Forum - View topicNEWS: Virginia Man's 20-Year Sentence for Anime Child Porn Upheld
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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This is essentially what the thrust of your argument entails, and is the main point of the majority of arguments in the related threads. I applaud the sentiment, and donate/spend time, money, and work with issues centered around the same principal. But there is a point where perspective has to be kept, and there's a bit of a race to see who can take the argument over-the-top the most when issues like this come up. I'll also use an old civics phrase euphemistically: 'That's my Ox being gored'. Or in other words, couched around 'First Amendment' talk, to me, is more often the real point of:
...or in other words people are upset mostly because a niche entertainment avenue they enjoy is threatened, ala' fansub threads. I'm not arguing for or against the entertainment you describe, but I do believe 'Free Speech' laws are historically a much more restrictive entity than people think at times, and I'm not upset that there are cultural limits decided by a society. In the case of 'fringe' sexual entertainment, by nature that material is always going to be on the 'water's edge' of social discussion/acceptability. I do hope the fellow in the manga obscenity case avoids a conviction, but I don't believe charges over 'fringe' sexual material represent as big a risk to civil liberties as other current issues (no-knock raids, etc.).
On the first point I think you're looking at the 'anti-American' comment much too strongly. Especially in the previous thread, there were a lot of rather snide/gratuitous shots at American culture, usually (when checking the listed profile) from commentators in places with much more restrictive censorship laws. I'm not talking about fire n' brimstonel Red Brigades action here, just some harmless, opportunistically placed snide comments. It's also far behind the other two points. If you disagree with my point about a younger audience/world view or heavy interest in loli-styled material that's fine, but neither is offered as an insult. I've read this board for some time, and I've been in education from teaching High School to teaching College Students. I deal with politics and culture everyday. More than I care to most times. I do think I can discern roughly what age group dominates a discussion by both argument and vocab/grammar construction. And I've spent a year or two seeing how heated 'loli' topic get, and what cast of characters usually show up for them. Again, none of what you quoted is pointed as an insult. The point is, with discussions like this, a lot of people pile on with arguments that are usually related less and less to the main topic, and become very general 'Here's what I think of the world' screeds that make it very difficult to keep up with the point. Usually by the end the thread is dominated by a small group of topic regulars who like bouncing the same argument off one another. I'm saying a little perspective, cooler heads, and watching 'topic creep' keep tricky/emotional subjects like this more accessible (for conversation) for everybody. I appreciate people's passions, but the 'Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!' stuff swamps a thread pretty quickly. |
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Cait
 Posts: 503 |
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GoodPenguin, I get where you are coming from, or at least, I think I understand your argument (that people are taking the situation too far when it really isn't the "end of the world" issue you say that they are implying), but I think you need to be more careful about how you word your argument. When you attack and dismiss people's concerns in such a way it is very easy to get yourself in trouble. In my personal experience, it is the same people who have knee-jerk reactions to things like having their freedoms threatened that will turn rather violently against someone who tells them, "your argument is ridiculous, you don't know what you're saying because you are obviously a child." I'm not saying that is what you have claimed, I am saying it wouldn't be hard for someone on the anonymous and notoriously-misinterpreting-of-statements internetz to have it taken as an insult. It smacks too much of being lectured and/or patronized and people bristle at that, no matter how valid your arguments may be.
Furthermore, on the subject of "fansub threads" I would have to disagree with the comparison, though I don't want to invite an off-topic debate about the legal differences between illegal anime downloading and child pornography, so I am going to refrain from discussing it. However, I will say that in regards to the "entertainment we enjoy being threatened," I don't see the concern as invalid. While we are not "entitled" to experience all types of things in all mediums, the restrictions on the first amendment are only justifiable when experiencing/expressing them is an actual threat to people. Like, say, why it is illegal to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater (panic can and has caused injury) or why actual child pornography is illegal (actual children are being abused. I think my position ultimately is that "child pornography" laws are inherently flawed because they lump them in with obscenity laws, which in my opinion are simply ridiculous to begin with and smack of overt censorship for no other reason that the moral values of conservative individuals (as again I will cite the article from Neil Gaiman's blog entry about there being absolutely no correlation between a rise in sex crimes and the proliferation of pornography). The distinction that child pornography laws should be making is in the fact that they are participating in the abuse of actual people (ie, threatening the rights of other citizens). These people shouldn't be charged with the possession of "obscene materials depicting minors" they should be charged as "accomplices to the abuse of children." Of course that creates its own set of problems (it would force *gasp* prosecutors to prove that the children depicted actually exist, instead of, say, having confidence in a jury to know the difference). |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, that was a prophetic statement. I notice that the ANN staff have been strangely quiet on this. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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With humor, there's something wry about being warned to watch what you say, even if one is correct, as it may inflame others in a thread where people are arguing for the acceptance of a potentially offense entertainment/expression. This is how it starts!! Watch what you say!!! It's like Germany in 1939 all over again!! Joking aside, I think you're talking about being condescending, but I don't think that's what was going on. The only person's argument I directly engaged here was abunai, and he's got enough age and smarts to handle himself. I didn't even 'strongly disagree' with him in that case, I just felt his postulation of a 'new puritanism' seemed extreme given the landscape as I know it. The 'off-track/youth' comment isn't an insult (nor, as I wrote earlier, was it directed at you), and I think if you check the long, related thread from a few days ago you'll see a difference in tone and topic drift past the first 7-8 pages that reflects passion over experience.
