Just out of curiosity, how far do you think someone's right to free speech goes? If someone convinced your boss that you were a member of al Qaeda, and you got fired as a result, would that still be free speech and perfectly OK by you?
The right of free speech ends where it becomes force or fraud. If it is false to say that I am a member of al Qaeda (and it is), then knowingly spreading such a rumor is fraud.
Look at their record in office and compare to any US president of any era--Bush, Carter, Ford, Coolidge, Harding, whatever. The level of violence, corruption, intimidation, whatever aren't even in the same league.
Domestically or internationally?
Sure, in terms of how badly they screw over their own nation, American leaders don't (yet) compete with big league dictators. At least, not in how they screw over the the white citizens of their own nation.
But internationally? What Bush II did to Iraq, what Johnson and Nixon did to Vietnam, what McKinley and Roosevelt did in the Phillippines, these have to be considered worthy efforts. And let's not forget what the U.S. did to the Native nations; that little bit of ethnic cleansing was so inspiring that Hitler took it as his model.
Sometimes steps have to be taken, and I think we would all agree the Civil War turned out as well as a war can be expected to turn out.
Really? The death of 600,000 people followed by the continuation of segregation for a century, after a war that was ostensibly to free the slaves, is as well as we could have expected things to turn out?
The Civil War was a battle of the landed aristocracy of the South (which relied on slavery) versus the new industrial aristocracy of the North. While freeing the slaves - though "just sort of on paper", as George Carlin put it - was indeed a Good Thing, we ought not overly romanticize the war; like most, at root it was all about control of money and power.
The good guys almost always outnumber the bad guys, but most won't do a single thing about it becauase they have their own lives to worry about.
Those who sit idle while evil happens are not "good guys". The "good guys" are those who will actually get up off their asses to help out others, even at some risk.
Thornley was right: "Universal Enlightenment [is] a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which the State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn."
Until everyone's "enlightened", governments are inevitable.
If you're so close to your star, you just *know* that you're going fast.
I suspect that if you're that close to a star, your brain (or equivalent organ for ETs) evaporizes right quick before you have time to know anything...
That's the problem with abstract fiction like that, you can read it any way you like. Communists read Animal Farm as a defense of communism, we tend to read it as an attack on communism.
You have to define "communism" before you can answer that question.
George Orwell was a socialist, who fought with the Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil war. George Orwell was also critic of Stalinism. To most Americans, who believe that Socialism == Communism == Marxism == Leninism == Stalinism, this probably seems odd; but clear thought about socialism has been the exception rather than the rule in the U.S. since the first Red Scare.
Orwell wrote, "For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won."
And also, "[I]t was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. Since 1930 I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism. On the contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transformation into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers have no more reason to give up their power than any other ruling class. "
Not at all. Capital is property used in the generation of wealth. Money in my mattress is not capital; a tool that I use to make things that I sell is capital, even if I bartered for it and no money was involved.
Free market economics work because people in the market make "rational" choices.
Capitalism and free markets are quite different things. The former refers to who owns stuff, the later refers to how decisions of what gets made and traded are made. Capitalist command economies and socialist free markets are quite possible. (See the U.S. during WWII for the former, and consult your local anarchist regarding the later.)
And people do not always (maybe not even usually) make "rational" choices - that flawed assumption is one of the reasons economics (as we know it) fails to reflect reality.
Theft implies coercion. Who is being coerced and deprived of his property?
Ah, but property is coercion. To "own" something means to be able to apply coercion (or to get the government to apply coercion on your behalf) in order to control it. This is why "libertarian capitalism" and it's talk of "no first use of force" is an inherent self-contraction. It's why Proudhon noted that "Property is theft".
Which types of coercion are "property" and which are "theft"? Merely saying "it's theft to take something which isn't yours" is no answer - what is "yours" and what is "not yours"? Trace back just about any claim of ownership and somewhere along the way you'll find theft.
The reason for a piss test would be to weed out the people who would potentially come into work under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Except that a piss tell tells you no such thing. A positive result tells that either 1) it's a false positive (very likely) or 2) that someone used cannabis sometime in the past month or other drugs within the past few days. It tells you nothing about present impairment.
