Post by David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)I was recently moved to compose this rant. With Frank's return it
seems approprate to post it.
Have we as a society grown so irrational and psychotic that we have to
be reminded that there is a boundary between the reality outside
our heads and the fantasies within? Are we in danger of drifting into
a stupefied slumber where the figments of our dreams can claim the
rights that we have previously reserved for concrete entities?
The characters of fiction, written down as literature, drawn as manga
or anime, expressed in the multitude of means technology has granted
to us, lack independent agency. By hijacking our mind's ability to
empathise and reason about other minds they create the cognitive
illusion that they exist.
However we must remember that without sentience, without true moral
agency, these mental phantasms whose pseudo-existence is purely within
the mind of there hosts can make no ethical claims to the concrete
world outside. I can imagine the vilest crimes of crimes within my head
without harming a single creature of ethical consequence. I can
commit fictional atrocities whose magnitude and horror eclipse the
worst tyrant's genocide but still act and be in every way a moral,
ethical contributor to society.
This fact should be obvious to every sane adult, indeed learning to
distinguish between the imaginary and the real is one of the
prerequisites for being an adult. I should not need to devote three
paragraphs of text to hammering this point but unfortunately I feel I
must. People have been charged, prosecuted and punished for this
style of thought crime.
If such actions where mistakes of a more censorious past one could
look back with the knowledge of lessons learned. However not only are
real people being prosecuted for crimes against fake people in the
present laws are being passed to make it easier to prosecute this in
the future.
Reply trimmed to affm but adding AC; because (for now) I'm avoiding
posting to assd.
Don't want people thinking I'm discussing sex-stories.
Yet I think this discussion might be pertinent in alt.callahans.
;-{
There are many supposed reasons behind censorship; but the basis is
always thought-control.
Whether religious or political, the idea is usually considered (by the
censors) benign. Rarely do they think of themselves as evil. They're
just "Protecting the Public" from evil or anti-government influences.
THEY, of course, are mature and above being influenced by such nasty
works and propaganda; but only THEY can resist such temptation. They
cannot allow the Public to be swayed or corrupted by wicked, nasty, or
even the mention of any values that contradict their own.
Of course, BEHIND all that blather, is the knowledge that if "they"
... the politicians, preachers, imams, or other people in-charge,
deciding "what is proper" for "those they are in charge of" to read,
see, or know, is that if said Public DOES find out that what they are
keeping from them, then quite possibly those in-power might be thrown
out, deposed, or (worst of all) just ignored!
Even in Miller v California, the current "standard" on which "obscene"
matters are judged, the Court noted that: "Obscene material may be
validly regulated by a State in the exercise of its traditional local
power to protect the general welfare of its population despite some
possible incidental effect on the flow of such materials across state
lines."
Note those words: "protect the general welfare of its population"
Protect the population from WHAT?
Obscene ideas?
Dirty thoughts?
Ideas that are DIFFERENT from what the local preachers teach?
Mainly, it's IDEAS that the local community find objectionable.
Think about that.
The AIM is to control or at least LIMIT what people know and think.
Yet, it's that very control and limitation that the First Amendment
was written to stop.
Yet, for some reason, SEX seems to be the choking-point, even for
Supreme Court judges supposedly the very last stop in those protecting
our liberties.
I guess even THEY cannot get over the brainwashing built into our
society by preachers, customs, and yes, our modern media. ;-{
Well, at least they aren't *quite* as anti-sex as some communities in
the world; viz: Ayatollahs in Iran and similar Sharia controlled
Muslim lands.
I still wonder though: Why SEX?
Looking at most primitive societies (from which ours was derived) I
just don't see the preponderance of anti-sex attitudes. Sexuality
controlled for inheritance and lineage purposes, yes. Sex inhibited
because it's sex, no. Most early communities *celebrated* sex.
So ... How did OUR society (and even more-so some/many/most? Muslim
ones) become so anti-sex, anti-human-body-display?
What's weird, is that those communities that are the most free with
sexuality, liberty, and bodily-displays, are the ones with the LEAST
amount of rape, child-abuse, and downgrading of women; while those
societies with the most restrictive dress-codes and what they allow
people to see, discuss, or even *think* about sex and sexuality, are
the most repressive, most violent towards women, and yes, the ones
with the greatest amount of child-abuse. At the same time, those very
societies are CLAIMING that the REASON for such rules, censorship, and
anti-sex attitudes are to PROTECT women and children!
Is it just insanity, inability to see reality, brainwashing from
birth, or deliberate (Insert your own conspiracy theory here.) attempt
by those in control to keep their positions?
Of course, there's always Occam's Razor:
Methinks the most likely reason is The Law of Unintended Consequences.
;-{
So MANY laws and customs and ideas SOUND so good ... Yet have
disastrous consequences if enacted or followed.
Examples:
Communism ... Sounds GREAT ... Until a country tries it.
Passing laws to deny Public Support to Planned Parenthood, because
they give out information on abortion, as a method to decrease
abortion.
Prohibition to prevent drunken fathers from abusing children.
Our present "war on drugs".
Need I go on?
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