Here I'm talking about how the big 'Fansub' threads of a year or so ago went in tone and topic, not making a direct comparison legally between the two subjects. Those threads may have been before you joined the board. The gist is every file-sharing/technology/business model topic eventually turned to the same set of off-topic, generic world-view arguments (how a poster 'felt' about capitalism or buying things, utopian social screeds, etc.). In relation to these recent 'obscenity' topics, I'm making a comparison to threads drifting into the same kind of heated but generic ways. That's why I made the point about keeping a cool head/perspective rather than turning to straight 'Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!!' stuff.
There's long been a tension in the acceptability of 'sexual fantasy' material that depicts behavior that would be harmful/illegal if real. Of course you touch on a point about child pornography that may have been glossed over earlier, it's not about obscenity but that rape and abuse take place to simply produce the material. But even in the case of 'fantasy' (written or illustrated works) commercial products, and even without assuming there's a direct correlation between pornography and sexual crime, I do think it's legitimate to at least raise the question of 'Are there certain fantasies that our society doesn't want to 'normalize'? Rape, violent BDSM, bestiality, etc. Most (at least modern) 'obscenity' laws operate under the principle that there are sexual behaviors, which even if 'fantasy' in formulation, a society doesn't want to make seem 'normal' by allowing it to be sold in commercial entertainment form. That there is a natural human tendency to always 'out extreme the extreme'. You can see this in hentai, where some material has become increasingly more violent and fetish-driven. You can even see it in anime I think, where (some) 'Moe'/emotional harem niches have concentrated and distilled male fantasy to what is a much more limited and hardcore segment than the ecchi titles of old. I'm not saying I support obscenity laws, but I do have a bit more of a hang-up about letting any and all commercial, pornographic 'fantasy' products on the market than you, even if primarily philosophic in nature. This of course opens a very difficult can o' worms. Who decides whats acceptable and how? Federal, state, local? It's a very murky mess, no doubt, but I think it's a mistake to equate public question about extreme pornography and 'all in' constitutional stakes. The reason I say this is there are many areas in life, in all societies, that are dictated by rather arbitrary cultural benchmarks. As some argue banning illustrated loli-sex books infringes their rights, I could easily argue that setting a drinking age, the illegality of Polygamy, or the requirement of a driver's license is a violation of civil liberties (and believe me, many do). Polygamy is a good comparison case in some ways. It's a union entered into by consenting adults, who does it hurt? But history shows, right through the societies where it's legal and common today, that it's an institution that is very patriarchal, reduces the status of women, and greatly increase violence in a community (where some men have many wives, other will logically have none. Single, young, angry men with bad prospects for having a chance to start a family are not a good recipe for society). Many oppose polygamy, but it is based on purely speculative, cultural reasons. Is declaring extreme pornography 'obscene' different in terms of civil rights than declaring marriage cannot be more than two people. Many reasonable people can drawl distinctions between the two, but strictly there both purely cultural decisions. That's why I caution against taking extreme 'Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death' stances right off the bat in issues like this, many things in society exist/operate under purely cultural assumptions. I'm a guy who very much falls on the side of individual liberty over greater social protection, but not every issue can be clearly distilled to this abstract. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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Ahh, then you forgot to mention the part about if we think about sleeping with somebody, then we have done so, as said by a certain historical figure. I really find it interesting though how it looks like quite a few people here are defending loli, because that is sure what it looks like to me. |
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posterior_praiser
 Posts: 296 |
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This guy deserves to be in jail for the real child porn, and that's why he's there. I have a 7 year old step-niece. She to me is the most adorable little girl and I love her to bits, and the idea of anyone ever exploiting or hurting her upsets me greatly. But the issue of freedom of expression is an entirely different one. Written or drawn material does not exploit real people. It is a thin line, but it has to be maintained, because if we go too far there would be a rather distressing precedent set, which could potentially place many writers and film makers on shaky legal ground. A fictional or depiction of a fictional crime is not a crime, and it should stay that way.
