A lesson in Free Speech

[Buddy Holly]

Again, show me the person commissioned to tag a wall that has been arrested.

Yes or no.

Is it not the same fundamental thing?

[DisgruntledLionFan#54,927]

Well because, like you said, if she starts another website featuring those stories she gets in trouble.

I have no problem with her writing those stories as some type of therapy. But it's when she starts making money off of it and letting god knows who view those stories that I have a problem with it.

How is it different than charging admission to see Dakota Fanning get raped?

Selling a book where there are passages devoted to child abuse, child rape, etc?

Prince of Tides? Sleepers?

Here's a book summary:

A 12-year-old Albanian girl is sold into pros ution in Italy; a boy is duped by a man who pretends he is a pigeon; an eight-year-old girl is forced by her grandmother to service an old man. Most of the 12 stories in Italian writer Dacia Maraini's chilling collection Darkness involve the betrayal of children by the adults charged with caring for them. Alicetta, a schizophrenic girl, is given baths late at night by a hospital orderly armed with sedatives; Tano, a tough 11-year-old, denounces his father for rape many times, but no one believes him.

[CuckingFunt]

The vandalism-as-free-speech argument is easily one of the weakest I've ever read around here.

That's really saying something.

[Buddy Holly]

Okayyyy, how does that apply to this case? With tagging, there is a crime being committed with the expression.

What crime is being committed in this author's case?

An obscenity law, it seems.

A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to five years of probation, including six months of home detention, and forfeiture of her computer after pleading guilty Thursday to obscenity charges for running a Web site that featured text stories that were sexual and violent in nature.

This woman wouldn't have pleaded guilty if she didn't do anything.

[Buddy Holly]

The vandalism-as-free-speech argument is easily one of the weakest I've ever read around here.

That's really saying something.

Is it not fundamental the same thing? Seriously, just answer yes or no.

[Spurminator]

This woman wouldn't have pleaded guilty if she didn't do anything.

Yeah that never happens.

[JoeChalupa]

An obscenity law, it seems.



This woman wouldn't have pleaded guilty if she didn't do anything.

You'd be surprised how many innocent people plead guilty.

[Spurminator]

Is it not fundamental the same thing? Seriously, just answer yes or no.

Fundamentally, it's vandalism.

[Buddy Holly]

How is it different than charging admission to see Dakota Fanning get raped?

Selling a book where there are passages devoted to child abuse, child rape, etc?

Prince of Tides? Sleepers?

Here's a book summary:

A 12-year-old Albanian girl is sold into pros ution in Italy; a boy is duped by a man who pretends he is a pigeon; an eight-year-old girl is forced by her grandmother to service an old man. Most of the 12 stories in Italian writer Dacia Maraini's chilling collection Darkness involve the betrayal of children by the adults charged with caring for them. Alicetta, a schizophrenic girl, is given baths late at night by a hospital orderly armed with sedatives; Tano, a tough 11-year-old, denounces his father for rape many times, but no one believes him.

What's the difference between a tagger being commissioned to spray paint on someone's wall and a tagger than isn't?

Charging people to be a member of a site that provides nothing but graphic stories where in children are raped and murdered is sick.

[DisgruntledLionFan#54,927]

Is the right to bear arms fundamentally the same thing as using said gun in a threatening manner or shooting someone?

[Buddy Holly]

Fundamentally, it's vandalism.

Vandalism is only a meaningful concept in a culture that recognizes history and archaeology.

[Buddy Holly]

Is the right to bear arms fundamentally the same thing as using said gun in a threatening manner or shooting someone?

No. Because the fundamental right is to bear arms is that, the right to bear arms.

[Spurminator]

Charging people to be a member of a site that provides nothing but graphic stories where in children are raped and murdered is sick.

I think it's sick to be personally offended by fictional stories (that you haven't even read) to the point where you think they should be thrown in prison.

[Buddy Holly]

I think it's sick to be personally offended by fictional stories (that you haven't even read) to the point where you think they should be thrown in prison.

I said she should be thrown into prison?

Nope. Nice try though.

, I think the probation was too much.

I do however have no problem that her membership site was shut down.

[Spurminator]

If you don't fine, but somebody obviously does because she's on probation right now.

[Spurminator]

Im sorry, I can't defend this being able to be written.

Whatever.

I thought you DIDN'T want to become China?

[Buddy Holly]

TPark is on the extreme side.

[CuckingFunt]

Is it not fundamental the same thing? Seriously, just answer yes or no.

Not even remotely.

[Buddy Holly]

Not even remotely.

It is.

The only variable is one is asked for/given permission the other isn't.

[CuckingFunt]

It is.

The only variable is one is asked for/given permission the other isn't.

That's a pretty big variable.

It's the same variable that determines the difference between graffiti and an art gallery.

If someone were to tag my apartment building, whether it be fluffy bunnies or a racial slur, there's no way I could possibly avoid seeing it every day until it was removed. This woman, on the other hand, could have kept her website from now until the end of eternity and I likely wouldn't have ever known about it unless I specifically searched for rape porn.

[Buddy Holly]

That's a pretty big variable.

It's the same variable that determines the difference between graffiti and an art gallery.

If someone were to tag my apartment building, whether it be fluffy bunnies or a racial slur, there's no way I could possibly avoid seeing it every day until it was removed. This woman, on the other hand, could have kept her website from now until the end of eternity and I likely wouldn't have ever known about it unless I specifically searched for rape porn.

It's fundamentally the same right. The right to free speech.

It's ok to admit that sometimes free speech just isn't a viable reason.

[MannyIsGod]

So if some punk kid one night tagged up your entire house with curse words, racist comments, vulgar and just plain unmentionable stuff. You'd have no problem with it?

None whatsoever.

I mean, you believe in freedom of speech so strongly.

Tagging is illegal not because of what they write but WHERE they right it. Its an act of vandalism. If someone tags their own wall its NOT illegal so you using this as proof that we have limits on freedom of speech is extremely laughable.

[CuckingFunt]

It's fundamentally the same right. The right to free speech.

It's ok to admit that sometimes free speech just isn't a viable reason.

What you're not getting, though, is that vandalism is a big enough issue to make the free speech point completely moot. Taggers are not breaking the law because of what they're painting/drawing/writing, they're breaking the law because of where they're doing it. The phrase "West Side Crips 4 Life" is protected by the first amendment, but painting it on the side of a liquor store is not.

[MannyIsGod]

Jesus Christ is this concept really that difficult to understand? Tagging is a propery crime. It is vandalism. It has nothing to do with the content of what is being written. Obscenity laws have everything to do with the content that is being written. Thats why it has everything to do with free speech. People argue that obscenity laws have no place because of the first amendment and saying that they have a place in our society and using vandalism prosecution as an reasoning or example is just flat out mind boggling.

[MannyIsGod]

The biggest problem with obscenity rulings is how much judgement based on morality you allow into the judicial system. The fact that ultimately one person gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not is something that is fundementaly unAmerican. The problem is that anyone who tries to fight in cases like this is always tied to the content and not the argument of free speech. You can see it in this thread. People have already asked "How can you defend the content".

So who's going to go up in front of the press and fight for the right of some woman to write this material when they themselves become associated with the material?