As A Man Thinketh: The Gospel as Political Critique Part 1

[_Droopy]

[Come on, Droopy. You know better than this. No name calling in the Celestial. If this continues, I will drop this to terrestrial.][/quote]

I do not consider this to have been name calling. It is a claim about a position he has taken, which I have defended above.

Sorry if it appeared otherwise.

[_Droopy]

Arnie Duncan is a Mormon and Sec of Education. Do you consider him a member in good standing?

I have no idea whatsoever, as I have no knowledge of him, his beliefs, associations, or ideas.

[_Droopy]

You are all free to consider these parts of the Supreme Court opinion along with the rest of it, and then draw your own conclusions as to the accuracy of Droopy's characterization of me, of Droopy's intellectual ability to understand issues, and his ethical stature in how he responds to people who do not share his beliefs.

You support, by your own admission and the logical structure of your position, the production and distribution of child pornography.

Child pornography done as a digital movie - like Shrek for example - is still as a matter of semantic, conceptual, and logical consistency, child pornography.


You may not want to attach any moral significance to this at all, which is your prerogative, but you have supported and defended it regardless of any ethical critique one may deploy in relation to that which has been supported.

[_Darth J]

Pornographic magazines depicting sexual acts in the form of drawn pictures or digital graphics are still pornography, and still exploiting human sexuality. Material depicting children as objects of adult sexual desires are still exploiting children because they are artistic analogs to the actual exploitation, and hence, they're purpose is to incite the consumption of further material.

Translation: we must control people's thoughts as well as their actions.

Depictions of violence should also be banned, because that could cause people to consider murdering another person.

If you knew anything about sexual addiction, you would know that enough is never enough, and abstraction never stays at the level of abstraction.

Translation: anyone who looks at porno is a sex addict.

Likewise, anyone who has a glass of wine with dinner is an alcoholic.

So a cartoon, let's say, depicting sexual acts between adults and children, is not exploitative of children.

This standard would seem to imply that "exploitation", to be such, must involve actual individual exploitees. But to exploit something such as human sexuality, it would seem that I need do nothing more than present it. In the presentation resides the exploitation, and the child pornography industry was not built upon, nor is it maintained by, artistic or digital imagery. This is nothing more than another "niche" in the sex business, and a part of a systemic organism.

Translation: all depictions of human sexuality are exploitative, and the vast international pornography mafia is behind it.

Wile E. Coyote cartoons are also animal cruelty.

And does not pornography per se exploit, not only its participants, but the concept around which its participants are congregating...human sexuality and its prurient disply as entertainment, as well as all who view it by making them voyeurs?

Then that's their problem.

Would this be debates like when you said that "life, liberty, and property" is a phrase from the Declaration of Independence, and not the Constitution?

I don't believe I ever stated that these words as stated exist in either document.

Droopy on June 14, 2010:

Me: When Droopy is saying that a person does not have a "right" in any salient constitutional sense to things that the state has established as legitimate property or liberty interests, he is saying that the 14th Amendment is not part of the Constitution.

Droopy: No. I am saying that all rights not specifically mentioned in the constitution are reserved to the states and to the people. Marriage is a matter of tradition, custom and deep moral gravitas. It is not an unalienable right, in the sense of the other such rights mentioned in the Declaration (which its interesting you should mention here, as the Declaration is not a legal document) because it can be alienable if the core conditions of its legitimate exercise are not met.

The crux of the matter is that pornography qua pornography is not speech, and has no relevance to the first amendment at all.

Hmmm. Who decided this, again? Do you understand the difference between pornography and obscenity? (Odds say: no.)

Freedom just isn't the simple, dualistic either/or concept of dogmatic libertarian thought. Freedom is not an ultimate principle of social organization; it must be mediated, governed and conditioned by other principles and priorities. Hence, we must ask the question, "free to make what decisions, under what circumstances, in what context, and in relation to and in tension with what other aspects of the social order?"

Translation: the function of government is to impose some people's morality on all of society.

And of course your talk radio assumptions about what Ashcroft held are still there. "Freedom" means the right to make choices that the government thinks are moral.

