Enforcing laws against illegal pornography
 

The GOP scare me... a lot.

I don't see them winning but if they do it will be tragic for America.

And it's not just the ass-juice candidate, Santorum...

Rick Santorum in a written statement: “Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced. If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so. Limited Justice Department resources should be used to protect children and women from predators, not limited by state boundaries rather than to sue border states.”

Mitt Romney in a written statement: “(I)t is imperative that we cultivate the promotion of fundamental family values. This can be accomplished with increased parental involvement and enhanced supervision of our children. It includes strict enforcement of our nation’s obscenity laws, as well as the promotion of parental software controls that guard our children from Internet pornography.”

Newt Gingrich in a face-to-face meeting: When asked by MIM staff if he will enforce existing laws that make much hard-core adult pornography illegal, he responded, “Yes, I will appoint an Attorney General who will enforce these laws.”


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Larry, Curly and Moe.

These guys are living proof that ignorance is bliss.

Got to love Rick Santorum going telling Puerto Rico that they all need to start speaking English.

If the GOP wins I'm moving to Canada ... er, I'm moving to the U.K.!

Hey, we got enough problems in Canada with right wingnuts!!! |whisper|

They're all sainter than the Pope. |bullshit| I support Ron Paul.

I watched a show called Penn and Tellers: Bullshit before and it was the War on Porn episode. Basically explained how these nuts have no proof of any of these claims and they are quite obviously using this "Family Value" garbage to get votes from typical family men and women with children.

It's reasons like this that I don't have support for the GOP anymore. I actually agree on the Ron Paul support, but there is no chance in hell of that happening.

there is a large percentage of Puerto Ricans living in America their whole lives that don't speak english

Well I don't know much about the Republican primaries (republican right?)

but the daily show cracks me up with the Santorum, Romney and others... :P

1. There are huge areas of South Texas - especially the enclave at Brownsville, where the people have never learned English, and the families have been US Citizens since Texas joined the Union. Those families have lived here speaking Spanish since long before the wave of immigration from Europe that brought here the ancestors of those who scream so loudly about English. Ditto for pockets of French speaking creoles in Louisiana.
2. My own grandmother came here from Sicily in 1899. She was a US Citizen by virtue of laws that then existed, making the wife and children of a US Citizen also citizens by right. She never learned English. She never learned to read or write, because school was not an option for girls in Sicily in the Nineteenth Century. I went along when she used to vote and was in the booth with her and my Mother, who helped her vote. She was quite proud to be a US citizen.
3. No law has ever required the speaking of English as a requirement of citizenship. My own Children were US Citizens long before they learned to speak any language.

Rick Santorum seems like the kind of guy that gets caught in the men's room with a non-English speaking Puerto Rican's cock in his mouth.

|lol|

I really hope none of them are voted in, as I have no idea what it will do to my livelihood as a pornographer. And I agree with the above, it always seems like the candidates that protest porn end up the ones that have naked pics of themselves up somewhere, or are members of some porn site somewhere.

XBIZ sent me a request for a comment today on Romney's porn pronouncements. This is what I sent them:

The Romney message is disguised. What he really means is miles away from enforcement of the existing obscenity laws and he knows it.

The values and standards of the community are at the heart of the Miller Test that defines how far the government can go, under the constitution, in punishing porn. Those values and standards do not descend to the community from the pronouncements of government leaders or fringe moralizing groups, nor can they be imposed on the people, the community of internet users from above.

The community values and standards that are woven into two of the three elements of the Miller test come from the people themselves and reflect what passes without objection in our culture when people obtain and view erotic materials, something that's almost always done privately. It's about the point at which the community's attitude is that people should not be permitted to buy, sell, or obtain material for use, which, as a matter of fact is almost always a private use.

We live in a highly tolerant nation, one so dedicated to personal freedom, that we stamp the word Liberty on every coin and a statue representing Liberty is one of our most chreished national icons, along with a bell in Philadelphia that once proclaimed Liberty so conspicuously in our history that we call it the Liberty Bell.

The censors, to prevail, must overcome all of that tolerance, all of that acceptance that is ingrained into our culture.

Under the existing obscenity laws, twelve jurors could not agree to convict Ira Isaacs in LA two weeks ago for material all wrapped up in the theme of human feces as a food item. Under the exiting obscenity laws, not only did a jury in rural Arkansas acquit material featuring double penetration, multiple pop facials, and themes that played around with force and compulsion, not only did that jury do so in four hours, but several jurors broke into applause when the prosecutor finished playing the material in open court. Under the existing obscenity laws, the Task Force That Couldn't Shoot Straight over at DOJ couldn't manage to get the case against John Stagliano into the hands of the jury because the case was so bungled up. After that fiasco, it was no surprise that DOJ pulled the plug. The existing obscenity laws and the cases which keep them on a leash because of constitutional protections are quite protective of Liberty because they are tied to the values of a free people highly tolerant of the quirks and eccentricities of their neighbors; that acceptance is the price of our own Liberty, and we all know it.

