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The Case for Censorship of Pornography
| Article
# : |
10861 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1986 |
2,400 Words |
| Author
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March Bell
March Bell is legislative counsel for the National Freedom
Institute. He formerly served as counsel to the Senate
Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism. |
It has been an axiom of the liberal intelligentsia that the unencumbered labors of artists and scientists will produce "progress," thereby benefiting the common good. Complete freedom of expression and investigation is necessary, it is argued, to assure the vitality of human progress. "Not to worry," we are told, if an occasional aberration raises it head; good ideas will chase out the bad. If bad ideas, such as those in Mein Kampf, stay around a little too long, we are encouraged to shrug our shoulders with Justice William O. Douglas: "Who am I to say that others' tastes must be so limited and that others' tastes have no social importance?"
Against this rarely questioned liberal general orthodoxy, Attorney General Edwin Meese is prepared to square off. He is armed with an alarming, 1,500-page report prepared by members of the Commission on Pornography he impaneled in May 1985.
Willingness to reopen the debate on censorship flows primarily from the historic formulation of legal analysis on the First Amendment right of free speech. Simply put, words or speech become unlawful if the contextual setting in which they are expressed is likely to produce certain conduct. Shouting "Fire!" for example, can be a warning or call for assistance or it can be a criminal act in a crowded theater. The statement that "The president ought to be shot' has a different meaning when voiced as crude disapproval than if the speaker is purchasing a gun two blocks from the White House.
"I've got a bomb" is a federal crime if spoken, even in humor, at airport security
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