Porn is worse than torture:
On Friday in Tampa, Florida, Paul F. Little was sentenced by a federal judge to 3 years and 10 months in a federal prison after being convicted of the grave and terrible crime of distributing pornography “over the Internet and through the mail” — films featuring only consenting adults and distributed only to those consenting adults who chose to purchase them. Even though he lived and worked in California, the Bush DOJ dragged him to Tampa, Florida in order to try him under Tampa’s “community standards,” on the theory that his website used servers physically based in Central Florida and some of the films were sent to Tampa customers who purchased them.
***So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will prosecute you and send you to prison for years. The claim that no real pain was inflicted will be rejected; mere humiliation is enough to make you a criminal. But if government officials actually subject helpless detainees in their custody to extreme mental abuse, degradation, humiliation and even mock executions long considered “torture” in the entire civilized world, the DOJ will argue that they have acted with perfect legality and, just to be sure, Congress will hand them retroactive immunity for their conduct. That’s how we prioritize criminality and arrange our value system.
While I agree that this is absurd and criminal, what Glenn simply fails to understand is that Bush’s base supports torture. And with 50+1 George, the only thing that matters is what the fundie base wants. It is depressing, but that is how they think. Hell, that is the logic behind what will be the next month of attacks on Obama- they are not trying to get people to vote for McCain, they are going to try to get 50+1 to vote against Obama because he is scary, or you can not trust him, or whatever. Read Hugh Hewitt:
With One Month To Go: Why McCain Will Close and Win
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 8:42 PM
Because the country cannot afford the greatest gamble in its modern history at this moment in time.
Just to make it clear what Hewitt is trying to drive home, the word “radical” appeared four times in that. “Obama is risky! This is a gamble! Radical!” If you still are not clear, read Bill Kristol:
Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he’s consorted with dubious figures. It’s fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn’t be intimidated from going there.
To these guys, 50+1 is all that matters. 50+1 wins. 50+1 is the goal. How you get there and what you do after getting there does not matter. 50+1. This is why we live in a country in which simulated violence during filmed sex gets you jail time, but torturing someone gets you a promotion.
50+1.
El Cid
For the right this probably holds on a deeper level than this court case — in their view there’s something wrong with fictionalized and voluntary forms of torture — the right wing only gets their real rocks off when they know that they’re actually torturing people in a helpless state.
You know, it’s like outlawing some inferior knockoff, or punishing people for watering down drinks.
sparky
teh base: our porn is GOOD porn! why? cuz we gets results with it. just watch 24 if you don’t believe me!
D0n Camillo
The problem for them this year is that it isn’t close enough for the 50+1 strategy to work. The best they can hope for is maybe 48+1 if they really get the slime machine into high gear. Also, they’re not running against Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. They’re up against someone who knows how to sidestep or deflect their attacks and has the cash on hand to do it.
sparky
ps: thanks for all the sitework, and i’m lovin’ the mobile reader.
4jkb4ia
And the more cautious and thoughtful Obama acts, the less people will believe he is a scary radical. Commenters may have seen the NYT article finished off with the interview with Tom Hayden where he said that he was having trouble getting people to believe that Obama was progressive enough. Commenters here may also read Open Left, for that matter.
More aggressive trash: We beat South Florida! SUCKERS! I see a bowl game in our future!
Polish the Guillotines
Maybe I’m just being a foolish optimist, but I predict that this poo-flinging strategy will boomerang hard. When all is said and done, the only remaining members of the GOP will be the fundies, racits, and morans.
It would not surprise me if they totally splinter and re-constitute themselves as an overtly religious political party( yes, I realize that’s what they are — but I’m talking about overt branding, e.g. Germany’s Christian Democrats).
ThymeZone
Yes, the poo-flinging will backfire.
Even the AP, hardly in the tank for Obama, is wincing at this latest move.
Oops .. I forgot that the blockquote doesn’t work. Before the admins come along to explain why that is my fault … let me see if I can doctor the text to make it work.
….why, yes, yes I can. Lucky me!
Polish the Guillotines
Looks like it’s catching. Crooks & Liars just did a major overhaul too.
SGEW
If this case goes all the way up to th’ SCOTUS, I shudder to think of the Kennedy majority opinion.
