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Federal Anti-Obscenity Program Comes Up Limp
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Aug 11, 2007 08:16 AM
from the excellent-use-of-resources dept.
from the excellent-use-of-resources dept.
kotj.mf writes "The New York Times reports that the Federally funded anti-Web pornography campaign run by Morality in Media, a conservative religious group, has yet to result a single prosecution for obscenity, despite having generated more than 67,000 citizen complaints. The group, better known for its campaign to have Cosmopolitan removed from supermarket checkout stands, is pushing the Justice Department to more aggressively pursue cases against what it sees as 'a prime threat to society, the growth on the Internet of sexual material involving consenting adults.'"
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Federal Anti-Obscenity Program ? (Score:5, Funny)
oh.. wait.
Re:Federal Anti-Obscenity Program ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Federal Anti-Obscenity Program ? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the decider's attitude is that the Constitution is just a damn piece of paper, why should something like this surprise anybody. Compared to his other desecrations of that document, this is nothing.
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Pass the buck (Score:5, Insightful)
He said this. Openly, in response to attack ads against him. He told everyone where he stood before he even had the chance to govern.
And then these IDIOTS elected him.
Twice.
So whose fault is it that the Constitution is a forgotten document? Our schools are failing us - have been for years. And that ain't shrub's fault. I cannot stand the guy - I personally think he is a traitor to the US Constitution. But it's not like no one knew where he stood. The fact he could even have been elected is a sign of deeper illness in our nation, and we serve no good by blaming everything upon the latest symptom of this disease.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Look: the SOB said, BEFORE HE WAS EVEN ELECTED THE FIRST TIME, "what this country needs is a little less free speech." He said this. Openly, in response to attack ads against him.
Not to sidetrack the already-sidetracked discussion, but you wouldn't happen to have a source for that, would you? See, I voted for him the first time. If I'd ever seen that, I wouldn't have. I'd like to know where I wasn't paying enough attention to, so I can do better research for the NEXT election.
Re:Pass the buck (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Twice.
Except the first time he wasn't actually elected, and the second time he was "elected" via electronic voting machines. I don't think there's adequate evidence to call the majority of Americans idiots. We've just had the wool pulled over our eyes.
Twice.
Re:Pass the buck (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Pass the buck (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Pass the buck (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, the very fabric of the reality we perceive as citizens is corrupted by a complicit media that supports authoritarian mercantilism, by presenting "news" that consists of dire problems over which none of us can possibly have any control or influence. It puts the voting population into a level of anxiety where all they want is a big, tough daddy who will keep the (mostly imaginary) wolves away from the door.
Anything remotely like a discussion of issues that are important to our lives is immediately obscured by talking about one side being "corrupt" or one side being "cowardly". Even the notion that every issue has "two sides" is a huge canard, which serves to make everything into a simplified binary boxing match. Any discussion between two politicians or two opinions is "scored" by talking about who is "on defense" and who is "on offense".
In other words, we are being fed a steady diet of bullshit, intended to keep all of us as far away from any active involvement in our own governance. In this way, the ruling class of America, the rich, the powerful, the members of the "families", the "insiders" manage to keep us safely out of the way so they can create and manage a system where they can have their own sweet way.
Think about this: A President and Vice-President are elected. The President is from a family whose wealth comes primarily from the oil business and the Vice President is the CEO of a corporation that does (among many other things) large-scale operations of the oil business. Within months of the election of this administration, we invade a country that happens to have one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. Within a few years, the entire war is being managed by the very same corporation that the Vice President was the Chief Executive Officer for, from providing food and laundry services for soldiers to transportation services to security and management of (naturally) those huge oil reserves. For the next several years, while the war escalates, the oil industry shows record profits at a level never before seen.
If you happen to speak to a member of the news media or any other "opinion leader" such as the many establishment political bloggers, and you simply mention the fact that 1) two oil men get elected to the White House, 2) they start a war in the country with massive oil reserves, and 3) the industry from which they come shows the greatest profits ever seen in the history of mankind, those establishment "opinion leaders" will look at you like you must be some sort of tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy nut for simply stating a few basic facts.
My main point is that even with the above set of facts, even though you'd expect a vigilant news media to be screaming their bloody heads off over the fact that something has happened in this country that you would barely believe possible in some tin-pot dictatorship, this "fourth estate" completely ignores the entire issue. Afraid to be called "the liberal media" by a bunch of bullies that have planned for years to destroy any semblance of an independent journalist class, the media, completely cowed, simply looks away. In shame over their complicity in this horror-show, they turn the entire experience into a political tit-for-tat where there are "two sides", equal in every way. They try to tell us that the Truth lives in some fictitious "middle ground" that has never existed.
