Bill would ban sales of Playboy, etc. on base

[Xavier_Onassis]

Well, her husband at the time was apparently violent with her (as was her subsequent husband). However, she wrote two previous biographies that were "pro-porn" before she wrote her "anti-porn" biography. Apparently she has a loose association with the truth, having been publicly caught in lies several times, and told whichever story would profit her at the time.
   
=================================
I have not followed the career of Linda 'Lovelace'. It would appear to me that the one consistent element in her making porn flicks and writing books is a desire to get paid, so I think I will remove her from my "List of Credible Authorities". She is perhaps guilty of whoring on more than one level. Perhaps she would do better if she were to write on why it is that she chose TWO abusive men. Of course, it is possible that neither was abusive, since we have only her word for it.


I do not believe that most women would make porn flicks even if their abusive husbands insisted upon it. After all, no one wants to watch a bruised woman do porn.

[kimba1]

well actually chuck taynor is that bad.
but that was the 70`s
guys raised in the 50`s are taught to put women in thier place.
not all ,but definately enough so that when a man beat`s up his girl-friend nobody will complain.
note how little rape was reported in the olden days.
I got no interest watching vintage porn.
I`m not saying this terrible thing did not happen to her,but acknowledge it`s very probable.
people just don`t understand how bad our past can be

[Amianthus]

Perhaps she would do better if she were to write on why it is that she chose TWO abusive men. Of course, it is possible that neither was abusive, since we have only her word for it.

Well, both of them admitted that they had no problems slapping "their" women if they disagreed with them. Much like Sean Connery.

[kimba1]

and still people like sean

[Xavier_Onassis]

Sean Connery is a great actor. I like to watch him act.

I have never seen him hit a woman. I have only heard rumors.

I hardly think I am supposed to refuse to watch his films just because of rumors.

[Stray Pooch]

I do not believe that most women would make porn flicks even if their abusive husbands insisted upon it. After all, no one wants to watch a bruised woman do porn.

Well, Linda was bruised in Deep Throat.  As for what women will do when forced by their husbands, my father forced my mother to prostitute herself when he refused to hold a job and we were moving from house to house to avoid eviction.  Of course, I only have her word for that.

btw, she was bruised most of the time.  Apparently, it did not affect the market.

You can remove Linda from your list of credible witnesses if you wish.  I'll leave her on mine.

[Stray Pooch]

I don't agree. The point of anti-drug laws is to control people's behavior, specifically to stop individuals from engaging in specific behavior, rather than the protection of individual rights.

I disagree, for the reasons stated previously.  Laws against drug abuse are designed to protect individual rights by controlling potentially dangerous behavior.  But accepting for the sake of argument your premise, let's continue.

So I would say the argument that the laws don't actually stop anyone is a valid point.

Well, in the first place, laws against drug abuse stopped me.  Had drugs been legal in my school days, I would have tried them.   So to say that "the laws don't actually stop anyone" is inaccurate, and I think highly inaccurate at that.  But I'll assume that you meant that figuratively instead of literally and critique the statement on that basis.  If your statement is correct - and it may well be - why does the same statement not apply to laws intended to protect rights?  That is, why would the statement "So I would say the argument that the laws don't actually protect anyone is a valid point" not be just as accurate?  Again, to be clear, I am not engaged in the argument of whether laws are intended to protect rights or control behaviors (yet), but very specifically whether a particular line of reasoning is consistent. 

The law itself may be inefficient and a wholly impractical way of addressing the issue of drugs in our society. As the man said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yes, I know some might argue that anti-drug laws keep drug abuse from being a rampant problem in our society, but again, I point to Prohibition. It was repealed, and the U.S. has not become a nation of sots. Nor was it before Prohibition. Before we had all these drug laws, the U.S. was not a nation of abusive druggies. There is little reason to believe we would become so if the drug laws were repealed.

I have heard that argument several times, but I do not think it is entirely accurate.  In fact, alcohol IS rampant in this country.  Drunk driving causes untold suffering and many lives, careers, and familes are lost over drinking.  We are not a nation of drunks, but we are a nation with a drinking problem.  Repealing anti-drug laws would, by its nature, cause an increase of the types of irresponsible behaviors associated with drug abuse.  A more effective argument would be that the decrease in the criminal activity associated with ILLEGAL drug traffic would more than offset any increase in directly drug-related ills.  But that would not go to the effectiveness of laws.  It goes rather to the unintentional consequences thereof.

