Fuck The Superme Court

  On 4/20/2010 at 8:54 PM, chaosmachine said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 8:47 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 8:38 PM, chaosmachine said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 8:35 PM, Root5 said:

Well. Assume for a moment that you're not okay with people torturing animals, but you are okay with people looking at videos of people torturing animals. If there is a market for the videos, it might encourage people to torture more animals. But if it is very hard to sell those videos, because if you do you go to jail, you'll be less inclined to make animal torture film director your career.

 

Of course, people will still do it. And distribute it (but you don't care about the distribution, only the actual torture). The point is not that this would eliminate the problem. But it might make it less frequent?

 

Who knows?

 

Nope. Making it illegal just makes it more profitable. See: Prohibition & The War on Drugs.

 

Just because it is more profitable, does that make it more frequent? Perhaps people make more money on drugs than they would if drugs were legal, but perhaps fewer people do drugs because they don't want to get caught.

 

At the end of the day, I think you're obviously right. I just brought it up because that would presumably be the kind of argument that backs up the banning of the selling of x but not the possession of x. You asked if there was any morally relevant difference.

 

The ability to make fast money probably has more to do with people entering the drug-pushing business than anything else. Nobody spends their life selling crack to prostitutes for the fun of it. By making it illegal, you create a fat profit margin, and that attracts sellers and producers who otherwise wouldn't be interested. So, morally, I'd say you're worse off, because you're incentivizing the market.

What we'd need to do is make a controlled experiment, where drugs are legalized in one city, and remain illegal in another.

But yeah, you're probably right.

hard to believe chaos is getting so much grief in this thread. the supreme court made the right decision.

videos of animal torture and child porn are similar in the sense that the production of that material leads to undesirable behavior. HOWEVER, they're quite different because children have legal rights and animals do not. therefore, we make an exception to our general rule allowing all forms of speech where the form of speech in question (kiddie porn) requires another's rights to be violated in order to produce it. making videos of animals getting killed might be repugnant, but it doesn't rise to the level of requiring a limitation on speech because no person's rights are being violated.

think of it this way: i recently saw a documentary about the evils of dog fighting. part of the power of the film was owed to graphic footage of dogs fighting and being "trained" in brutal ways. this film would be illegal if the Supreme Court didn't rule as it did.

it's not controlled but amsterdam is an easy example

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:01 PM, theSun said:

it's not controlled but amsterdam is an easy example

Do more people do drugs in amsterdam than in a city of comparable size where they are illegal?

For the record, I don't think drugs are "wrong". I'm just wondering if the banning of a substance is effective in making fewer people do it.

ummm...animal torture is bad oohkay

I think there is some thought behind it. Its also protecting film-makers who want to expose things like animal torture to the public, its allowing them to show proof, even if it is disturbing and depicting illegal acts. Its not necessarily encouraging or doing an illegal act in itself. Also there is probably a reason this got taken to the supreme court, I didn't read the article, but I doubt it was just some guy trying to sell his videos of him mutilating a cat.

EDIT: Oh, its because some guy wanted the sell his dog fighting videos? Gray area.....

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:08 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:01 PM, theSun said:

it's not controlled but amsterdam is an easy example

 

Do more people do drugs in amsterdam than in a city of comparable size where they are illegal?

concerning weed:

the numbers are about the same. the percentage of minors using weed in amsterdam is a bit lower than most US cities.

i don't think the supreme court made a mistake here, there's no way animal cruelty is going to stop if it's deemed illegal. people just need to get over themselves and treat animals with respect.

Another victory for free speech and common sense.

What's the use in having laws passed that merely serve a symbolic purpose but have no practical use and could very well lead to wasting time, money and having innocent people convicted because of animal rights activists with no sense of reality?

yeah, this is a good thing. "taste laws" are a bad thing.

just had to show my support for the title of this thread.

Fuck The Superme Court!

Is adultery illegal in the West? Fuck no! Is it wrong? Yeah I guess so.

Should 'wrong' or 'immoral' always equal illegal? No.

Say what you like about Christian extremists and tea partiers, but they have never succeeded in making all of the 10 commandments into laws in the USA or England.

New laws are bad, pretty much every fuckin' time. Fuck new laws!

I fucking hate the libtard taliban, they are far more extreme than the Christians of the last few hundred years. If you ever meet an important democrat do tell him to shove his 10 commandments of cultural marxism up his backside.

SPERM COURT

lol

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:08 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:01 PM, theSun said:

it's not controlled but amsterdam is an easy example

 

Do more people do drugs in amsterdam than in a city of comparable size where they are illegal?

 

For the record, I don't think drugs are "wrong". I'm just wondering if the banning of a substance is effective in making fewer people do it.

Yes, making alcohol illegal to sell or consume in the 1920s certainly lowered the numbers of people drinking. Same with how after marijuana became illegal, everybody stopped smoking it.

I can't even believe any of y'all are against this decision.

Again, take notice of Justice Robert's comments. He hinted that a statute narrowly tailored against production and sale of 'crush videos' might pass constitutional scrutiny, presumably in the same manner that the production and sale of child porn videos passes constitutional scrutiny.

Nobody is saying animal torture is wrong or that these kind of videos should be allowed. The courts ruled that it was too broad, and the governments argument of of "trust us" was not satisfactory. Just think of the field day PETA would have with something like this. Every hunting and fishing show in America could be criminalized under such a broad ruling.

boxing day is close to absolute(retarded); seriously, pal...you dont get the whole, 'free speech' thing - do you?

take it away, little by lttl

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:27 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:08 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:01 PM, theSun said:

it's not controlled but amsterdam is an easy example

 

Do more people do drugs in amsterdam than in a city of comparable size where they are illegal?

 

For the record, I don't think drugs are "wrong". I'm just wondering if the banning of a substance is effective in making fewer people do it.

 

Yes, making alcohol illegal to sell or consume in the 1920s certainly lowered the numbers of people drinking. Same with how after marijuana became illegal, everybody stopped smoking it.

 

I can't even believe any of y'all are against this decision.

For the record (as I've said before) I'm not against it. I am for it.

fair enough Root5, sorry to misrepresent you.

Does this mean theyre going to be free now?

so don't torture animals

  On 4/21/2010 at 12:38 AM, we_kill_soapscum said:

so don't torture animals

BUT ITS MAH CAWNSTITYOOSHONUL RAAYUUHT!

no it's not EZkilla.

That's what's being misunderstood here. There are already laws against torturing animals. What this ruling said is that distributing videos of said acts is protected by freedom of speech.

"Freedom of Speech" has become just another buzzword (buzzwords?) i fear. it's become when France banned the full veil in public recently, i overheard some people in Leicester chatting about it, who were saying that it was a "victory for freedom of speech". i facepalm'd

also, in this case, it's become a thought-terminating cliche. someone is told they're not allowed to do something, regardless of how ludicrous it is, and they proclaim that their freedom of speech / human rights are being violated. ugh

I think thought-terminating cliche just became a thought-terminating cliche.

lol