Just imagine what could happen.
Still waiting on an outcome from the US v. Williams case at the Supreme court. Last I hear, a ruling would be given by this spring so it should come any time now.
To recap in case you arnt fimilar with it. It involves the 2003 PROTECT act regarding child porn on the internet. The panic, as it usualy is, is that the law is too broad and could impact areas that are not child porn. Not is. Could. Nobody is claiming that Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is child porn, just that under the PROTECT act it could be.
Typical pattern. Same thing happened back in 2001 when Barbara Nitke and the NCSF atacked the Communications Decency Act. The government wasent charging Nitke with anything, but Nitke claimed she could be charged under the law and theirfore the law should be unconstitutional.
Seems like a silly argument to me. There are federal laws regarding the inoculation of livestock, that could be used againt ponygirl kink. hey, its a posibility. But that shouldent meen that laws on inoculation are unconstitutional.
This is not to say that laws are never misused. Black Rose 2003 was cancled in part over a techinal detail regaring liqueur laws. Totaly inaproperate and a blatant misuse of what liqueur laws were originaly meant for. However, there wasent any outcry from that event saying that liqueur should be deamed unconstitutional and struck down.
Racketeer laws have the same thing happening there. In 2006 the supreme court hear a case where anti-abortion activists were being accused of racketeering but noboy suggested racketeering laws were unconstitutional. Just next week the trial of ‘DC Madam’ Deborah Palfrey starts with the charge not being prostitution but rather racketeering. And again, nobodyy is claiming that racketeering is unconstitutional.
Im confused by where the dividing line is. This isnt a case of ‘those evil right wing christians’ oppressing kink with any oportunity they can find. Both sides of the sexual-politics debate have misused laws in an effort to gain what they want. The only distinction I can see is that if there actualy is abuse of the law then nobody sugests the law is unconstitutional. But if there isnt any abuse of the law, but only the posibility that it could be abused, then the argument comes out that the law shoudl be unconstitutional.
Let me say that again. If the law is being misused, leave the law on the books. If the law is not being misused, try and get it removed from the books.
Why are humans so amazingly stupid?
April 4th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Well, a libertarian would say that a law that is on the books but unused is as bad as one that may be constitutional but abused. When the decision of enforcement becomes a matter of discretion, or more accurately, whim, of the local authority, that to a libertarian is the definition of anarchy. Look at it this way: with so many laws on the books right now, any one of us is guilty of something every day, and the only reason the cops don’t come and arrest us is that we aren’t worth the bother. So when do we become the bother? When ever they want.
Our Liberal friends talk this talk but couldn’t care less, our Conservative brothers have become JFK liberals, and Libertarians have sunk to the libertine. Alas, ’tis night and the morn will not come.