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Supreme Court Rules Against Anti-Porn Law
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "From Fox News/AP, the Supreme Court has ruled that the COPA (Child Online Protection Act), passed in 1998 ostensibly to shield kids from Web porn, is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech. This is not quite like 'striking the law down' because the court simply said a lower court was correct to block the law from taking effect, since it likely violates the First Amendment, and sent the law back to a lower court for trial. The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics of the antipornography law said that it would restrict far too much material that adults may legally see and buy, the court said."
Actually, that's how AP wrote it, so many other newspapers are stating it the same way. Fox News gets a pass this time ...
that wasn't a fox news article. did you notice the 'associated press' byline?
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.
That's from the AP. You know, the Associated Press. Also quoted on CNN. Sorry, no Fox bias here.
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Here. It's a long read, but even in skimming you can get far more detail than any Fox or CNN report. In fact, find more detail than the government or media really wants you to know at: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/. The relevant link ('Recent Decisions') is near the top just above the pretty picture of the courthouse itself.
Good book called "As Nature Made Him." Very, very different set of circumstances, but you do have to appreciate the manner in which this poor child's reality was totally twisted on so many levels.
SIG: HUP
Teenage boys/men will always search high and low for porn and the web is loaded with it, be it sites, newsgroups, hell allow image download and half you email is porn. Its a supply and demand situation and there will always be a demand while males have testosterone and credit cards to pay for porn.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Unfortunately its even worse than that.
To expand your supermarket / www analogy, imagine if your son bought a candy bar and found it really contained cigarettes. That is the state of porn content on the web.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
You do realise that this was signed into law in 1998? Who was president then?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Here's the actual decision in .pdf at the US Supreme Court.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Nope it isn't a fox bias, it is just further proof that the "liberal media" is a myth...
That's why, according to the Pew Research Group, members of the press are five times more likely to be liberal than conservative. Also in 1992, 7% of the members of the press voted for Bush Sr. as opposed to 37% of the general populace.
Also interesting from that studay was the absolute inablility of liberal members of the press to identify a "liberal" news org. Almost 3/4ths of them could not. You may debate the merrits of the belief that the press in general is left slanted, but their are clearly plenty of orginizations that are.
Also, a recent UCLA/University of Chicago study showed that
"Our results show a very significant liberal bias,"
They also found that the Drudge Report and Fox News Special Report were pretty much at the true center of the political spectrum.
And we all know how the UCLA is far far right-wing, right? You can read the study here (warning, PDF).
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Ummmm, this seems to be a significant problem with the study. The "true center" as compared to what? How did they measure that? Sure, if you think Drudge report is "centrist" then of course everything else seems "liberal."
In general, members of the mass media are not guided primarily by being "liberal" or "conservative" but rather by doing what they perceive to be their jobs. Whether reporters vote for Bush or not is hardly an indication of how they will report the news. Here are some articles refuting the myth of the liberal media. And here's a study that specifically counters the studies you quote.
For the web, yes. However, I have absolutely no idea how anyone could let their child have an email address. Everyday I get unsolicited emails featuring very hardcore pornography. The message is named something innocuous, but you open it up and BAM a woman having sex with a dog, or a woman with her face covered with semen. How the hell do you protect your kid from that?
Sure, other posters here have talked about how porn isn't really damaging to kids or something, but wtf do you tell a 9 year old when he sees a dog fucking a woman? And what do you do when he starts eyeing Fido? I'd rather not have to deal with that.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And yet you're "informative"? I guess in the sense that you're "informing" people about your wild-ass guesses, maybe...
Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor, Kennedy.
They were appointed by Republican presidents (surprise)
FYI, the five justices voting to uphold the injunction were Kennedy (Republican), Stevens (Republican), Souter (Republican), Thomas (Republican), and Ginsburg (Democrat). The four who voted against the injunction were Rehnquist (Republican), Scalia (Republican), O'Connor (Republican), and Breyer (Democrat). Breyer wrote a dissent that Rehnquist and O'Connor signed on to, as a matter of fact. Next time, dump the crystal ball and try actually reading the thing before shooting from the hip like that.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Where is the NPR leading story on the propaganda piece Moore just put out with a list of all the factual errors Moore made?