People subject to drug testing who want to use drugs often use LSD, which is just about impossible to detect via urine testing; so you're encouraging people to drop and spend a whole day tripping, rather than relaxing with a bong hit Saturday night. Brilliant.
If the only way you can tell if I'm using drugs is to test my urine, then my (hypothetical) drug use is not affecting my work and is none of your business. If you want to prevent people from coming to work impaired, then institute an impairment testing policy.
How come every single biology article, even the recent one about discovery of 120,000 year old bacteria, gets tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" but books that tell kids how to "Purify alcohol by distillation, Produce hydrogen and oxygen gas by electrolysis, Smelt metallic copper from copper ore you make yourself" doesn't?
Because a biological disaster could start a plague or blight or damage the ecosystem, directly or indirectly killing millions; while a home chemistry experiment gone bad is unlikely to kill more people than the experimenter and maybe a bystander or two.
I guess we might count the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as the worst "home chemistry disaster" ever; 168 people were killed. Compared to a epidemic, or even a modest biological warfare effort, that's nothing. Which is not to belittle the impact of that attack, but in the big picture of disasters, stacked up against the tens of millions killed by the Spanish Flu, it's clear that a biological mishap has a lot more potential for mass killing.
The justification for child porn laws is that real children are harmed in making it
Does not apply to CG porn.
It doesn't matter whether they buy CG or real porn, they still encourage the crimes against children.
Of course it matters. If the argument "X portrays harmful act Y; portraying Y encourages Y; encouraging harmful acts is harmful; therefore we should point guns at people who create or purchase X and lock them in cages" is legitimate, then those who make or buy violent video game, slasher pics, or horror novels have to go to jail. Hell, the high school theatre troupe that puts on the Scottish play has to locked up for portraying - and thus encouraging - murder.
People who harm children - or other sentient beings - need to be removed from polite society. People who create fictional depictions of people harming children - or other sentient beings - are not harming anyone, and threatening them with force is immoral.
The texts are too static and do not accommodate teacher needs; allowing the computer to become the active text is incredibly important.
No, it's not important at all. Until AI advances enormously to the point that software is as smart as human teachers, "active text" is a bunch of silicon snake oil, just a higher tech incarnation of programmed text. Haven't heard of programmed text? Think the non-fiction equivalent of a "choose your own adventure" book; after each little lesson you'd answer a question, the correct answer would take you to the next lesson, the wrong answer would take you to a review of the material. Was a fad in the late 1960s. Mostly useless.
The potential usefulness of OLPC is that it can cheaply put a bunch of books (e-copies of textbooks and works of literature) into the hands of many, and that it enables many-to-many communication on a global scale.
We all have ADD
(Rant mode on.) No, we don't. Many of us still retain the ability to actually sit the fsck down and focus our brains for more than five minutes.
Many - quite likely most - kids labeled as ADD also have this ability, but are not socialized to use it. I teach karate, and since "everybody knows" that martial arts training is good for kids with ADD, I've worked with a lot of them over the years. It's amazing how often simply setting boundaries, enforcing consequences, and getting children to get some gorram exercise "cures" "ADD".
Getting them the hell outside is another useful "treatment". The number of kids with an actual neurological problem is dwarfed by those who just need to run around outside and to be taught some behavioral boundaries.
The problem is that kids glued to game consoles or the intarweb are being trained that fast-shiny-jumpy is good, and slow, complex, and still is bad. (Yes, there are exceptions, games and sites and applications that encourage deeper thought. But they are the rare ones.)
I used to sit in a tree and read books. Maybe that's possible with an XO - I just bought one on eBay, I'll have to try that out when it arrives.
He does uncover the ugly underbelly of the politics of "Hope" with specific examples.
You know, I just don't find much ugly about getting an admitted wife beater like Hull out of a political race. Most states put court records - including divorce cases - online; it's usually only the rich and powerful who have the pull to get their records sealed. You want power, your life becomes an open book. Tough titty.
As for the "The Black Commentator" article you link - what's your point? Obama's team played better politics. Nothing surprising or new there.
So put your tar-brush down.
My "tar brush"? Friend, you're the one who linked to a site spouting bigotry. That's not my fault.
