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From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: banning pornography
Message-ID: <885@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 22:25:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.885
Posted: Fri Sep 20 22:25:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 05:39:02 EDT
References: <70@ucdavis.UUCP> <870@utcs.uucp>
Reply-To: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
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Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
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In article <870@utcs.uucp> flaps@utcs.UUCP (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>Do you think that there should be censorship of neo-nazi propaganda?  Anti-gay
>propaganda?
>Pornography is anti-woman propaganda.  I don't believe in government-controlled

It is not obvious to me how pornography is anti-woman. After all, some
pornography has only male-male sex depicted. It's certainly less anti-woman
that a tv show or commercial that depicts woman as housewives.
It seems to me that the discussion
of whether pornography is anti-female avoids an important distinction
between a medium and its contents. "Pornography" refers to both. It
refers to a medium (pictures, writing) and to content (sex with the
intent to arouse). I think those who argue agin' porn need to demonstrate
how the content is anti-female. It's just not obvious to a whole bunch of
us.

And Alan, you are using propoganda above in a metaphoric sense; that just
reduces the discussion to the emotional rather than to the substantial.

>Pornography is anti-woman propaganda.  I don't believe in government-controlled
>censorship but I do believe in people-controlled censorship.  I think that
>the people must do what they can to prevent the distribution of pornography,
>nazi literature, and so on.  More important than the right to free speech is

Could you specify what you mean by people-controlled censorship? Does it
involve private citizens interfering with legally guaranteed rights? Does
it involve some other sort of illegal activity? Or just something legal
like boycotting porn stores?

>nazi literature, and so on.  More important than the right to free speech is
>the right to any kind of meaningful life at all, the right not to have people
>preaching hatred of you.
More important to whom? Certainly not to the person whose free speech is being
denied.  I never heard of this "right not to have people preaching hatred of
you". Is this a right you WISH you had, or  did I miss it in the constitution?