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grgspunk
Posts: 136 |
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Unless you can state the exact same thing for depictions of murder, and other socially unacceptable "fantasies" on the market, your argument lacks any sort of consistency. Without solid principles, your "experience" does not amount to anything more than promoting the legislation of selective reasoning for a type of thought or opinion, as there are plenty of other unacceptable "fantasies" slipping through various forms of media. Hell, I can even question the maturity of this whole notion of deciding what thoughts or expressions are socially acceptable/unacceptable myself: Do you think a person without an ounce of maturity would be able to accept the fact that another person has a right to express their own thoughts (provided it doesn't actually turn into action) however repulsive they may be, as opposed to screaming "BAN BAN BAN"? Do you really think most of the "defenders" actually find loli hot at all? How many posts do you see where people are saying something along the lines of "I don't like loli, but drawings don't really hurt anyone so this is going too far" compared to the amount of people who say "I like loli and I want to defend my stash"? The guys here who are afraid of the ramifications of convicting someone based on drawings alone actively ignore their own emotional repulsions based on what they know about loli porn. You really have to be emotionally level to stand for free speech when it focuses on something REALLY icky, such as the concept of pedophilia in the virtual sense. Considering this, do you really think that these "defenders" exhibit absolutely no maturity whatsoever, even in the emotional sense? |
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zerome
Posts: 17 |
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[quote="fighterholic"]
What else do you think the people here are arguing about in the first place? I can tell you this, it isn't about whether its ok or not for someone to have real child pornography. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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Does anyone on here know? Even if you can't share the titles can you share what content makes you cringe so much that this statement seems necessary? It's not some guro, drug, mind control, bondage, gang rape, loli doujinshi is it? Even then, while I'd have a dislike of the content and the individual, as long as he wasn't sharing it with the world at every turn or actually planning to/doing it then I'd allow him to have it without harassment. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Ah, this is my fault. Put simply, I quoted too much, and then didn't state which part of the quote I agreed with. I wasn't referring to the Manga titles per se, as we still don't know what they were. Instead, I was meaning the wider allegations and charges. All we knew originally was that some Manga was involved that was considered "obscene". Of course, most of us probably suspected Lolicon material, but nonetheless we generally agreed that it was a dangerous precedent for someone to be jailed solely for having drawings of fictional children, no matter how graphic they might be.So certain people proudly made donations to the Comic Book League Defense Fund. tempest even came out and expressed his personal support as a private individual. Of course, now we know that this was a guy who had previously been charged with real child pornography, and that this current conviction was not just for obscene Manga but for real child pornography as well. Suddenly he goes from being an innocent victim of Government stupidity into a creep who deserves what's coming to him. Yes, I still believe that he shouldn't have been charged with possessing Lolicon Manga. I am one of those people who think that Lolicon Manga is extremely disgusting, but since it doesn't hurt any real children I believe it should be tolerated. And whatever anyone says, this case does threaten to set a dangerous precedent. That said, many of those who initially defended this man have failed to turn up and defend him here. Is it because of the real child pornography? What happened to protecting our freedoms? Do the people who donated to the Comic Book League Defense Fund now regret doing so? I'm very curious to know the answers to these and other questions. So where is everyone? As the very beautiful girl in the ad says, "Where the bloody hell are you?" |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Are you confusing the Virginia case with the case from Iowa?
The Virginia guy was a pedophile who collected Child Pornography, and was previously convicted. Handley is a manga collector who owns manga porn. Only a small portion of his collection is what got him in trouble. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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You know what? I have a horrible feeling you are correct. Man that's annoying. How did I stuff up so bad? I guess it was the vaguely similar cases, coupled with my lousy memory and being in too much of a hurry to post to read the fine print. Anyway, with great embarrassment and "sheepishness" apologise to Mr. Handley for mistakenly insinuating that he was a pedophile. I'm sorry. I'm also sorry for insulting those who donated to the CBLDF. |
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Daemonblue
 Posts: 701 |
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Decided I'd finally make a post after lurking for quite a while now. As I see it, the guy shouldn't be charged of the loli manga because it's loli, but because it's porn. As it was mentioned before, once you are on the sexual offenders list, rules for you change greatly, and that includes you not being able to have porn. This is what I believe the judge was referring to when he said they don't have to prove it's a real child, since it's still porn. However, the poor wording of it could be used in other cases against others who have done no real harm to any real child.