IANAL either. But this stinks to high heaven of copyright violation to my untrained nose.
The pages on my server are works created by me, and I automatically hold copyright. If an ISP alters them in transit in any way - including inserting or changing ads - they are creating and distributing derivative works. But the distribution of derivative works is controlled by copyright law, and I sure as fsck didn't give any ISPs permission to distribute derivative works.
If I become aware than any ISP is inserting ads into any of my pages, I will definitely be consulting lawyers. Res ipsa loquitor. Let the good times roll.
I purchased my house in 1995, for $130,000. Houses on my street - smaller houses than mine - have gone for upward of $260,000 in the past few years, and houses in the neighborhood have gone for over $300,000. Salaries haven't doubled in that time.
Yes, if you believed "real estate can only go up!" and bought too much house, or fell for a balloon mortgage, it sucks to be you. But that doesn't change the fact that housing prices have risen much faster than salaries over the past decade or so.
A choice quote from your link: "Watching the never-ending spectacle of glassy-eyed white girls gone wild for this mulatto, and knowing the Negro libido and psyche, one finds it almost impossible to believe that he has never taken advantage of his opportunities."
The equality issue here is just a petty complaint. I want to drive a Porsche, but I'm stuck driving a Mazda (required car analogy).
No, the car analogy here would be, "I want to drive my Mazda on roads as good as people with Porshes get to drive on."
The telecommunications infrastructure is a public good; companies were given local monopolies, property rights-of-way, and many other perks from governments in return for wiring us all up. Equality of access is a legitimate concern.
Please please please, let it die. And to be sure, shoot it with a silver bullet, put a stake through its heart, cut off its head and stuff the mouth with garlic, and bury it upside-down at the crossroads.
Can we please learn from this and just immediately pummel with clue-by-fours the next bunch who think that cryptic diagrams are the best way to communicate about computer programs?
One cannot have opportunity without means, and vice versa.
Of course one can. "Yes, your honor, we stipulate that my client had the opportunity to kill Mr. Smith, when they were alone on that camping trip. But my client is 5'2", 98 pounds, and has no training in fighting; while Mr. Smith was a professional heavyweight cage fighter and the medical report shows that he was killed by a barehanded blow. My client did not have the means to kill Mr. Smith."
I call that further evidence that it's the intent that is the crime, and the act is the effect of the intent.
No, mens rea is necessary for convictions for some crimes, some but does not itself make a crime. And for some statutes, mens rea isn't necessary - it doesn't matter whether you intended to commit a crime act or not, if it's found that you did the act, you're convicted.
"I got in my car with the intention to go downtown and kill Ms. Jones [mens rea], sure. I had motive after what she had done to me, and I knew she kept a loaded and unlocked 9 millimeter Glock in the nightstand, so I'd have the means. But the car had a dead battery and wouldn't start. I never got the opportunity to do it." You could never make a criminal case out of that.
I'm talking about rights that are linked to abuse, causing the loss of freedom of others.
Abuse is a violation of the rights of others, and it is just to use force to stop it. Portraying abuse in a work of art, is not such a violation. Using force (which is what law does) to prevent someone from portraying abuse, is a violation of that person's rights.
However, child pornography is known to motivate pedophiles to re-offend, in most cases quite strongly, computer-generated or not.
Citation needed.
Even if true, that is an argument only for keeping "child pornography" away from convicted child molesters. Fine. I don't have much problem with censoring what violent criminals in jail or on parole or probation read or see; and if you can't trust someone not to rape a kid when they see a photograph, then that person ought to be in one of those states.
It's not an argument for pointing a gun at me if I happen to like drawing, or looking at pictures of, naked young people. (For the record, I can't draw worth a damn, and I generally find porn a bore - I prefer my own memories and fantasies.)
Of course there are illegal thoughts...Keep in mind, thinking of a crime is far from criminal
See how you contradict yourself here?
Look at how crimes are investigated: motive, opportunity, and intent. Proving only one aspect won't convict anyone, and two are completely a matter of thought.
It's motive, means, and opportunity. Only motive is a matter of thought, and it only needs to be proven if there's not direct evidence; if fifty witnesses see you commit a crime and you're apprehended immediately, no one needs to consider your motive to convict you.
