Car News

We have at least three threads going about this; could we please
choose one and stick to it? (And, ah, leave political commentary about
the justices off?)

I've done a lot of talking about various parts of this decision to
various parties, this being the sort of thing I studied for my degree
and take a great interest in, but let me just address the "violence
vs. sex" issue for now:

(1) The case was about a statute regarding violence. No matter what we
or the justices might think of the statutes regarding "obscenity,"
they were not on the table for change. They could be used as a point
of comparison, and in fact were, but they could not be altered to
match whatever the Court thought about violence.

(2) The Court was asked to declare an area of speech that had always
had first-amendment protections as suddenly being unprotected, but
only for minors. It declined, in part because there had never been a
type of speech which was only unprotected for minors and in part
because ANY request for a newly-unprotected area of speech is going to
require MASSIVELY overwhelming evidence supporting it. Abridgment of
such a fundamental freedom is something the Court is exceedingly
skittish about.

(3) The Court was also asked to allow the restriction only in video
games. It declined, in part because only regulating video games was
punishing a specific medium (a specific set of speakers) rather than
achieving the supposed goal of the legislation (protecting children
from violent imagery in general). This is really good for us, because
it shows that attacks on certain media (e.g., RPGs) are likely to be
recognized as moral panics in progress and blocked.

(4) Obscenity can be regulated for adults; furthermore, the definition
of obscenity for minors is exactly the same as the definition for
adults, save that it may consider the minor audience when considering
factors such as artistic merit. According to the court, if the state
wants to regulate violence for minors, it must argue that even adults
have no right to make or view content falling under the same
definition.

(5) The other option for making sex and violence equal at law is, of
course, re-protecting obscenity. I don't see that happening anytime
soon.

In service,
M. Alan Thomas II

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