That' s the leftist standard, not the conservative. You are confusing the need for ordered liberty with naked repression - a standard mental set among militant secularists.

"Ordered liberty" being the imposition of government standards of morality on everyone.

And everyone agrees with Bork's ideas about the Constitution, don't they?

Bork is right, about this aspect of it, so I could really care less who concurs.

You are saying this as if it is an objective fact. How would one go about verifying Bork's philosophy as an objective fact?

Art and literature also are "simply visual imagery the creates/incites emotional, psychological and physiological responses." Art and literature must not be "speech," either.

Well, literature is quite obviously speech, isn't it?

Yes. When you read a book, the book is actually talking to you.

"Art", if by this you mean the plastic and visual arts, are not speech per se, but do imply speech through the ideations and perceptual states they create. We talk about art, we criticize it, philosophize about it, and rate in relation to other art. The art itself, however, is not speech.

Then there is no problem with the government completely banning all depictions of Jesus Christ, is there? Art isn't speech.

I think a good argument could be made that art with political overtones or connotations should never be censored by the central government precisely because of the speech implied in the visual representation.

Of course you feel this way, because you are incapable of viewing the universe unless through the lens of your political obsessions.

What about a naked painting of George Washington? What about a picture of George Washington having sex with Martha Washington? I guess that's the loophole. Only discussions about politics are protected speech.

Perhaps Droopy's English teacher did not explain that George Orwell was writing allegory, not textbooks.

Pornography, however, has no intellectual content in this sense. It is political speech, above all, that the 1st amendment was created to protect. Barely Legal is not strictly protected speech under the 1st amendment for the simple reason that it, and all material like it...have nothing to say.

And this is because.......you say so. Did you come up with that other authority to support your assertion yet?

This would be yet another 10th amendment issue, were it not for the uniquely socially destructive effects of pornography. Pornography, whatever else it is, is a menace to civil society, and local governments and states, through elected, accountable bodies, have the right to control its availability and use.

How is someone else looking at naked pictures in their own home a threat to me again? I keep missing the facts on which that assertion is based.

But you are clearly right. If I don't think the government gets to legislate morality, I am of course amoral. It could not possibly be the case that the government should try to enforce some kind of cohesive social order, and private moral choices are not the government's business.

Again, for Mr. Crusoe,

Who? Oh, Robinson Crusoe. You mean that only hermits are entitled to personal freedom. I see.

you certainly have a point. For a large, complex society, however, a deep philosophical problem arises as just to what the nature of the demarcation line between "private" behavior and public effects, and how it is to be negotiated in a free and civil social order.

And that problem is especially evident when people try to explain a secular reason for imposing their religious beliefs and personal moral judgments on everyone else. What was that harm that comes to me by someone looking at naked pictures in their own home?

Art and literature, like marriage, is not, broadly speaking, within the scope of the 1st amendment, and hence, in the 10th amendment sense, is free to do as it wills. When it becomes a menace to civil society, however (through, like pornography, its ability to destroy healthy relationships between men and woman and subvert marriage, family, and the civilizing responsibilities of home life), the people have the right to control and condition it, on a case by case basis on the state and local levels.

Let's look at that First Amendment one more time, so we can see these restrictions Droopy is talking about:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No, not there. Where is this authoritative source that says the First Amendment only protects politics? You keep forgetting to show it. Maybe it's in the closet, underneath your reasons that someone else looking at pornography harms me.

We still seem to have that problem of allowing other people freedom means you condone what they do about it. If I think people should be free to speak out in favor of Nazism, then that makes me a Nazi.

There's no confusion at all, only philosophical sloppiness on your part. I think people should be free to support Nazism. That does not make me a Nazi.

If, however, I support the production and distribution of child pornography, while that does not make me a child pornographer, it does mean, by definition, that I support the production and distribution of child pornography. I could say "I don't believe in it", but it would not be logically possible to claim that I did not support its production and distribution.