It's not that having a motive is a crime, it's that we generally believe that people do things for reasons; the jury is only going to believe that John murdered Joe if they can imagine a reason.
There are times to stand up for your rights, and times to stand aside and acknowledge a greater cause.
There is no greater cause than freedom.
I'm sorry that friends of yours were sexually abused. People who sexually abuse people need to be removed from polite society. People who are accomplices in the sexual abuse of other people need to be removed from polite society.
But people who view images of sexual abuse are no more guilty of abuse than people who watch slasher pics - or the news - are guilty of murder. And people who create or view entirely synthetic images of sexual abuse have done nothing that violates the rights of others.
Crimes that only apply to criminals? That's a slippery slope, my friend...
How so? We often place restrictions on persons on parole or probation. Fore example, people who have been convicted of violent crimes can't own firearms.
Slashdot Mirror
The right of free speech ends where it becomes force or fraud. If it is false to say that I am a member of al Qaeda (and it is), then knowingly spreading such a rumor is fraud.
Domestically or internationally?
Sure, in terms of how badly they screw over their own nation, American leaders don't (yet) compete with big league dictators. At least, not in how they screw over the the white citizens of their own nation.
But internationally? What Bush II did to Iraq, what Johnson and Nixon did to Vietnam, what McKinley and Roosevelt did in the Phillippines, these have to be considered worthy efforts. And let's not forget what the U.S. did to the Native nations; that little bit of ethnic cleansing was so inspiring that Hitler took it as his model.
Really? The death of 600,000 people followed by the continuation of segregation for a century, after a war that was ostensibly to free the slaves, is as well as we could have expected things to turn out?
The Civil War was a battle of the landed aristocracy of the South (which relied on slavery) versus the new industrial aristocracy of the North. While freeing the slaves - though "just sort of on paper", as George Carlin put it - was indeed a Good Thing, we ought not overly romanticize the war; like most, at root it was all about control of money and power.
Those who sit idle while evil happens are not "good guys". The "good guys" are those who will actually get up off their asses to help out others, even at some risk.
Thornley was right: "Universal Enlightenment [is] a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which the State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn."
Until everyone's "enlightened", governments are inevitable.
I suspect that if you're that close to a star, your brain (or equivalent organ for ETs) evaporizes right quick before you have time to know anything...
You have to define "communism" before you can answer that question.
George Orwell was a socialist, who fought with the Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil war. George Orwell was also critic of Stalinism. To most Americans, who believe that Socialism == Communism == Marxism == Leninism == Stalinism, this probably seems odd; but clear thought about socialism has been the exception rather than the rule in the U.S. since the first Red Scare.
Orwell wrote, "For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won."
And also, "[I]t was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. Since 1930 I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism. On the contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transformation into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers have no more reason to give up their power than any other ruling class. "
Not at all. Capital is property used in the generation of wealth. Money in my mattress is not capital; a tool that I use to make things that I sell is capital, even if I bartered for it and no money was involved.
Capitalism and free markets are quite different things. The former refers to who owns stuff, the later refers to how decisions of what gets made and traded are made. Capitalist command economies and socialist free markets are quite possible. (See the U.S. during WWII for the former, and consult your local anarchist regarding the later.)
And people do not always (maybe not even usually) make "rational" choices - that flawed assumption is one of the reasons economics (as we know it) fails to reflect reality.
Ah, but property is coercion. To "own" something means to be able to apply coercion (or to get the government to apply coercion on your behalf) in order to control it. This is why "libertarian capitalism" and it's talk of "no first use of force" is an inherent self-contraction. It's why Proudhon noted that "Property is theft".
Which types of coercion are "property" and which are "theft"? Merely saying "it's theft to take something which isn't yours" is no answer - what is "yours" and what is "not yours"? Trace back just about any claim of ownership and somewhere along the way you'll find theft.
Except that a piss tell tells you no such thing. A positive result tells that either 1) it's a false positive (very likely) or 2) that someone used cannabis sometime in the past month or other drugs within the past few days. It tells you nothing about present impairment.
People subject to drug testing who want to use drugs often use LSD, which is just about impossible to detect via urine testing; so you're encouraging people to drop and spend a whole day tripping, rather than relaxing with a bong hit Saturday night. Brilliant.