Finally, before we start to assign blame to lazy Americans who voted for Bush even though they knew he was a two-bit tough-guy who would give our country away to corporate interest while stomping all over the Constitution, we should remember that staying on top of what's really going on in our government is practically a full-time job and most of us are just trying to get from one day to the next without losing our homes or our shirts. An economic reality created, by the way, by the very powers who are trying to keep us out of their
Parent
Re:Pass the buck (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Here's muck in your eye (Score:3, Insightful)
You were shoved headfirst through sombody's vagina (Score:4, Insightful)
You were shoved headfirst through someone's vagina. Why are you acting so dignified? (source: xkcd)
But seriously, think of it this way.
On TV, children will see many thousands of simulated murders long before they're old enough to buy porn. If they copy what they see on TV, it means death for someone and jail for the kids.
It is illegal for children to see even just one simulated sex act before they're of age. If they do manage to get their hands on some and copy what they see, the worst thing that can happen is that they pick up a couple STD's and have a kid.
Now, which of these things have the bible thumpers made their top priority?
Parent
Re:You were shoved headfirst through sombody's vag (Score:3, Insightful)
They can use it to gain power, but that does not involve a personal buy-in.
The nature of deistic religion means that one is either a Fundamentalist or a hypocrite, and any squalling to the contrary may be regarded as a delusion or a lie.
"Now, which of these things have the bible thumpers made their top priority?"
Controlling sex gives social control of the tribe. Encouraging violence towards opponents expands
Re:You were shoved headfirst through sombody's vag (Score:5, Informative)
You should cite your sources. This is something Alan Watts [wikipedia.org] said many times in many ways. You also might want to provide one of the full quotations, since they're directly relevant to this discussion. For example, in 1968 he said that
Source [deoxy.org]
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Re:You were shoved headfirst through sombody's vag (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You were shoved headfirst through sombody's vag (Score:4, Insightful)
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Federally Funded?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The right-wing religious nuts can do whatever they want with their own money, but this seems like a phenomenal waste of my tax money.
Re:Federally Funded?? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Federally Funded?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Federally Funded?? (Score:5, Informative)
Congress initially denied funding, citing the separation of church and state, and Bush bypassed them via an "Executive Order".
Welcome to the theocracy.
I guess they see how well all those middle-eastern governments are working, and want to bring the same thing to the U.S.
Parent
A small solution (Score:5, Insightful)
- Go to the complaint submission [obscenitycrimes.org] site and submit a complaint.
- Put the url obscenitycrimes.org in the Report URL box.
- Under the "type of obscenity" check box, check "other" and place this text in the description box: "Obscene waste of my tax dollars and obscene violation of the first amendment
I know that it won't do anything, but it makes me feel a little better anyway.Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The funding was done via a congressional earmark to a non-profit organization. I'm not sure, but I don't think there's any particular limitations on what an organization can then do with that money, since the organization itself is operating within the bounds of law. If anything though, this is further evidence that earmarks gloriously suck.
His work is financed by a Justice Department grant initially provided through a Congressional earmark inserted into a spending bill by Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia.
The grant, about $150,000 a year, has helped pay for Mr. Rogers and another retired law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., to harvest and review complaints about obscene matter on the Internet that citizens register on the Justice Department Web site.
Anti-obesity laws (Score:3, Funny)
So much idiocy, so little time... (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'll just pick one tiny quote: Who have to be blind, deaf eunuchs. Because that's the only way to be sure. Dammit, I have to add one thing: Ok... what exactly is wrong with consenting adults??? How can you get any more puritan than that? Is he really that much out of touch with reality that he can even begin to think that there's anything wrong with that and furthermore, that HE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT???
Ahemm... sorry, but the degree of mental retardation needed to keep such views in today's society keeps astounding me.
Re:So much idiocy, so little time... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:So much idiocy, so little time... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
or for starters, and one of my favorite come-backs against people who believe in "The Genesis Creation story" as holy writ This-is-what-really-happened-and-you're-going-to-h ell-for-doubting-it... "Which Genesis creation story.... Genesis 1 or Genesis 2?" go read them, it's rather amusing... they contradict each other.
The two versions of the story of creation in Genesis aren't as contradictory as you seem to be implying. If you really want to nail the people that read the story literally, ask them how the world was created in six literal, 24-hour solar days when the sun wasn't even created until the fourth day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Peters is far beyond that.
Re:So much idiocy, so little time... (Score:5, Informative)
What the guys and gals at the Morality in Media group don't seem to get is that the Justice Dept is not the FCC. The DOJ doesn't file criminal charges based on the number of complaints.
But if you look at the PTC & FCC, you can easily understand where they got the idea from and why they thought would work.