Your analogy here is a bit rubbery. One's support for the freedom to be a Nazi is not quite the same as one's support for the freedom to produce and distribute child pornography.

Nazism is an ideology; it is a philosophy, a political program, and a worldview.

Pornography is imagery intended to incite and stimulate passions, feelings and emotions. It is not speech, but ideation, and ideation per se is opaque to the constitution.

So the government is allowed to police your thoughts after all. Where is it again that I can find some authoritative source saying that the Constitution allows the government to decide what people are allowed to think?

And you're still talking about child pornography when the Ashcroft decision is based on a statute that prohibited depictions that were not, by definition, child pornography. Unless you also want to say that "Murder, She Wrote" actually is murder.

Tell us, Droopy, would these high moral notions be imputed to the Founders who purchased and sold other human beings as chattel, or would this merely be based on the faith in the Bible and the divinity of Jesus Christ and traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs about God held by America's Founders----like, say, James Madison? Or Thomas Jefferson?

Slavery, at that time, was an institution, thousands of years old, to which was attached no moral stigma. It has been practiced by virtually all peoples throughout history in some form.

Pornography, up until the early seventies, had always existed on the fringes, or underbelly of society, and had to be "domesticated" by sheer saturation of the culture with it before it became "mainstream".

This is not, obviously, a defense of slavery, but only to show that the moral equivalence you are drawing is strained. The Founders wouldn't have approved of pornography then any more than we approve of slavery now, and, indeed, their moral framework resulted in the overthrowing of the entire concept of human beings being bought and sold as property.

It was they who initiated the theory and practice of liberty and left the Ancien Régime behind.

So remember, class: we have to judge people from a long time ago based on the conventional morality that existed in their own time, but we can't judge things today based on the conventional morality of our own time. Because......well, just because. Presentism is a one-way street.

You never showed me your mystical power of reading the minds of a group of different individuals with different ideas who lived in the 18th century. I'll ask again: will you please let us know how you are able to discern what they would and would not have done in modern society? And also, please specify which specific Founders' minds you are purporting to read; unless you claim to read ALL of their minds.

The irony here is that pornography is a deep and decisive threat to freedom, both personal and societal.

If your neighbor is in his home looking at porno, and you don't even know about it, he's personally attacking you.

In what way is defending someone's right to view pornography the same as philosophically supporting it?

I'm not sure there is a "right" to view pornography any more than a "right" to eat tuna fish. To a modern lawyer's mind, it would appear that everything must fall somewhere within the perimeters of some law, rule or regulation. Everything must lie within the constitution somewhere, or either it does not exist or it must be defended as a right regardless of its consequences upon the larger culture.

At this point, I'm not at all sure that the concept "lawyer" and "liberty" can be defended from the charge of self contradiction.

Remember: all lawyers have the same beliefs, the same political stance, and we're all a mystic secret society determined to undermine American freedom. Yahoo Bot can confirm this. We sacrificed kittens together at the annual conference on how our dark master Satan is performing his work through us.

A reasonable person who isn't a Hannity zombie realizes that these things are not the same at all. What Droopy really means is that "freedom" under the Constitution means that the government should impose Droopy's personal value judgments on the entire citizenry of the United States.

Still not willing to move beyond simplistic libertarian platitudes. Too bad. Real philosophical discussion is a rare bird these days.

Droopy's Debate Hints, #681: I can't refute what you're saying, so I'll just say you're stupid instead.

[_aussieguy55]

Just the way Droopy interacts with people would turn me off Mormonism. Where is that "sweet" spirit?

[_Darth J]

What you asked is a loaded question. There would be no need to reconcile one's political beliefs and religious beliefs unless one found an inconsistency. Your question assumes that such an inconsistency exists.

It assumes nothing. The inconsistencies exist as a matter of simple philosophical inspection.

Translation: some people think things that are different from what I think. Those people are wrong.

Enuma Elish posted extensively on this board about the Law of Consecration, and you never responded.

I participated with others in a 30 page thread with David at the MADboards, in which it was thoroughly and respectfully demonstrated that his beliefs and exegesis regarding the UO are fantasy, and wholly inconsistent with the settled teachings of the Church on the matter.