Your basic argument is that laws should be for the protection of rights, not for the control of behavior.  I say, whether a law is effective in doing either of those things is not a reason for establishing or repealing it.  You are suggesting, by your arguments - if I understand them correctly - that if a law is meant to protect rights then the effectiveness of that law is irrelevent.  But if a law is meant to control behavior then the effectiveness IS an issue.  That makes the supposition - which I believe to be incorrect - that the method of protecting rights does not involve the control of behavior.  I would like to see an example of this situation, because I do not think one exists.  Regardless, as I begin to evolve in my understanding of your point, I guess it means that you think the measure of a law intended to change behavior is whether it does in fact do so.  By contrast, the measure of a law intended to protect rights is NOT whether it controls a behavior.  But I do not think that is a valid construct.  The analogous measure of a law designed to protect rights is whether or not it does in fact protect rights.  In a nutshell, whatever your perspective, the measure of any law is whether it does what it is intended to do, and there is no law that does what it is intended to do.  Whether laws against murder are intended to stop killers from killing or protect a victim's right to life, they do neither.  Therefore I repeat (with clarification) my assertion:  It is illogical to conclude that one law should be repealed (or not established) because it is ineffective in its intent and that another law should not be repealed (or not established) on the same basis.  If you object to laws against drugs because they are behavior-oriented and support laws against murder because they are (in your opinion) rights-oriented, THAT OBJECTION is a different argument from whether either law is effective.  The sum and gist of my argument is that whether or not a law is completely successful is not a reason to pass or repeal it.

To the issue of whether laws are intended to control behavior or protect rights, which I WILL tackle, though I share your fatigue, I say this.  Laws are neither soley intended to protect rights nor to control behavior.  There are elements of each in all laws.  For example, I have a right to my property.   The law should protect that right.  But if I make a law to protect a person from having his property stolen, the effect of that law is brought to bear ONLY on a person whose BEHAVIOR violates that law.  If I make it illegal to steal, the BEHAVIOR of stealing is punished.  That protects the rights of others to their property by controlling the BEHAVIOR of the potential thief.  If I look at it from a prevention perspective and make failure to properly secure property (e.g. not locking your car) a crime, then the BEHAVIOR of the victim of the theft becomes the thing we need to change.  (The unfortunate consequence would be a double-punishment for the victim.)  The same goes for any law I can think of.  Laws against murder, robbery, rape, abortion, gun-ownership, mail fraud, prostitution, polygamy . . . you name it . . . ALL are designed to control behavior.  Some of them are designed to control behavior in order to protect individual rights and some to protect societal values.  Some are just out to protect one person's or groups' set of individual tastes.  But while I generally tend to support laws that protect rights and oppose laws which restrict behavior on a purely moral basis, I am not consistent in that tendency and I make no apologies. 

[Stray Pooch]

Perhaps she would do better if she were to write on why it is that she chose TWO abusive men. Of course, it is possible that neither was abusive, since we have only her word for it.

It is very common for abused women to leave one abusive situation and move into another.  My sister-in-law is a great example.  She had three abusive husbands (her fourth is a gem - at last - and she is complaining that he bores her!) and several abusive boyfriends.  It makes sense, when you think about it.  The same things that attracted the woman to her first abuser are likely to exist in another abuser. 

[Stray Pooch]

So one should not watch "Deep Throat", because every time someone watches it, she gets raped again? I suggest that she is entirely unaware when someone watches it. I always believed that she voluntarily offered to make her porn flicks, and was paid to make them. Could this be incorrect? Was she abducted and forceably raped in front of the cameras?

In a sense, yes.  She was beaten and threatened and forced to do the movies by her husband.  As I have said elsewhere, she was actually bruised in Deep Throat.  She does, in fact, suggest that people should not watch Deep Throat because it was tantamount to rape.  This is having her humiliation shown over and over again for the masturbatory pleasure of men all over the world.  You say that she is not being raped again, and is in fact unaware of the situation.  That is extremely true, since she is dead, but it is not the point.  Child pornography is abuse of the worst kind, yet if a person watches a child porn flick, that act does not ITSELF abuse the child.  So what?  The reason we have laws against child porn that target demand as well as supply is that the demand drives the supply.  Further, the idea that this abuse is being watched in fascination and approval by millions of people is even worse than the original abuse.

The original topic was whether Playboy should be sold on Army bases. I think that this would be a dumb idea. Do you?

I do not.

Do you think that Playboy, Penthouse or even Hustler photography sessions are physically or emotionally damaging to women?

