perfect union as something so narrow as to exclude ideas of vice and virtue, and of duties inseparable from rights. Consider Section 15 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights: “No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Or Section 16: “It is the duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each other.” I trust readers are aware of thousands of similarly-expressed sentiments among the mass of Founding-era literature — which would make fine sense, as most of these men were conversant with all the great political philosophers of old, whose chief concern was often Virtue.
EDG:
I do not advocate laws excluding atheists from public office.
Paul, at the date of the writing of the US Constitution not only women but men were considered legally “mere objects”, and continued to be so regarded until 1865. And both socially and legally sex either with or between these “mere objects” was “mere animal pleasure”.
You’ve cited the Virginia Declaration of Rights: let me cite you some other declarations of rights from Virginia. (December, 1662) ACT XII. “Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother. WHEREAS some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any christian shall committ fornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act.”
You’re still trying to confuse the reference to a political union in the Preamble to the US Constition with your concept (which you have left undefined) of “unity”. (Further, you appear to be attempting to argue that men who actually and legally treated both men and women as mere objects, were somehow morally superior to people who merely sexually fantasise about women as sexual objects.
Odd, that.
Jesurgislac, you have mastered the art of sophistry. Nearly everything you wrote in your last post, despite its gripping content, is beside the point I made concerning the centrality of virtue in the political philosophy of the Framers.
The Framers left the concept of political union pretty much undefined too: but I feel that I am standing on rock solid ground when I declare that this concept did not exclude the idea of virtue, or the idea of duty. You face a very heavy burden of proof in asserting, as you seem to, that “political union” meant for them the modern libertarian preoccupation with separating the “private” and the “public.”
I decided it is all Kant’s fault.
🙂
Thanks, Paul: when arguing with a sophist, I bring out my best sophistry. I did not think to previously acknowledge your own mastery of the art, but I do so now.
Moving on, you are (apparently) arguing that we should adopt the morality of the Framers of the Constitution, because this will (you claim) avoid treating women as objects. You wish to ignore the plain fact that the morality of the Framers of the Constitution included the right to treat both women and men as objects.
You have failed entirely to demonstrate any cross-connection between the freedom to choose what to read (which is where we started from) and lack of political virtue.
I’m not separating the private from the public (I find it odd that you should claim I’m trying to do so) nor indeed have I ever claimed to be a libertarian. I assert the right of an adult to decide for themselves what they wish to read or view, without having any form of censorship imposed on them.
Whereas you feel that you ought to have your reading/viewing material censored in advance, and you reject as a “blessing of liberty” the right of free choice in your reading material. I support your right to reject free choice: I don’t concede that you have any right, or any obligation, to impose this self-required restriction on any other adult.
The above was based on my reading that article on Locke which ( I haven’t studied, a light first reading) seems to say Locke based much of his theory of gov’t on self-ownership, civic virtue, and religious belief. I am sure that is wrong, I read more later.
But virtue ethics was largely dominant for 2500 years, and then seemed to weaken in the 19th century. So I was wondering if Kant’s universal transcendental ethics diminished it. Answer: Probably, but as I remember, not so much in the English speaking world, at least for a while. A long while.
So where did utilitarianism (for example) come from? Unfortunately, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn’t have its Bentham article written yet. So I am gonna have to go the the utilitarian sites and look there.
Something went wrong in the sixties, obviously, and nor just on the left. Ayn Rand and Hayek probably did the right no good, tho I think Kirk fought the good fight.
I am thinking something also went wrong with the Scottish enlightenment somewhere.
Mr. McManus, you are a fascinating man. Of Ayn Rand I have no doubt she caused damage on the Right analogous to what happened on the Left (here is Whittaker Chambers’ demolishing of her philosophy [scroll down to “Books in Review”]). But why Hayek?
On political philosophy: I would say that Leo Strauss, whatever his eccentricities, was quite right to identify Machiavelli as the source of the breach between ancient (virtue-based) pol. phil. and modern (rights-based). Machiavelli, as has been said, emancipated the acquisitive impulse from the chains of iron with which classical and Christian political theory had fettered it; then Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau followed to consummate this break.
But the American social state, as Tocqueville shrewdly discerned, was as much pre-modern as it was modern: our ancestors escaped the tumult of European modernity to some degree; and therefore the ancients had not yet been subjected to the intoxicating power of the modern political philosophers (for let us never forget how powerful their minds were). Therein lies a crucial insight into the American exception.
Oh, I am not very familiar with these thinkers, but my shallow impression of Hayek, in that for instance he would not accept a label “conservative”, is that he provided an anti-statist secular alternative to Rand that was more attractively moderate and compassionate. A conservatism that could live with Roosevelt’s New Deal, at least for a while.
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Chambers was sort of a voice in the wilderness, wasn’t he? There must be others, but Chambers and Lewis the only comfort to religious conservatives for a long time.
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Did some quick study, and as you outline, appears to be Hobbes to Locke + Hume = Bentham, and we got troubles. I am deeply interested in the period 1775-1825, and think much of what we have comes from that age. And I include names like Wesley and and Wilberforce to add to Burke’s as a little counterrevolution. I am interested in all sides of that founding era.
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I thank you for your praise. I drop names, but maybe I have read enough to drop good ones. Always need to read and think more.
Paul, correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be arguing that we should be living our lives and organizing our society to encourage civic-republican-style virtue. Why is the individual freedom to read/see/buy works that others would consider obscene incompatible with civic virtue, and (assuming that it is), why should civic virtue trump the rights of the individual?
Since you mentioned Tocqueville, I think it’s worth mentioning that Tocqueville was explicitly concerned with the possibility that majority opinion/action would override the ability of the individual to hold their own opinions, pursue their own beliefs, and go their own way. This seems (from my admittedly-biased vantage point) to be much more small-l liberal than civic republican.
You also seem to argue that the somewhat-republican language in the preamble (ie, more perfect union, etc) ought to trump the body of the constitutional text. i don’t know about it as a philosophical matter, but that certainly contradicts every canon of constitutional interpretation that _i’ve_ ever heard of. von? catherine? am i right?
(oh, one other thing, and this is something of a side issue: in terms of the movement away from civic republican ideas, isn’t it Pocock’s argument that both Machiavelli and Rousseau, given their concern with the virtue of the whole society rather than the liberty/autonomy of the individual, etc, are much more republican than Strauss would have it? Certainly Rousseau’s Social Contract seems to place much more emphasis on the good of the whole rather than the rights of particular citizens, for example).
You know, I could have sworn that I spelled Katherine with a K when I typed that…
Why is the individual freedom to read/see/buy works that others would consider obscene incompatible with civic virtue
Excellent question. 😉 Patently, reality says it’s not incompatible… but if Paul ever comes back to this thread, I wonder what his answer will be.
And, um, this is art.
I do not advocate laws excluding atheists from public office.
Yeah, sub rosa discrimination is much more amenable to aoivding nasty Constitutional issues. But, still, thanks so much for your sufferance and indulgence. We really appreciate it.
It’s amusing that, on the one hand, Jesurgislac proposes a political and social context in which Paul is free to be as free, or as unfree, as he wants, and may place whatever restrictions as he deems necessary on his and his family’s discourse and interaction, and Paul views this as akin to slavery. (“You are imposing the libertarian moral philosophy of atomistic individualism on me — and I don’t like it.”)
Paul, on the other hand, proposes a context under which free adult human beings must bow to the wishes of a religious, conservative majority as to how they behave at home, and dresses it up as freedom. What’s more, he proposes that their differences be “reconciled” in a body from which, ideally, the “atomistic individuals” would be excluded. Which is sort of, you know, rigging the game.