It has been an axiom of the liberal intelligentsia that the unencumbered labors of artists and scientists will produce "progress," thereby benefiting the common good. Complete freedom of expression and investigation is necessary, it is argued, to assure the vitality of human progress. "Not to worry," we are told, if an occasional aberration raises it head; good ideas will chase out the bad. If bad ideas, such as those in Mein Kampf, stay around a little too long, we are encouraged to shrug our shoulders with Justice William O. Douglas: "Who am I to say that others' tastes must be so limited and that others' tastes have no social importance?"
Against this rarely questioned liberal general orthodoxy, Attorney General Edwin Meese is prepared to square off. He is armed with an alarming, 1,500-page report prepared by members of the Commission on Pornography he impaneled in May 1985.
Willingness to reopen the debate on censorship flows primarily from the historic formulation of legal analysis on the First Amendment right of free speech. Simply put, words or speech become unlawful if the contextual setting in which they are expressed is likely to produce certain conduct. Shouting "Fire!" for example, can be a warning or call for assistance or it can be a criminal act in a crowded theater. The statement that "The president ought to be shot' has a different meaning when voiced as crude disapproval than if the speaker is purchasing a gun two blocks from the White House.
"I've got a bomb" is a federal crime if spoken, even in humor, at airport security points.
The Meese commission makes a new and convincing case that harmful, exploitive, and even criminal conduct is closely enough linked with pornographic expressions that the debate on censorship should be reopened.
Magna Charta For Permissiveness
Almost 16 years ago, the first Commission on Obscenity and Pornography unleashed its report, which appeared to settle the censorship debate. Indeed, the nation's apprentice playboys, campus Marxists, talk-show guests, literary libertarians, and porn manufacturers viewed the report as a manifesto, a Magna Charta for all manner of sexually explicit material. That commission, known as the '70 Commission, utterly disregarded its congressional mandate to explore methods to limit pornography; instead, after three years of testimony, surveys, and deliberation, it concluded the following:
·No overall social problems are caused by pornography;
·Production of adult pornography and its distribution should be decriminalized;
·There is no utility in preventing children's access to pornography;
·Pornography is good for sex-education purposes; and
·Pornography has a cathartic effect on the viewer and thereby has therapeutic applications for ceremonial sex offenders.
Despite the fact that
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