Re: "Morphed" child porn case ruling text (FSC v. Reno)

[Mike Duvos <enoch@zipcon.net>]

Steve Writes:

> I suggest taht jurists who cannot rationally
> an dispassionately rule on such matters be immediately removed from office.

It strikes me that when material is ruled to be too dangerous to be
allowed in the community, it must be based on how the material affects the
typical well-adjusted citizen.  The so-called "reasonable person"  test. 
We certainly can't go around banning everything that might send some kook
off on a tangent or crusade, and goodness knows, were such a standard to
be adopted, the Bible would be the first thing on the bonfire.

So it would seem that the court is saying one of two things.  Either that
the average American citizen has so much psychological baggage concerning
sex and children, that he or she experiences uncontrolled arousal upon
being exposed to it, and leaps off to find children to show the material
to and perform sex acts on.  Or that American citizens collectively have
so much psychological baggage concerning sex and children, that they
through their elective representatives have chosen to make sexual
depictions of children the sole exception to Constitutional guarantees of
freedom of expression. 

Either way, it is hardly a stirring testimony to the mental health of the
nation. 

While I suspect the typical citizen is unlikely to have a particularly
strong reaction one way or the other to sexual depictions of children, as
long as it is not a photographic record of an actual child being treated
abusively, there is a obvious subset of frothy pointy-headed individuals
who should be shielded from such material at all costs, or they may be
completely unable to control their behavior.  

They are of course the self-appointed "child protectors", none of whom
could care less about what rights children really need or want, as long as
no one appears naked. 

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     enoch@zipcon.com   $    via Finger                       $
         {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}