No, at root, Romney and Santorum and the others want to ram a concept of morality down the throats of a very tolerant people, and our obscenity laws are simply not engineered on a top-down, preachy application of law, but the opposite; obscenity law here reflects what people really accept. 40 milllion Americans went to porn sites last year, a huge number of them paid money for the privilege. The popular use and acceptance of porn is so deeply ingrained in our national consciousness now that jokes about its use and prevalence in every part of society are cultural icons heard on talk shows every night; we now live in a culture where sex toys are widely and openly advertised in TV commercials from coast to coast and hardcore porn keeps one huge hotel chain after another afloat. Hard Core Porn is now as American as cherry pie. For real.

The moralizers know that. They hate it. They are not really about the existing obscenity laws; they don't like them and would like to change them if the could (which they can't do because of the First Amendment). They'd prefer a system in which morality is taught by a government they control and forced downward on the citizens.

And what they really mean is that they want to impose their narrow views on all of us. Americans are smart enough to recognize that for what it is. They are jealous of their freedoms. And they will not vote in any primary or in the general election to give up their freedoms. The more any candidate preaches about "enforcing" obscenity laws in this election, the more that this candidate will alienate normal Americans and the more likely it becomes that the candidate will lose.

JD

While we are talking about porn....

There was a "cost" arguement regarding 2257, and the requirement that the government "cost" the effects of their bills before passing them!

Does anybody have a reference for that particular law???

Well said JD!

Tickler - Look at DOJ's December, 2008 release of the current regulations and the commentary - and at page 77458 the economic inpact analysis, required by law, is set out. That's DOJ's attempt to comply with a federal law that requires agencies to lay out the economic cost to business owners of regulatory action. You'll find that on xxxlaw at http://www.xxxlaw.com/section-2257/promulgation.pdf. It's linked on the page http://www.xxxlaw.com/section-2257/index.html and at many other places on the site. I heard both Jeff Douglas and Paul Cambria rattle some sabres about that economic argument at the time, but so far as I know, the argument of economic impact has not make its way into any of the litigation against Section 2257. The lawyers handling that may have concluded that DOJ adequately discharged its duties under the law and that there was no advantage to going down that road. You'd have to check with them.

Goddam I love America...

Here's the article that came out of that submission to xbiz: http://www.xbiz.com/news/146050

But better than that, take a look at Santorum backpeddling. Even he knows that Americans won't vote for a candidate who wants to tell them what they can look at, this, from the Chicago Sun Times: http://adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=53628

Someone in his campaign brain trust (now there's an oxymoron) filled him in on the First Amendment implications and the potential consequences.

@xxxlaw |thumb

THX

I knew that I had read something about that costing, but couldn't find the exact reference!!!

I thought the individual states still had some voice in what was legal within their boundaries? Los Angeles is a very liberal area that has a huge number of topless and nude bars, adult book stores, adult theaters, lifestyle oriented shops, etc. They are far more progressive in their thinking towards adult materials than an area where all such activities are severely restricted or outlawed. Why is the federal government stepping in to control what should be a local issue? In all honesty, it does make me sad... and glad I moved last fall away from the madness.

We live under at least two concurrent sovereigns, our state and the federal government and we are citizens of each; they have their own laws, cops, courts, prisons, and death chambers; in its proper sphere, the federal power is supreme. But we are obliged to obey each. Look at the marijuana issue in California; it tolerates medicinal weed, a violation of federal law. Obama has pledged to honor those laws in jurisdictions that permit it - I hear rumblings that this is not always actually followed - but it's a matter of discretion in enforcing the federal laws that apply to anyone. Federal obscenity laws apply in states that have no obscenity laws of there own, about five, and in the remainder, both sovereign governments have concurrent jurisdiction over the issue. The federal courts apply the law of the local US District as a community to determine contemporary community values, but the Ninth Circuit sitting from san francisco has now held that internet obscenity must be judged by national standards. The states are all over the place, some judge a statewide standard and others use county or judicial district to determine the relevent community. my site has a table state by state, a few years old. The short answer to your question is that the state cannot annul the effect of a proper federal law. Federal obscenity laws apply to matters involved in interstate commerce and its power derives from the commerce clause in the constitution to regulate interstate and foreign commerce.
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