An interesting read:
Campus Conscience Police?
And an old story that I have always found very difficult:
Man Gets Ten Years in Prison for Pornographic Diary Entries
More on that: “The protections of the First Amendment do not extend to certain types of speech such as obscenity, child pornography, and incitement of illegal conduct. Recently, Ohio convicted Brian Dalton for creating and possessing a personal diary containing violent sexual fantasies involving children. He was found to have violated an Ohio statute prohibiting the creation or publication of obscene material involving minors even though there was no indication that he intended to publish the diary and no certainty that he would engage in the described acts.” - Matthew Sostrin
Possibilities for interpretation:
Not Guilty?
“What you’re saying is somebody can’t, in essence, confess their fantasy into a personal journal for fear they have socially unacceptable fantasies, then ultimately they end up getting prosecuted,” said Benson Wolman, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio.
Guilty?
Dalton was guilty of pandering obscenity because he “did create, reproduce or publish any obscene material that has a minor as one of its participants or portrayed observers,” the indictment said. “Even without passing it on to anyone else, he committed a felony,” Domis said.
All this begs the very pertinent question: Which is more important, freedom to say and write what you want, or the feeling of pseudo-safety we get from silencing people who may say things that scare us -in hope that the things they say/think never turn into the things they do (i.e. terrorists, pedophiles).
Not sure what I think. How bout you?
