There cannot be a "free" market in general but not in drugs, prostitution or pornography. That is why there must not be a "free" market in general. The State has not only the right, but the duty, to ensure that there is not.
For example, it has not only the right, but the duty, to require that advancing technology be utilised in order to protect society at large from the effects of Internet pornography, which is in no sense a private matter, but has catastrophic consequences in fields such as law and order, health, the education of the young girls now being sexually assaulted by their male peers on something approaching an epidemic scale, and so on.
Forget allowing people to contact their Internet Service Providers in order to have these filters removed from their computers. It should be illegal to remove them, just as it should be legally required to fit them.
Ed Miliband, over to you.
Such a control freak David.
ReplyDeleteIn the protection of young girls from rape by their porned-up classmates, damn right I am.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of reported sexual assaults and rapes hasn't really changed in percentage of population terms for several decades so clearly an increase in pornographic material consumption has not caused an increase in rape.
ReplyDeleteAlso said filters are incredibly easy to bypass (would take me like 5 seconds) and wouldn't work in any way.
Rape has been around long before Pornography.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, raping ones wife was legal before the 1990's.
Why should I be banned from watching adult material just because of the personal and moral failings of others?
The age profile of the offenders has decreased very dramatically as a result of Internet pornography. Moreover, both pornography use and sexual violence are habit-forming if begun at a tender age, which they usually are.
ReplyDeleteYou may as well argue against burglar alarms because some people know how to disable them. That used to be far easier to do than it is now, so the technology was improved.
Even Harriet Harman disagrees with you on this one. Her Mail on Sunday article is remarkably good. Read it.
Marneus, you are not an adult if you use this sort of material. You are at best a pubescent boy trapped in a man's body. Trapped there by this use, most likely.
ReplyDeleteNo one forces you to have a burglar alarm.
ReplyDeleteYou on the other hand wish to force us to have filters on our computers that block material which isn't illegal.
"Marneus, you are not an adult if you use this sort of material. You are at best a pubescent boy trapped in a man's body. Trapped there by this use, most likely."
And that's still more mature than you'll ever be.
All right, an emergency break on your car, then.
ReplyDeleteHe (she?) has really got under your skin with a very good point, very well made.
Driving a car can endanger another person. That's a good reason to have an emergency brake.
ReplyDeleteAnother is the danger to oneself, which is just as much a matter of public concern.
ReplyDeleteBoth principles also apply to pornography.
I'm not endangering myself though. I have no desire to go out and sexually assault anyone any more than being a Catholic makes one more susceptible to abusing young children.
ReplyDeleteWho else am I endangering? Consenting adults who agree to make these images? Using that logic, everyone who pays to watch Horse racing is endangering the Jockeys.
"A pubescent boy trapped in a man's body," indeed.
ReplyDeleteAvoiding the points made. Well done.
ReplyDeleteYou just keep on proving our point. Not least by the fact that you cannot see that you are doing it.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't proven how I'm endangering myself.
ReplyDeleteBut you have.
ReplyDeleteNo I haven't.
ReplyDeleteThis site is not a pantomime.
ReplyDelete