"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- from The Friends of Voltaire by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906
The US District Court in Tampa, Florida appears to have forgotten the lessons of the above quote, Lenny Bruce, and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: on Friday, they sentenced the disgusting, misogynistic, violent, and downright horrible pornographer Max Hardcore (real name Paul Little) to a three years and ten months in prison, a case of gross injustice if there ever was one. The stock market crashes, we may actually elect McCain-Palin, and the national debt is soaring, but the real problem here is our inability to see how all this is leading to a degradation in our collective sanity...
Let's look at the facts: Paul Little made sickening, perverted, and borderline child-porn films featuring women being pissed and puked on, for starters. (No, let's stop there, it doesn't improve from there.) The point isn't what he did-- it's what he didn't do. He didn't do anything that invalidates his First Amendment rights to free speech. He didn't rape children or even film children naked. He was convicted of obscenity, which, if we're not mistaken, is basically the same charges that drove Lenny Bruce to his doom. And would anyone today deny Lenny Bruce's routines were protected speech?
As Slate put it:
“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."
There's another issue here: why was a California resident, who does his business solely within the state, prosecuted in Florida? Most believe it's because local law in Florida is less kind to the porn people, making it easier to charge and convict Little. (We have yet to hear another rational explanation for the trial's venue.) Of course, we're sure Little will appeal this to the highest levels, although by the time it gets there, we may have a McCain-Palin Supreme Court passing judgment on morality and the Constitution...
Read more here. Thanks to Jeff for the link. UPDATED: For some reason, the quote at the top was deleted after the jump...
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