[UA] America by Prime Time (was Greetings)

[Timothy Toner]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cassady Toles" <Con_Job at excite.com>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 12:21 AM
Subject: Re: [UA] America by Prime Time (was Greetings)


>
> On Wed, 16 May 2001 22:20:34 -0500, ua at lists.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>   Not entirely true.  There's some bozo-no-no's, like child pornography,
> and,
>   oddly enough, anything that would assist you in cracking digital
> encryption
>   (a la the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which threatens to blow the
>   concept of fair use out of the law books).  Now, on a LOCAL level,
there's
>   what's called "community standards," which
>
> You're right about kiddy porn.  I didn't know about the digital encryption
> thing.  I'll have to look that up.
>
>   can make possession with intent
>   to distribute of Mad Magazine a hanging offense.
>
>
> First, no it can't be a hanging offense, creul and unusual punishment.
> Secondly, every time one of those laws is challenged in court, the suit
has
> won and the law stricken that I know of.  Larry Flynt was famous for doing
> it, and Bill Gaines did it a couple of times...

I was being facetious about the penalty, but the law's pretty well
established.  We can take it back all the way to Miller v. California, which
created the idea of community standards (and gave us the infamous line, "I
know obscenity when I see it.")  Here's a link:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=413
&page=15

Here's a good rundown of the Supreme Court's stance before and since Miller
v. California:

http://guide.biz.findlaw.com/01topics/06constitutional/cases.html

In the case of Larry Flynt, his was less about obscenity and more about the
fine line between satire and libel.  There were two other Flynt cases that
made it as far as the Supreme Court, but both involved technical issues that
had nothing per se to do with obscenity (one had to do with the laws which
prevent out-of-state lawyers from representing a client, and the other on
whether or not a case could proceed if there was no jurisdiction involved).
Gaines was quashed not by censorship zealots but rather his buddies in the
publishing industry, who aimed their voluntary Comics Code Authority
directly at his hugely popular horror and crime titles.  Fairly soon after
the development of the Code, most distributors wouldn't touch a non-Code
book with a ten-foot pole.   For those curious, here's a link to the
original Code:

http://www.comics.dm.net/codetext.htm

A few of my favorite bits:

Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the
criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to
inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.

Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall
never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established
authority.

Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture,
vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.

Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical
qualities.

Divorce shall not be treated humorously nor shall be represented as
desirable.



>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> "I am the messiah in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's.  Drink of me
> and
> no peace." -- Cobra Baghdad www.peoplehateme.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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