Comments on: David Barton claims Obama soft on porn

By: Warren

Warren — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:08:04 +0000

Ken – Oh, that makes it all better 🙂
Obviously Obama should prosecute the minor cases and let the more serious ones go. Doh!

By: Jayhuck

Jayhuck — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:08:04 +0000

I’m sure Barton is just preparing us all for the Rapture (an idea that didn’t surface until almost 2,000 years after Jesus)

By: ken

ken — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:08:04 +0000

What you are missing Warren is the fact that child pornography is a distinct charge from obscenity (which is not simply “pornography” and I’m pretty sure is a misdemeanor). so it can be true that the Justice Dept. hasn’t prosecuted a single obscenity case, while still increasing the number of child pornography convictions.
Further, despite what Barton would have you think, adult pornography is not illegal.

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:08:04 +0000

Barton: Man, we can push the limits, we can get over the top, we can use underage kids on these movies, we can do snuff movies

Oh, brother. Snopes.com has an entire page explaining why the very existence of "snuff" movies is regarded by law enforcement officials as little more than an Urban Legend. Next Barton will be telling us about the growing epidemic of microwaved poodles...

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 19:08:04 +0000

I personally know a guy (well, we're "Web friends", anyway, though I've never met him IRL and don't even know his last name) who co-owns and operates a small ~~Mom-and-Pop~~ Pop-and-Pop "gay amateur exhibitionists" site. Registered adult users can post naked self-photos and X-rated home movies, and the site also includes a BBS forum where people can post and discuss written sexual fantasies. (Probably 95+% of the visual-pr0n content on the site is men masturbating by themselves, since any photos or videos found to be lifted from copyrighted "commercial porn" are removed by moderators in short order.) Anyway, from what he's told me, he and the other owners/moderators have to be aggressively diligent about removing BBS posts that even sorta/kinda appear to hint at suggesting the vaguest coded references to pedophilia, and banning users who make such posts. And the reason they have to be so "censorious" is that although textual descriptions of pedophilic fantasies are protected by the First Amendment even if they're disgustingly detailed and "prurient," the presence of such written material on a site may raise the suspicions of law enforcement that the site is facilitating the online distribution of visual kiddie pr0n, which of course has no Constitutional protection. In the worst case scenario, the site could be shut down and the owners might even be legally liable for creating a "safe harbor" for the online distribution of child pornography; but what more often happens is the owners have to deal with lots of phone calls and/or visits from FBI investigators. Which, obviously, tends to be ulcer-inducing although the FBI agents are generally polite and professional about the whole thing, and even apologetic when it turns out they were following a false lead. Just offering this as a concrete "data point" that even in our godless ObamaNation where homosexual pre-verts are free to wave their dingdongs around on Webcams, law enforcement remains quite vigilant about investigating child pornography.