If the only way you can tell if I'm using drugs is to test my urine, then my (hypothetical) drug use is not affecting my work and is none of your business. If you want to prevent people from coming to work impaired, then institute an impairment testing policy.
Employers who perform chemical drug screens demonstrate their own ignorance and incompetence; I will not even consider working for them.
Because a biological disaster could start a plague or blight or damage the ecosystem, directly or indirectly killing millions; while a home chemistry experiment gone bad is unlikely to kill more people than the experimenter and maybe a bystander or two.
I guess we might count the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as the worst "home chemistry disaster" ever; 168 people were killed. Compared to a epidemic, or even a modest biological warfare effort, that's nothing. Which is not to belittle the impact of that attack, but in the big picture of disasters, stacked up against the tens of millions killed by the Spanish Flu, it's clear that a biological mishap has a lot more potential for mass killing.
Does not apply to CG porn.
Of course it matters. If the argument "X portrays harmful act Y; portraying Y encourages Y; encouraging harmful acts is harmful; therefore we should point guns at people who create or purchase X and lock them in cages" is legitimate, then those who make or buy violent video game, slasher pics, or horror novels have to go to jail. Hell, the high school theatre troupe that puts on the Scottish play has to locked up for portraying - and thus encouraging - murder.
People who harm children - or other sentient beings - need to be removed from polite society. People who create fictional depictions of people harming children - or other sentient beings - are not harming anyone, and threatening them with force is immoral.
No, it's not important at all. Until AI advances enormously to the point that software is as smart as human teachers, "active text" is a bunch of silicon snake oil, just a higher tech incarnation of programmed text. Haven't heard of programmed text? Think the non-fiction equivalent of a "choose your own adventure" book; after each little lesson you'd answer a question, the correct answer would take you to the next lesson, the wrong answer would take you to a review of the material. Was a fad in the late 1960s. Mostly useless.
The potential usefulness of OLPC is that it can cheaply put a bunch of books (e-copies of textbooks and works of literature) into the hands of many, and that it enables many-to-many communication on a global scale.
(Rant mode on.) No, we don't. Many of us still retain the ability to actually sit the fsck down and focus our brains for more than five minutes.
Many - quite likely most - kids labeled as ADD also have this ability, but are not socialized to use it. I teach karate, and since "everybody knows" that martial arts training is good for kids with ADD, I've worked with a lot of them over the years. It's amazing how often simply setting boundaries, enforcing consequences, and getting children to get some gorram exercise "cures" "ADD".
Getting them the hell outside is another useful "treatment". The number of kids with an actual neurological problem is dwarfed by those who just need to run around outside and to be taught some behavioral boundaries.
The problem is that kids glued to game consoles or the intarweb are being trained that fast-shiny-jumpy is good, and slow, complex, and still is bad. (Yes, there are exceptions, games and sites and applications that encourage deeper thought. But they are the rare ones.)
I used to sit in a tree and read books. Maybe that's possible with an XO - I just bought one on eBay, I'll have to try that out when it arrives.
(Rant mode off.)
You know, I just don't find much ugly about getting an admitted wife beater like Hull out of a political race. Most states put court records - including divorce cases - online; it's usually only the rich and powerful who have the pull to get their records sealed. You want power, your life becomes an open book. Tough titty.
As for the "The Black Commentator" article you link - what's your point? Obama's team played better politics. Nothing surprising or new there.
My "tar brush"? Friend, you're the one who linked to a site spouting bigotry. That's not my fault.
Maybe. It'll be a wild ride for speculators, and people who bought too much house will get screwed, but I don't think it'll get as bad as Japan.
IANAL either. But this stinks to high heaven of copyright violation to my untrained nose.
The pages on my server are works created by me, and I automatically hold copyright. If an ISP alters them in transit in any way - including inserting or changing ads - they are creating and distributing derivative works. But the distribution of derivative works is controlled by copyright law, and I sure as fsck didn't give any ISPs permission to distribute derivative works.
If I become aware than any ISP is inserting ads into any of my pages, I will definitely be consulting lawyers. Res ipsa loquitor. Let the good times roll.
A minor dip in a long-term trend.