No one else thinks so, but it doesn't matter, because Droopy is always right.

Did you ever get around to explaining to Yahoo Bot why he's wrong about Mormon communitarianism in the Great Basin?

But people in Stalinist and Maoist states do not meaningfully choose their leaders at all, so the idea of "supporting" such ideologies is moot if you're limiting support to the voting booth.

Quite but...most of the actual historic support for these ideologies and regimes has not, in fact, come from the people living under them, but from the western intellectual classes.

That's the point, Darth.

Today's fascinating fact: Chairman Mao came into power because some college professor in America likes Das Kapital.

Once a given elected official has actually demonstrated values, programs, and policies that are not consistent with gospel standards, how can people who profess to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ continue supporting, defending and coexisting with, intellectually and morally, these kinds of elected officials, regardless of party affiliation?

What makes you think they do? Bush is a pariah among much of the conservative movement because of a number of his domestic policies and his subversion of conservatism as a political idea.

Who says this was limited to Bush (either of them)? Or to Republicans?

I think perhaps you confuse a free, democratic republic such as ours, in which people live, for the most part, in a political world of trade-offs and lesser evils, and the totalitarian world where one must accept the entire program in full, with no chance at reforming or repealing discreet aspects of it.

Yes. In politics, we can have trade-offs and lesser evils, but not in society. In society, morality must be imposed. It is just part of life that the United States materially supports oppressive governments and terrorists (Saddam Hussein until he was no longer useful; the Mujahideen; Augusto Pinochet; etc.). But some guy I can't see or hear looking at dirty movies in the privacy of his own home? A clear and present danger to American society!

That's right. Trying to explain how the federal government authorizing warrantless searches without probable cause can be reconciled with the Fourth Amendment would derail the parade of AM radio talking points.

You clearly have little understanding of the Patriot Act, but...surprising?

Yes, Droopy. Lawyers don't know anything about law. We're too busy offering blood sacrifice to Satan so that he will destroy America. And I certainly have never had any clients who have had searches performed on their personal effects under the Patriot Act.

There is nothing in the Patriot Act that authorized the government to spy on its own citizens without probable cause. A vicious lie spun by the liberal homosexual lawyers at the New York Times, no doubt.,

For our audience at home, you can look at the Mayfield decision here, and see if Droopy is right:

http://ord.uscourts.gov/notable-rulings/rulings (Brandon Mayfield v. United States)

Don't forget: lawyers don't know what the law is.

Doctors don't know about medicine.

Architects don't know about buildings.

[_Darth J]

Just the way Droopy interacts with people would turn me off Mormonism. Where is that "sweet" spirit?

Hey, if you're anti-Mormon or a critic of the Church, Droopy is God's gift to you.

[_Darth J]

You are all free to consider these parts of the Supreme Court opinion along with the rest of it, and then draw your own conclusions as to the accuracy of Droopy's characterization of me, of Droopy's intellectual ability to understand issues, and his ethical stature in how he responds to people who do not share his beliefs.

You support, by your own admission and the logical structure of your position, the production and distribution of child pornography.

Once again, for our viewers at home: Ashcroft reached the result it did because there were no children involved in the "child pornography."

Unless "Murder, She Wrote" also depicts actual murder, Looney Tunes are actual animal cruelty, and "Star Trek" is real space travel.

The Ashcroft court also talked about how the federal statute prohibited simulated depictions of underage sexuality regardless of its scientific, artistic, or literary value. The Franco Zeffirelli film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is child pornography under this standard (Olivia Hussey, who was of age but playing an underage teenager (Juliet) is shown partially nude in a part of this movie. It is also made very obvious in this movie that the underage character Juliet had sex with Romeo).

So if don't agree that this movie should be banned, you are an advocate for child pornography. Just so you are all aware.

Child pornography done as a digital movie - like Shrek for example - is still as a matter of semantic, conceptual, and logical consistency, child pornography.

Pretend things hurt real people. See this?