Fahrenheit 911 was indeed full of lies, half-truths, distortions, and factual errors. Every time someone from the Bush Administration appeared onscreen, I could count on hearing at least one.
Were there any others I missed?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Citations of think tanks as a metric for determining liberalism or conservatism? Comparing these values against members of Congress instead of the general public? How... senseless. I suppose the second was necessary, given the first, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a totally artificial method.
Now, if you want to know where journalists and the public stand relative to one another on policy questions, why not ask them? The results are surprising, though admittedly, these biases may not carry over into their reporting. I do have to commend the Groseclose & Milyo study for focusing on that rather than yet again analyzing the journalists themselves. (You do realize that this is the work of two individual professors, not of their institutions, right? Bringing up the politics of UCLA is a red herring. Find out what sort of politics Groseclose & Milyo have and we can talk.)
One at a time:
Pornographic Attitude in everyday life. - Anecdotal. Not a shred of science in there.
See the section on "Dehumanization of Women towrds the bottom - A link to links?
Edward Donnerstein, 1983 - I can't even think where to begin with this. Irresponsible bullshit. Saying that porn makes men want to rape women is so disgusting as to not need a response.
Men and porn - A blog? You linked to a blog?
The Surgeon Generals report on Pornography and Public Health - Ok. I read through as much of that as I could but I am guessing you didn't read much. There is not much in the way of concrete results in there. The only thing they concluded really is that you should teach young men to respect women and that helps counter any ill effects that may occur. I could have told you that.
Female Objects of Semantic Dehumanization and Violence - Has little to do with porn and more about the history of the dehumanization of women which was a lot worse BEFORE porn even existed. If anything this goes against your point.
Watchtower Destruction - Another blog.
Where is the scientific evidence? Keep trying.
Second, an uncited study indicates that in a certain sample of the press, 75% of those surveyed did not identify any media outlets as liberal. If , for the sake of argument, we assume the survey in fact does exist and was in fact valid, what does this mean?
That is from the Pew Research Group study. So it does exist. None of the groups (Liberal, Moderate, Conservative) from the survey had any real problem naming a conservative news source. And how does that show that then that the "press is much more representative of the political spectrum"? What it may truly shows is that many in the press are blind to their own biases. If we were to reverse those results, and 75% of the conservative members of the press could not name a conservative news outlet, what would you think then? I mean, come on.
This may not be the case. In a country where many people call themselves independent, voting for a person does not imply political leaning.
If a group or a person consistantly votes a certain way, you can typically infer their true politcal leanings. Many people may like to call themselves "independent" but truly aren't.
However, most us know that public universities do not tend to overly discriminate on political issues, being rather more concerned with the professors ability to get money and write articles
Professors get tenured and then get to keep their job for life as long as they don't break the law. Companies give money to universities to do research that the companies then profit off of. I'm sorry, but to suggest that the majority of public university professors don't have a left leaning bias is just plain ridiculous. I really don't think most people who even entertain the idea of making that argument. The only argument most people make is whether or not it's a good thing.
School
% of Professors Registered to Parties of the Left
Penn State University
85.5 percent
San Diego State University
87.9 percent
State U. of New York at Binghamton
97.2 percent
Syracuse University
96.2 percent
U.C. Berkeley
89.4 percent
U.C.L.A.
94.0 percent
U.C. San Diego
94.3 percent
U.C. Santa Barbara
98.6 percent
U. Colorado at Boulder
95.9 percent
U. of Houston
76.3 percent
U. of Maryland
85.5 percent
UNLV
91.0 percent
U. Texas at Austin
86.2 percent
More as well... just do a google search to find them. Now... where are the major public universities that do not have such a heavy leaning left? But, of course, stats are stupid so here's a quote:
"It's completely accurate that, compared to the larger population, universities are far, far to the left," Michael Munger, chair of the political science department at Duke University.
Of course, what does the chair of the Poli-Sci department at Duke know about politics?
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