Probably not physically.  Emotionally, in some cases, quite possibly.  Look at what Vanity Faire just did to Miley Cyrus.  I'm thinking she posed for these pictures and then freaked when she realized that the whole world was going to see her that way.  She is young.  Too young, I think, to participate in this sort of thing.  Now she is getting the "don't post your topless photos on a website your Dad might visit" reality check.  There are plenty of places to point the finger in this situation - one right at Billy Ray and not a small one at Miley herself, but the folks at VF get a large share of the blame - and the people who suck up that stuff like a hoover at the store get some blame too.

[Universe Prince]

That makes the supposition - which I believe to be incorrect - that the method of protecting rights does not involve the control of behavior.

No, it does not. I should have been more clear about this. Let's look as basic rights, life, liberty and property. We agree people have these rights, yes? People have, as a consequence or as a matter of having rights at all, a right to defend these things, right? The individual has a right to defend his life, liberty and property, including the use of force, do we agree on that? Since you're not here, I'll proceed as if we do, because I think we do, and you can correct me later if I'm wrong.

So then, humans are communal creatures, living in groups, depending on others for strength and life and getting along and all that sort of thing. If the individual has a right to defend his life, liberty and property, including the use of force, then people as a group can choose this also. They can pool resources and manpower to defend themselves. (I realize I'm being very basic here, but I'm also not trying to write a book on this.) They can also pass laws regarding the defense of life, liberty and property. Now if there was never any threat to life, liberty and property from other people, then we would not even be having this discussion because no one would need to defend them, much less have laws. Yet, we do have the laws, and I doubt anyone is going to argue that they expect the law to stop all violations of the rights to life, liberty and property. Yet, we still have the law because we still have a right to defend ourselves.

Thus the point of law, in this case, is not to control behavior, though the law might do that, but to protect individual rights. But this law, this collective defense is, at this point, doing only what individuals have a right to do for themselves. And if the individual has no right to infringe the rights of other individuals, then the law also does not have this right or the authority to do so.

Now you say anti-drug laws are designed to protect rights by "controlling potentially dangerous behavior". Are they? If DWI and abuse could be taken out of the picture, would there be no anti-drug laws? Is the goal really the protection of rights? Gun control law advocates make a similar argument. They only want to protect lives by controlling potentially dangerous behavior. Don't misunderstand. I don't fault people for wanting to stop bad things from happening, and I'm not saying drug are like firearms. But let's be clear here. The laws in question involve more than saying this action violates rights and is therefore illegal. The laws in question involve saying, potentially bad things can happen so therefore something that would otherwise be legal is now illegal. The point of the law is to control behavior, not to protect rights because the laws themselves infringe on ordinary liberty. We've moved from defending our rights to trying to head off potential bad results by controlling behavior of others.

So if I say that anti-drug laws are not preventing the bad results, and may in fact be part of the cause of other bad results (shooting wars between drug dealers, creation a black market that depends on criminal behavior to survive) then it seems to me that is valid criticism of the anti-drug laws. Your personal anecdote aside, the laws do not have the practical effect of stopping drug use. The point of anti-drug laws is to stop drug use. So it seems to me, the criticism that they do not and cannot achieve their reason for existence is a valid criticism.

And when I speak of laws intended to protect rights versus those intended to control behavior, I think this is an important and real distinction. And while I get what you say about laws against murder and theft controlling behavior, I disagree. While one might argue that laws to protect rights are intended to control behavior that violates rights, laws against a violation of rights do not themselves infringe on otherwise ordinary liberty. A law against murder does not directly mean weapon ownership or practicing using a weapon is illegal. A law against theft does not mean that owning or selling lock picking tools is illegal. Anti-drug laws mean that owning, selling, using drugs, things that in and of themselves would be not a violation of anyone's rights, are illegal. This is not an insignificant or meaningless difference.

[Amianthus]

I have never seen him hit a woman. I have only heard rumors.

You don't have to listen to rumors; you can watch him say that it's ok to slap a woman with your own eyes and ears.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FgMLROTqJ0[/youtube]

[Amianthus]

You can remove Linda from your list of credible witnesses if you wish.  I'll leave her on mine.

No problem.

But tell me, how do you reconcile the previous biographies that she wrote where she said that she enjoyed doing the porn, and was not forced?

[Religious Dick]

Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter.

?Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,? said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16.

His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of ?sexually explicit material? on military bases.

*shakes head*

There was a time I'd actually waste the energy debating a topic like this, but why even bother? Such extreme assholishness could only be congenital. Nothing I could say about it would make the slightest bit of difference.

Welcome to the Crotch of America - enjoy your stay!

[Stray Pooch]

But tell me, how do you reconcile the previous biographies that she wrote where she said that she enjoyed doing the porn, and was not forced?