All we can do is hope that one of the five conservatives
kicks the bucketretires from the bench and President Obama’s nominee is in place before this makes its way through the appeals process.Scott H
Because the country cannot afford the greatest gamble in its modern history at this moment in time.
So, vote for the veteran craps player! Who doesn’t report his gambling on his tax returns!
Obama hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or political courage
Unless you’ve ever actually heard him speak – or considered what it must take for a black man, who is portrayed by the reactionary political machine as uppity, America-hating, radically (albeit secretly) Muslim, an associate of violent terrorists, and a general threat to white women everywhere, to stand in the center of open air rallies to challenge the status quo.
As to the porn thing: it is time for the courts to decide community standards in the Internet age.
gbear
Said gamble being that Hewitt and Kristol are correct about something for the first time in their lives. It must suck to be them.
Punchy
Does this mean I can defend the legality of my polygamist marriages by demanding that I be tried in southern Utah?
Had no idea they could court-shop shit like this so egregiously.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
For McCain to pull out of Michigan, he already appears as a loser. They can do as much wishful thinking as they want, this election is not theirs to win this time.
Risky? A desperate man with a real problem of temperament coupled with age and four incidents of cancer relying on Sarah Palin as his running mate? That’s what is truly risky.
Comrade Jake
I feel some sense of calm now that Hewitt has predicted McCain will close and win. I’m pretty sure he predicted Romney would win the GOP primary some time ago.
That guy is a bleached Alan Keyes.
Товарищ НеинтереснаяСобака
Max Hardcore is going to jail? The case is a bit fishy, and the blatant hypocrisy with regards to torture is striking… but I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than an unmitigated good. Seriously, fuck that guy.
Martin
I have a friend who has worked at a number of content providers, most recently at one that provides streaming services. Most of his jobs served the porn industry to one degree or another – nobody turns away business. One place he worked at served almost equal amounts of porn, Disney, and religious programming. They were looking to expand and did a breakdown of bandwidth per capita across the country by content type. The state with the highest consumption of porn per capita: Utah. The religious content IPs correlated far more strongly with porn than Disney (positive and negative correlations, respectively, if memory serves.)
Conservatives don’t mind persecuting porn providers – there are always more places for them to get their fix. And the porn industry knows exactly who their customer base is – there’s no secret about it.
AkaDad
If making porn movies is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.
Gene
Speaking of the Hewitt article, here’s this gem where he is talking about what his side believes & does:
Sure, if you define "neighbors" as the guys in your country club or (internationally) conservative Albertans, "religion" as one of the hard line Protestant or Catholic versions, and political opponents as … er … umm … I got nothing for this one.
Hugh Hewitt: Still the reigning Inter-Continental Ass-Hat belt holder.
Polish the Guillotines
I can’t imagine anything more fraught with peril than the current Supreme Court opining on this subject with any sense of the technological implications.
In fact, this just hit me like a ton of bricks: With the pace of technology, and the age of the court, we’re looking at a lag-time in understanding of roughly a generation. I’m not sure even the younger guys (Roberts, Alito) have a clear grasp of this.
It’s really going to fall into the hands of their legal staffs to grapple with this. Scary.
ThymeZone
I see the McCain move as a huge tactical error.
They put Palin out there to advance the smear. Now the charge is associated with her. The cable crowd is playing the video of her inane speech in California, and the thing sounds like just another "Palin thing." It’s winky, smarmy, and at the YouBetcha level of elocution.
They are going to have a hard time getting this thing taken seriously by having a woman who looks and sounds for all the world like Tina Fey in a beehive hairdo suggesting that we shouldn’t trust Barack Obama.
Colossally bad move. They have set up a Palin v Obama controversy, and I think we all know who is going to win that contest.
ThymeZone
CM is right. An easy rebuttal for Barack is, okay, let’s really look at risk in this contest.
Keating, gambling, health, age, judgment, lie du jour campaigning, cluelessness on the economy, reckless joking about bombing Iran …. where do you want to start?
McCain is a trainwreck. Let’s rumble.
Martin
Well, the porn industry is consistently the leader in adopting new technologies. The first for-sale VHSs and DVDs were porn, the porn industry pioneered ecommerce, and the early video streaming standards were ones that worked well with the porn industry needs.