In 2000, the median value of an American single family home was $119,600. After the recent slump, the median value of a home in the first quarter of 2008 is $196,300. A 64% increase in eight years - I'm pretty sure salaries haven't risen that fast.
I purchased my house in 1995, for $130,000. Houses on my street - smaller houses than mine - have gone for upward of $260,000 in the past few years, and houses in the neighborhood have gone for over $300,000. Salaries haven't doubled in that time.
Yes, if you believed "real estate can only go up!" and bought too much house, or fell for a balloon mortgage, it sucks to be you. But that doesn't change the fact that housing prices have risen much faster than salaries over the past decade or so.
A choice quote from your link: "Watching the never-ending spectacle of glassy-eyed white girls gone wild for this mulatto, and knowing the Negro libido and psyche, one finds it almost impossible to believe that he has never taken advantage of his opportunities."
Would you care to renounce that author?
That's truer than you think...his great-great-great-great grandfather was Irish.
Bigotry and irrationality do not get free passes by labeling themselves religion.
No, the car analogy here would be, "I want to drive my Mazda on roads as good as people with Porshes get to drive on."
The telecommunications infrastructure is a public good; companies were given local monopolies, property rights-of-way, and many other perks from governments in return for wiring us all up. Equality of access is a legitimate concern.
Please please please, let it die. And to be sure, shoot it with a silver bullet, put a stake through its heart, cut off its head and stuff the mouth with garlic, and bury it upside-down at the crossroads.
Can we please learn from this and just immediately pummel with clue-by-fours the next bunch who think that cryptic diagrams are the best way to communicate about computer programs?
As corporations are artificial entities, nothing involving them can be called "natural".
Of course one can. "Yes, your honor, we stipulate that my client had the opportunity to kill Mr. Smith, when they were alone on that camping trip. But my client is 5'2", 98 pounds, and has no training in fighting; while Mr. Smith was a professional heavyweight cage fighter and the medical report shows that he was killed by a barehanded blow. My client did not have the means to kill Mr. Smith."
No, mens rea is necessary for convictions for some crimes, some but does not itself make a crime. And for some statutes, mens rea isn't necessary - it doesn't matter whether you intended to commit a crime act or not, if it's found that you did the act, you're convicted.
"I got in my car with the intention to go downtown and kill Ms. Jones [mens rea], sure. I had motive after what she had done to me, and I knew she kept a loaded and unlocked 9 millimeter Glock in the nightstand, so I'd have the means. But the car had a dead battery and wouldn't start. I never got the opportunity to do it." You could never make a criminal case out of that.
Abuse is a violation of the rights of others, and it is just to use force to stop it. Portraying abuse in a work of art, is not such a violation. Using force (which is what law does) to prevent someone from portraying abuse, is a violation of that person's rights.
Citation needed.
Even if true, that is an argument only for keeping "child pornography" away from convicted child molesters. Fine. I don't have much problem with censoring what violent criminals in jail or on parole or probation read or see; and if you can't trust someone not to rape a kid when they see a photograph, then that person ought to be in one of those states.
It's not an argument for pointing a gun at me if I happen to like drawing, or looking at pictures of, naked young people. (For the record, I can't draw worth a damn, and I generally find porn a bore - I prefer my own memories and fantasies.)
See how you contradict yourself here?
It's motive, means, and opportunity. Only motive is a matter of thought, and it only needs to be proven if there's not direct evidence; if fifty witnesses see you commit a crime and you're apprehended immediately, no one needs to consider your motive to convict you.
It's not that having a motive is a crime, it's that we generally believe that people do things for reasons; the jury is only going to believe that John murdered Joe if they can imagine a reason.
There is no greater cause than freedom.
I'm sorry that friends of yours were sexually abused. People who sexually abuse people need to be removed from polite society. People who are accomplices in the sexual abuse of other people need to be removed from polite society.
But people who view images of sexual abuse are no more guilty of abuse than people who watch slasher pics - or the news - are guilty of murder. And people who create or view entirely synthetic images of sexual abuse have done nothing that violates the rights of others.
How so? We often place restrictions on persons on parole or probation. Fore example, people who have been convicted of violent crimes can't own firearms.