Extremely easily.  While under duress she did a lot of things that included having sex with animals, becoming famous for DT and writing biographies indicating she loved doing those things.  She may well even have done her bios (since I do not know the specifics) after she got out from under the thumb of her abusers. None of this would negate her more recent bios indicating she was, in fact, forced.  One common coping mechanism for extreme abuse is to adapt to it in order to survive.  Slaves claimed to be happy in their lives.  Abused children claim their parents were wonderful.  Hostages develop Stockholm Syndrome.  One of the aspects of sexual abuse that a victim often has to deal with is the fact that they enjoyed the sex.  I once read a book called "Father's Days" on the subject where the victim (the author) indicated that she felt her own body betrayed her because she had enjoyed sex with her father.   The passage of time, therapy, seeing others in the same position and other factors often "wake up" the person to the reality of their own abuse.  Victims of childhood sexual abuse often "willingly" participate in their own abuse.  Adults who try to defend their actions by saying "But that 12 year old BEGGED me for it" may well be telling the truth, but are guilty of such abuse nonetheless.

It is, of course, always possible that Linda lied in order to make money, piss off her ex's, change her reputation or any other number of reasons.  But she is not even close to the only person who ever claimed to be forced into the sex industry.  She is only the highest profile victim.  If she claimed AFTER "Ordeal" that what she had said in that book was actually not true, people would believe the second claim as a rebuttal and correction of the first.  The opposite is true as well.  It is neither illogical nor dishonest to make a claim and later retract, amend or reverse that claim.  Until I was well into my thirties I was unaware that I had been sexually abused.  It's not that I didn't remember the abuse, it's just that I did not, as a child, think of it as abusive.  One evolves.

[Stray Pooch]

And when I speak of laws intended to protect rights versus those intended to control behavior, I think this is an important and real distinction. And while I get what you say about laws against murder and theft controlling behavior, I disagree.

If you mean by that, that such laws do not attempt to control behavior, I'd like you to show me one example of any law that does not.  If you simply mean that the INTENT of the law is not to control behavior, you're off the hook.  But in that case you still do not have a logical position IMO.  Remember, I am debating the logical basis of the "it doesn't work" argument.  If a law intended to control behavior does not do so, and a law intended to protect rights does not do so, then either both should be repealled based on effectiveness or neither should.  If you apply a standard of effectiveness the intent of the law is irrelevent.  If the intent of the law determines whether the "effectiveness" argument should be applied then the issue is intent - not effectiveness.

Anti-drug laws mean that owning, selling, using drugs, things that in and of themselves would be not a violation of anyone's rights, are illegal. This is not an insignificant or meaningless difference.

Your point is well taken, but again, it does not negate my argument that "effectiveness" is not the issue here - it is the intent of the law. 

Incidentally, I think you are doing an excellent job of supporting your argument that laws should be based on protecting rights rather than controlling behavior.  As far as that issue goes, I disagree with your premise for other reasons than the inherent logic of your position.  Your arguments are, as usual, well reasoned and well presented.  I just think that your basic position is not entirely practical.  That is, as I have said, a matter of our individual perspectives on that issue.  My only issue with you that is a direct point of contention is that the "effectiveness" standard should be applied in one case and not in another based on whether the law meets the "rights vs. control" standard.  I think the latter standard is a perfectly valid reason for debate, but the effectiveness standard is not.

As to the specfics of porn or drug laws, I believe that they would fit under the "protecting rights" standard because of what they are actually trying to prevent.  But you have a strong case to the contrary on these issues.  At the risk of expanding this debate even farther, I would also argue that all laws are attempting to prevent "potential" violations of rights.  Laws against rape are not intended to prevent a rape that has already happened.  But that is really only a philosophical/intellectual exercise.  I do get your point about making a law controlling one behavior to avoid the potential of another behavior and it does, in itself, make good sense.  But there are times when we must rationally protect someone's rights by restricting the rights of others.  An example is playing itself out in Texas just now.  If, indeed, the FLDS is advocating sexual abuse of children (and some of the statistical evidence already available suggests that this may well be the case) then it is right to restrict the right of a parent to raise and teach their children their own religious beliefs in order to prevent the potential abuse of the child - even if no abuse has yet occurred in the home. 

Again, this is the point where you and I are going to disagree.  I believe it is sometimes appropriate to control potentially dangerous behaviiors even when such control might infringe on the rights of the perpetrators.  Even something as basic as individual rights are NOT absolute.  If we were individuals alone, I might suggest otherwise, but as you have pointed out, we are a social people, and I think that bodies of people have collective rights which parallel and even occasionally supersede individual ones.