Parent
Re:So much idiocy, so little time... (Score:4, Insightful)
"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 repression of other people's pursuit of Happiness."
Obviously there's some limitations like your right to punch ends at my nose, where you're infringing on others' rights. And I can think of a few edge cases where I'd put other concerns like polluting the environment, cruelty to animals and such things ahead of your right to pursue happiness, probably a few things that are highly self-destructive like heavy drugs too. But if there's no really compelling reason to prohibit it, everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness. I really wish that they'd put that somewhere in the constitution, even if nothing as a preamble. Certainly the 9th amendment is way too weak if that was the intended meaning.
Parent
How the hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
USA & Australia (Score:5, Funny)
the USA. All the convicts were sent to Australia. All the
religious kooks were sent to the USA.
Most Australians are thankful for this luck of fate.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
-stolen
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Consentual sex is a problem now?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the non-consentual sex they should be worried about.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not enough of it?
On /. we worry about non-consentual abstinence. (Score:5, Funny)
I think we deserve a goverment grant to fight this non-consentual abstinence among the community! At the minimum community service sentences to those who continue this harmfull practice against innocent slashdotters!
Although I am willing to settle for that list of porn sites. Could they rank them so I don't waste too much time to get too the good stuff?
Parent
Root Causes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, just because they feel guilty over any pleasure (because we were bad and got kicked out of the garden of eden so we don't deserve them in the eyes of god or something like that) doesn't mean that every pleasure should be struck from acceptable social behavior especially when they really are a vocal minority.
My porn collection... (Score:4, Funny)
Federally funded Evil and Damned Mythology Groups (Score:4, Insightful)
DIP Morality in Media, a conservative religious/mythology group seeks to combat consenting adult recreation, while damning children to semi-illiteracy, oppressed dogma believing, poor/diseased health street urchins, and exploitable cheap labor for US & EU citizens of recognizable value. If you don't have what it takes to instill irrational fear into poorly educated people and/or at least an ability to legally extort from the poor and middle class citizens to make a living; well then, you need to be more subservient to the people that are of value to the new world order.
DIP Morality in Media, a conservative religious/mythology group seeks to combat abortionist, freewill, free-speech, human-rights
Oh; NOW I SEE, all pseudo-religious/mythology groups are like BinLaden's terrorist groups with cruelty, suffering, injustice, evil
I have always said; "I would respect mythology/religion groups/members more than null/zero... if they would (legally binding) sign/line up to adopt and raise as their own, all abandoned children on the street and in all orphanages globally (young and old, healthy and sick, Moslem or Jew,
For ("the prime threats" to US, EU,
MF/FF/Gay/Incest/Donkey, though morally questionable/objectionable for many adults, ain't the problem. All of today's religious & political intercourse for exploiting and oppressing public security and welfare is the real obscenity and pornography promoted by religion and governments globally.
Almost all religious leaders, politicians, and their families are more ugly and repugnant than Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Caesar
I do not write this way to flame/troll/offend, but to intensely express what I see (objectively or subjectively, you choose) as the facts, which strongly indicate the origins of great crimes against humanity. Everything I write like this is "Open Content".
FINAL WORD: GO TO HELL ALL YOU EVIL LYING OFFSPRING OF DEMONIC BITCHES!
The really interesting part (Score:3, Funny)
Of course there was illicit sex going on back then, but because the printing press hadn't yet been invented it was a real bitch to to flip book style porn on stone tablets.
dear conservative christians: (Score:3, Insightful)
the spirit in which you act is not the same as jesus christ's message
if anything, it in is in the same spirit of the jews and romans who condemned jesus christ to death
if jesus christ rises again, it is conservative christians who will be the first to condemn him
because conservative christians have a message which is the exact opposite of the message of jesus christ
there are in this world good christians
and they are all moderates and liberals
and they are more in the good stead of the message of jesus christ than you are
Re:Contemporary community standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Obsenity is defined as something that "lacks artistic merit, depicts certain conduct in a patently offensive manner and violates contemporary community standards"
67000 complaints indicate the prevalence of such material. Could't it be because there is a real demand?
I believe this website succeeds only in reporting material that is offensive to a small subset of the population, that try to force its beliefs on the rest of the country.
You make a very good point. The internet, and specifically porn sites, are very capitalistic. Someone has to pay for the content. If we're using "Community standard" the community who's standards that we use should be the community where the "Product" is found.
This is where is gets fun. So far the courts have used the physical location of where the material was accessed as the community. I think that that view is fundamentally flawed. The community they should be considering is the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To quote the great Tom Lehrer (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The language does have a few obscene words that aren't meant to be used around kids (mostly sex terms), but much of what could get you punched in the face if you used it in a bar is literally childish speech.