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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <117200231@inmet>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 19:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.117200231
Posted: Thu Oct  9 19:46:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 06:30:39 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!nrh    Oct  9 19:46:00 1986


>/* Written  2:31 am  Sep 27, 1986 by mat@mtx5a.UUCP in inmet:talk.pol.misc */
>/* ---------- "Re: Grey Porn (Re: Re: Re: Commissi" ---------- */
>The *Miller* case requires that the work be viewed as a whole.  If there is
>serious literary, etc, value, even to the extent of generating controversy
>among ``experts'' in the field, it seems unlikely that a work could be
>considered to be without merit.

Oho!  We are reduced to "experts", are we?  Thank you sooo much!  You don't
know how my heart lifts to hear that you are only proposing to censor
that which "experts" condemn.  

>Did *I Claudius* appeal to a prurient interest in sex?  Doubtful.  On the
>other hand, I would have felt many of the explicit depictions in poor taste
>were it not for the overall quality of the work.  There are many people who
>would not even consider the latter.  And in no way could *I Claudius*, taken
>as a whole, be considered legally obscene.  

It's very kind of you to second-guess the court, but nobody should assume
that you can claim any degree of accuracy.  

>(In fact, even *Caligula*, when
>it came before the Supreme Court, was declared to have serious value and
>therefore protected from obscenity statutes.)  

Sorry, but didn't you make a big point (a couple of thousand lines ago) about
how prosecution (or the threat thereof) had all but disappeared in the
last 20 years?  

>...

>> History is full of examples, not of hard censorship, but of the polarizing
>> effect of censorship.
>
>True, because the censorship was broad and rarely included the balancing
>third requirement of the *Miller* standard, nor the objective second
>requirement.  

Establish this, please: I find it difficult to believe that you *seriously*
argue that *OUR* censorship was somehow superior.  Its big advantage was
that it ENDED.

>> Unfortunately, local prosecutions served as a method of "harrassment" which
>> resulted in the loss of the "moderate" literature which could not be marketed
>> in general markets, but could not compete in "adult-only" bookstores.
>
>I agree wholeheartedly that overzealous prosecution of people without the
>resources to handle lengthy appeals has been a problem.  But the meanings
>of the decisions are getting clarified and where once an appeal might have
>been lengthy, such an appeal now would often result in the conviction being
>thrown out summarily.  

Were this true, there would be no continued challenges of nuclear reactor
construction in the courts.  There are.

>Where lower courts have respected this, and made it
>clear to prosecutors that they will observe the judgement of the higher courts,
>there is less margin for abuse.
>

How comforting!  It may only cost you $100,000 to print a $1000 print run!
Thank you Mark: at least you have admitted that only the margin decreases.


>The margin can never be eliminated in obscenity law, nor in zoning and public
>nuisance law (witness one poster on another group who was served with an
>order to patch up his house with a coat of paint rather than give it the
>lengthy and temporarily unsightly restoration it requires ...).  Does this
>mean that we should discard all law?  

Red herring.  

>Or does it mean that we should attempt
>to report abuses through the Press and to elect just and fairminded officials?

False dichotomy.


>...
>
>I also read CitR in ... 10th, I think.  What the heck.  But there is a
>world of difference between that and LCL.  As to a deeper interest in
>reading ... well, I found LCL a boring and unrewarding book a few years
>ago, and I had a lot more stamina then than I did in HS.  

Thanks a lot -- your *opinion* of LCL shouldn't, and doesn't interest us.
Your argument that somebody ELSE'S opinion should have the power to prevent
us from buying a book is disgusting.