Not only is the Supreme Court ill equipped to anticipate where the industry will go, so is most of the tech industry. The porn industry not only is the early adopter, but it’s also a large enough market to call the winner in a close market. When HD-DVD and Blu-ray came out, the porn industry came out decidedly for Blu-ray and everyone else followed the porn industry, not for the technical differences between the two standards but because they knew the porn industry influence would make Blu-ray the winner regardless of technical advantages.
SGEW
Try three or four generations. I don’t think it’ll ever catch up.
Hell, even Obama is lagging behind by a generation or two (see, e.g., the F.I.S.A. bill and its implications for free electronic information), and he’s only 47. I’m a generation behind, and I’m in my early thirties. There are 14 year old kids right now who understand the future of information retrieval better than we do, and they’ll be the ones who’ll have to figure this all out in forty or fifty years.
(Or they’ll just be mindless zombies plugged into their iBrain implants and HyperTwittering at each other as the world burns around them. Whatever. Get off my lawn!)
slaney black
What you speak is truer than you know, John Cole.
Watch any Max Hardcore scene (esp. the uncut Euro version) and you see a perfect replica of what Cheney/Rove have done to America for nigh on 8 years.
Dress a girl up in Disney kitsch, then turn on a nightmare of gagging, fists, speculums, choking, face-slaps and urine.
As Max likes to say, "even the prettiest girl don’t look so good when she’s all covered in piss and puke." Which might be a perfect slogan for the McCain/Palin ’08 plan for Lady Liberty.
Smile for the camera, America! Your mother and father must be real proud of you…
Martin
They want it to be Obama v Palin. It’s designed to help take the tarnish off of McCain so that he can attempt to retake the high-road later. Nobody will buy it at this stage, I don’t think, but they think it’ll work.
The other thing you are seeing is a retrenching for battleground red states. Don’t look at these moves on the national stage, because most of the nation is already set. Indiana, Ohio, PA, VA, NC, MO, FL. That’s the nation as far as both campaigns are concerned. What message will keep Republicans in line, get them to the polls, and resistant to Obama’s message in those states. McCain can’t push for a win if he can’t keep those states on his side, and he’s in the process of losing them all right now.
Martin
They want it to be Obama v Palin. It’s designed to help take the tarnish off of McCain so that he can attempt to retake the high-road later. Nobody will buy it at this stage, I don’t think, but they think it’ll work.
The other thing you are seeing is a retrenching for battleground red states. Don’t look at these moves on the national stage, because most of the nation is already set. Indiana, Ohio, PA, VA, NC, MO, FL. That’s the nation as far as both campaigns are concerned. What message will keep Republicans in line, get them to the polls, and resistant to Obama’s message in those states. McCain can’t push for a win if he can’t keep those states on his side, and he’s in the process of losing them all right now.
Scott H
@Polish the Guillotines I can’t imagine anything more fraught with peril than the current Supreme Court opining on this subject with any sense of the technological implications.
The courts are bound by Lawrence. The porn is accessed on home computers. Not even a matter of public indecency which comes before the Court this term.
All the more reason to vote for Obama.
Polish the Guillotines
@Martin: speaks the truth.
Yup. Sex sells, and nothing sells sex better than technology.
@SGEW: more truth.
I’ve been in the tech sector for the last dozen years, and it boggles my mind daily. And what you’re saying raises a really interesting point: Will the next president (or next after) actually need to bring in teens and 20-somethings as advisers on technology issues?
I pose that question seriously.
Polish the Guillotines
Let’s hope there’s still a reluctance to sink a pitchfork into stare decisis.
Well, not that I needed another reason. But, yeah.
Martin
We give our young people too little credit, to be honest. They may not have the experience of consequence to help guide them, but young people can be absurdly smart, especially on matters that they are closest to. I wouldn’t want a 17 year-old responsible for the decision, but I sure as hell would want them as advisors. If we single out porn, there’s no question that the customer base for it starts around 12 – give or take a few years depending on individual. How a 12 year old gets exposed to porn and is most likely to get exposed in the future should matter, if we care at all about the issue. And there’s no reason why young people (maybe not 12, but 16+? Sure…) shouldn’t be involved – as well as people with experience in the industry.
