General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I "get" that you don't "get" the idea underlying the First Amendment [View all]DirkGently
(12,151 posts)I "get" the First Amendment. I think most people do. But most people also understand that "free speech" is a complicated right that can't be trotted out to short-circuit all discussion of every kind of expression there could ever be. It doesn't work that way, and never has.
If we are once again plunging into the "Nasty Porn, Freedom or Threat?" waters, the general principle of free speech just isn't enough to conclude anything.
We we need a little nuance here.
First, the First Amendment is great. It IS a core a principle that America is rightfully proud of, but
No one thinks it's an unfettered right. It's not.
There are, and always have been, limits based on actual HARM.
- Can't make certain threats.
- Can't expose certain state secrets.
- Can't print or speak false statements harmful to reputation (and not be sued for it)
- Can't incite imminent violence.
- Can't speak so as try to start a fight (and claim it was free speech)
So, respectfully, the Very Bad Porn vs. The First Amendment dumbs things down way too much. Unless you have people actually making the "ban whatever I don't like" argument, which I don't recall seeing here much.
Here's what's going wrong with this debate.
1. The "critics" aren't all talking about bans and censorship.
That's the same stupid conflation the extremes of gun control debate keep coming down on. No right is unlimited, and every regulation or limitation on a right is not a high-speed slippery slope to a ban. We limit EVERY RIGHT.
Carefully.
Backing up though, Constitutional protections mean absolutely zero if you're talking about
- Criticzing
- Protesting
- Shaming
- Labeling / warning
2. When you do get to actual regulation, we have mountains of it already, on theories that some "artistic" or entertainment expressions can do actual harm to either the participants in creating it, or the consumers of it. Largely this has to do with children, but the PRINCIPLE is not, and never was, that expression in all its forms, and no matter how "dangerous" cannot be touched.
We can, do, and should regulate porn. Sorry. And it's not -- necessarily -- authoritarianism or "censorship" or any of that.
No one thinks that.
Everyone understands -- right? -- that one of the issues with "rape porn" is the problem with determining whether an actual sex act is consensual or not once it's being filmed for profit, right? So it's not an aesthetic issue, but more like child porn, where the people being filmed are being hurt BY the production. Not okay, and not free speech under any rationale.
I had thought fully realized physical depictions of rape were already illegal here, for just that reason, but apparently that's not the case. I don't think a ban would be the slightest bit inconsistent with the First Amendment.
But the rest of this discussion is really where the meat is -- the parts about gender privilege and exploitation -- It's not possible to reduce that to Censorship -- Yes or No?! There's more being raised than aesthetics or prudery, and there is more that might be done than bans or censorship.
If we have to have 10,000 threads about this stuff, let's bear in mind it's much more complicated than Free Speech vs. Dirty Stuff on the Internet, and reducing it all to that just shows an unwillingness to think past knee-jerk poo-flinging.
The real crackpottery here is reducing ever discussion of the possible harms of any form of expression to "They're comin' for your pornz!" as though that were the only conceivable thing to be discussed.
We're smarter than that.
Right?
Carry on.