This is a scene from 300 where the Spartans have piled up a bunch of dead bodies. Even though these aren't real people who have been killed, the producers of 300 are murderers.

You may not want to attach any moral significance to this at all, which is your prerogative, but you have supported and defended it regardless of any ethical critique one may deploy in relation to that which has been supported.

You know who else is an amoral proponent of child pornography? Clarence Thomas.

The Court suggests that the Government’s interest in enforcing prohibitions against real child pornography cannot justify prohibitions on virtual child pornography, because “[t]his analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech.” Ante, at 17. But if technological advances thwart prosecution of “unlawful speech,” the Government may well have a compelling interest in barring or otherwise regulating some narrow category of “lawful speech” in order to enforce effectively laws against pornography made through the abuse of real children. The Court does leave open the possibility that a more complete affirmative defense could save a statute’s constitutionality, see ante, at 18, implicitly accepting that some regulation of virtual child pornography might be constitutional. I would not prejudge, however, whether a more complete affirmative defense is the only way to narrowly tailor a criminal statute that prohibits the possession and dissemination of virtual child pornography. Thus, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

You know another amoral proponent of child pornography? Antonin Scalia, who concurred with Sandra Day O'Connor in the following:

I agree with the Court’s decision not to grant this request. Because the Government may already prohibit obscenity without violating the First Amendment, see Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 23 (1973), what the Government asks this Court to rule is that it may also prohibit youthful-adult and virtual-adult pornography that is merely indecent without violating that Amendment. Although such pornography looks like the material at issue in New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), no children are harmed in the process of creating such pornography. Id., at 759. Therefore, Ferber does not support the Government’s ban on youthful-adult and virtual-child pornography. See ante, at 10—13. The Government argues that, even if the production of such pornography does not directly harm children, this material aids and abets child abuse. See ante, at 13—16. The Court correctly concludes that the causal connection between pornographic images that “appear” to include minors and actual child abuse is not strong enough to justify withdrawing First Amendment protection for such speech. See ante, at 12.

I also agree with the Court’s decision to strike down the CPPA’s ban on material presented in a manner that “conveys the impression” that it contains pornographic depictions of actual children (“actual-child pornography”). 18 U.S.C. § 2256(8)(D). The Government fails to explain how this ban serves any compelling state interest. Any speech covered by §2256(8)(D) that is obscene, actual-child pornography, or otherwise indecent is prohibited by other federal statutes. See §§1460—1466 (obscenity), 2256(8)(A), (B) (actual-child pornography), 2256(8)(B) (youthful-adult and virtual-child pornography). The Court concludes that §2256(8)(D) is overbroad, but its reasoning also persuades me that the provision is not narrowly tailored. See ante, at 19—20. The provision therefore fails strict scrutiny. United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000).

Finally, I agree with Court that that the CPPA’s ban on youthful-adult pornography is overbroad. The Court provides several examples of movies that, although possessing serious literary, artistic or political value and employing only adult actors to perform simulated sexual conduct, fall under the CPPA’s proscription on images that “appea[r] to be … of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” 18 U.S.C. § 2256(8)(B). See ante, at 9—10 (citing Romeo and Juliet, Traffic, and American Beauty). Individuals or businesses found to possess just three such films have no defense to criminal liability under the CPPA. §2252A(d).

Horrible monsters, all of them.

For those who are confused about why Droopy keeps calling something that involves no children "child pornography," let me provide an exercise in Droopy logic:

You are not reading these words. Although you think you see these words, they aren't here. This sentence does not exist, nor does the one that preceded it. You might try to argue that this sentence does in fact exist and that you are reading it, but you are wrong.

[_moksha]

Child pornography done as a digital movie - like Shrek for example - is still as a matter of semantic, conceptual, and logical consistency, child pornography.

Droopy, how would you view the naughty actions in Fritz the Cat, where the characters are an amalgam of human and feline? by the way, would would characterize this cartoon action as bestiality, even if the yiffing was done on celluloid?

[_Paul Osborne]

Jesus Christ! What is going on in here? My God.

Paul O