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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (Marcel F. Simon)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.motss,net.flame
Subject: Re: Possible Ban on Pornography
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Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 17:09:07 EDT
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Posted: Fri Sep 20 17:09:07 1985
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> Ken Perlow: 
> This "leads to" argument, as in "putting any restrictions on porn
> leads to censorship", is bogus.  There is no "leads to", only "comes
> from", as in "legal rights come from moral rights". ...
>                                                   ....  And thus
> legal responsibilities, which seem not to exist w/r/t porn, but
> certainly ought to, derive from moral responsibilities.  Responsibility
> is not proscription.
 
I disagree. Laws exist precisely because morality is subjective and cannot
guarantee well-adjusted social behavior in a heterogeneous society. The law
thus form a "barebones" moral framework, on which people are free to superimpose
their own, presumably more restrictive moral codes. It is necessary in a free
society that the law not be restrictive of individual morality, except as
necessary to preserve social order (i.e. my morality may allow mass murder,
but I must be restricted by laws in order to prevent chaos.) 

In this context, then, it is necessary to demonstrate that the social order
is threatened by the continued availability of pornography, and that the
threat would subside if same was unavailable.

Clearly, we must define what pornography is before we can talk about its
putative threat to society. I believe that task is up to those who wish
to ban. I don't believe morality is part of this debate at all.

> I personally believe that a lot of porn is, for lack of a better term,
> libelous.

I am not sure what you meant, but the term is surely incorrect. You
must libel some person, not libel in the abstract, or a class of persons.
You may think pornography is offensive, repugnant, or whatever, but
libelous does not apply

Marcel Simon