What really rubs me the wrong way, however, is that people who indulge in pictures of real child pornography are often slapped with harsher sentences than people who actually molest children, 20 years for looking at a pic or an average of 5 years for actually molesting a child....sounds kinda off to me. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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grgspunk wrote:
I'm taking it you live in a remote cabin in Utah with your trusty AK-47 at the ready for fending off the Feds, because there are many things that government/social rules dictate on a arbitrary level much greater than wank material. I followed up on that point in the long paragraph under the one you quoted as illustration to that point. Why are obscenity laws a greased slope to the gulags, but the government deciding who and how many you can marry, when you can drink, when you can drive, what license you need to operate non-hazardous business (hairdresser etc.,), when you can vote, etc., a different animal? Playing Ron Paul crusader is fun, easy, and cheap, but the world doesn't work in such comfortably distinct lines. To your first paragraph about 'murder fantasies', there's a difference of social common sense. The vast majority of people never commit murder, or even a violent offense. The vast majority of people do have sex however, and pretty frequently at that. It's a basic social drive, and something that forms emotional bonds between partners. Forget porn=increased crime hoopla, that's not important, but I don't think anybody would deny the more you see of erotica the more generally 'jaded' you get in some ways. From young kids learning about sex to adults forming expectations/fantasy play for their partner, what different undertones would there be if the general erotica they were familiar with wasn't the consensual glamor T&A product of today, but hard, violent rape or extreme BDSM? Right now that type of material appeals to small niches, but you can also question how small, or even 'niche', that type of 'extreme' material would be if 'normal' porn started incorporated those themes. What if right next to the copy of 'Beach Bunny Adventures' was hentai-worthy 'Worthless Females Made to be Broken'? When content like that isn't something you find only in the fringes, there very much is a sub-conscious normalizing message. And of course with no 'boundary', there is always a race to out-extreme the extreme. Now, I noticed you glossed over the 'primarily philosophic in nature' part in what you quoted...
....which means I can imagine negative repercussion without them actually swaying me to support current obscenity laws. I believe I've made clear I don't support them. But I'm also not going to fantasies that humans are some type of perfectly rational machine in which external influences can't influence behavior in a variety of ways. I'm going to wonder what cues about sex I would have picked up at 14-15 if 'standard' erotica contained 'extreme' elements, or how I would feel as a father of a 16 year old daughter knowing the big adult hit of the year (that her male classmates had undoubtedly seen) was 'Breaking Her Will' instead of the fluff of today. Do I support today's obscenity laws? No. But regulations that would allow amateur fiction authors/illustrators to share/host private 'extreme' material but keep a stricter definition of obscenity for commercial, live-action, adult industry DVD's/entertainment? That may be something I would support. This point changes direction a bit, but it goes to the 'Perspective' point I've made. In what direction is society's comfort level/acceptance of pornography moving? Backward or forward? Better in 1968 or 2008? Obviously, society is becoming more and more comfortable with various type of erotica, and I believe enforcement and application are becoming increasingly lighter as times goes on. Compare that to a situation like 'no-knock raids', which are a recent invention, are increasing in severity, and leave people dead with no legal consequences. Now obscenity laws are still terrible for that manga collector caught in them, and it's great to publicize/support the defense, but big-picture wise it's silly to propose our society teeters on a totalitarian brink over an issue that's becoming increasing liberal in application, not stricter. Getting all 'Red Dawn' over the issue precludes a lot of discussion on the trickier points of social expectation.
Yes, or perhaps I should say a good portion. I do read this board, and I do know who usually comes out for what topic. Scroll through your own posts under your profile and tell me you don't see a theme in what topics you post in. There are a good amount of folks who are making purely First Amendment stances, and even for people with an interest in loli, that doesn't make them wrong. But some of the more over-the-top stuff in these threads come from folks who, to me, are a little more passionate about loli material than pure free speech issues. I don't believe thats really that big of an issue though, the topic you're questioning came up in reference to getting a thread off track, not the validity of points. A person can be a loli-fan making a point about speech and be correct irrespective of the motivation; the point is not to get carried away with the 'Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death' stuff. |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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I was confused as well until I noticed that the CBLDF, ANN, and those involved in the case would have noticed that Handley was previously convicted for child pornography, and owning Child porn, and wouldn't support him. I checked and I found no references to actual child porn, or previous conviction for Handley, and then suspected that I hald confused the two as well. ANN has always condemened the Virginia guy since he was a slime ball. As far as we know Handley just owns some hentai something I am sure a lot of us own. |
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