What is surprising to me is that we have a tendency to bring in such a narrow demographic to address the nations problems, and that we routinely act in such an anecdotal manner. Nobody ever seems to really study these issues. Why are there so few scientists, engineers, and other experts who are involved in these decisions. If I wanted a solution to global warming, the last group I’d hand the problem to are politicians (even good ones). I’d give it to a bunch of environmental scientists, engineers, social scientists, economists, etc. and see what they hand back to me. Hell, I’d give it to 10 such groups working in isolation and see what they come up with to see if there is any consensus.
bago
Well, the Obama team has a CTO, hires programmers, and has even released an iPhone organizing tool. He’s no slouch on technology.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
I think we already are. :)
Comrade grumpy realist
McCain is starting to remind me of the dog that chases the car. I think we’ll find that if by some October Surprise ("Bin Laden! It’s time for one of your videos again!") McCain actually manages to sneak into the Presidency, he won’t have the foggiest idea of what to do. Bomb Iran? Yeah, the DOD will really go for that. Cut taxes any more? The green-eyeshade group will howl to high heaven. Try to pass his health care idea? Fat chance.
Given how McCain has run his campaign, 4 years of him as president would be a continuous cascade of train wrecks.
Darcy
OT-
Someone posted this over at Eschaton. It was quite moving: I’m just a sucker for a swelling orchestra and an old, bearded artist with a cool sign.
Ok, ignore me, I’m a moran.
Dave_No_Longer_Laughing
Who the heck appointed this judge? Oh, Bill Clinton… Spa fon! How can this be??? It’s those damned republican conservative christianists like Tipper Gore who started it all back in the 1980’s when they assassinated Frank Zappa.
In this country, you’re supposed to have the inalienable right to engage in any lawful activity, no matter how disgusting, offensive, stupid, etc. it may be.
Call in Mojo Nixon!
Hugh Hewitt's Jiggling Manboobs
Boing boing boing boing boing boing boing
w vincentz
Where is Anita Bryant when we really need her?
I agree with Lenny Bruce. I’ll paraphrase…
I’d rather have my children watch pornography than reporting on tv about a war.
Brachiator
In other words, Kristol wants to return to the "Obama as scary black man raised by un-American radicals" nonsense that the GOP tried out in the early stages of the campaign.
One of the stories that the lazy, compliant American media has been largely letting slip is the degree to which Obama’s European tour impressed and satisfied America’s allies. The media kept harping on the phony celebrity aspect of it, and not the issues of leadership and trustworthiness, the very stuff that scares the crap out of Kristol. So, for example, the British government is trying to pretend to give in to Bush Administration to appear neutral, when they are in fact loving them some Obama:
Similarly, despite the smear that Obama is not a friend to Israel, the plain fact is that Obama impressed the Israeli government officials with whom he met with his honesty and grasp of the issues. Obama’s surrogates need to get out front with the message not just that McCain is desperate, but that Obama is thoroughly ready to reinforce existing relations between America and its allies, and to build new ones on the international stage.
Quiddity
What John missed in his quoting of Hugh Hewitt were these words
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Shorter Hugh Hewitt – "So we lost every time we stayed in with a 9 high hand over the last eight years. At least we know how to call – changing tactics and folding would be a huge gamble!"
liberal
Polish the Guillotines wrote,
It’s really not so clear.
If they agree with the logic of this case, soon courts will be extending it in all sorts of ways to businesses which are "more legitimate" than porn.
Business ain’t gonna like that, and while the right-wingers on the USSC are, indeed, cultural right-wingers, they’re also in the pocket of the business class.
Notorious P.A.T.
Character does matter. Read this article:
Link
Brachiator
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Sadly, it doesn’t. Just as many people refuse to believe that Dubya is not a Texas cowboy, but a lazy and spoiled member of the American elite, many people cling to the legend of John McCain, eternally honorable POW war hero.
nicethugbert
Hmm, I bet Rove and friends come up with this shit at the craps table with McGambler. Projection is their specialty.
Doctor Jay
Yeah the last month of the campaign will be all about how "risky" Obama is….until next week, when that didn’t work and it’s on to some other line of attack.