Jesus Castillo, Supreme Court, And Free Speech

I've been following the Jesus Castillo case for a while. The case itself is an obscenity charge for selling an adult comic to an adult undercover police officer in Dallas. Recently, the US Supreme Court denied his appeal, with the notion that obscenity is a state-level affair, despite the First Amendment being a Federal law. There's also an interview with the head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and some good ruminations from Neil Gaiman on the subject. Bad precedents for free speech - the CBDLF donations and giving to the EFF are Good Things.

Comments

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[Anti Frozt]

• "...what right does anybody else have to tell them what they can and cannot say, do, smoke, eat, drink when it does affect other people."

When it does affect other people?? I think the government has quite a bit of right when damaging acts such as smoking, rape, and murder adversly affect the surrounding public. I'm personally quite glad that a lot of cities in Ontario having inacted anti-smoking by-laws.

Re:News for Nerds??

[saskwach]

Many of the nerds on Slashdot are very interested in censorship and pr0n :oP

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[fireboy1919]

Maybe you should question why something is covered by free speech. The intent of the idea of free speech is to mostly to allow the populace to criticize the government and other figures with power as a means of exacting political change.

As a supplement, it is to allow one to teach one's beliefs and way of life to other people.

So I put it to you that porn is not for either of these purposes; it is merely for pleasure. It stands, therefore, not as a right, but rather as a privelege awarded by the majority.

The question may be raised, then, as to why they should repress others in satisfying their desires. The answer should be simple: because the mere presence of such material is displeasurable for them. They don't want to risk their children getting it, or them seeing things in a moment of weakness.

Since
1) It does not further the intent of the free speech ammendment
2) It makes some people happy, and others unhappy.

The decision falls to the majority. Will more people be unhappy with it than happy? Then it won't be allowed.

Re:Cases like this are rediculous

[tomstdenis]

That's just plain fucking stupid. You don't need to smoke to survive. So why should I be denied a working environment because my boss wants clients to smoke inside?

And "simply decide" is not that simple. If that were the case then unemployment would be close to 0%.

Tom

Re:Troll Alarm!

[blueapples]

It is interesting to me that you make a temporal distinction between the effects of being exposed to second hand smoke for most of your life and the effects of a gun shot wound. Both are damaging. Both can, and often do, kill. We should be able to think a little longer term than this.

Re:Whoa, There, Cowboy! Local Obscenity Laws == Go

[el-spectre]

Thank you for getting my point!