i thnik that the snuff crimes are as real. And thay have there on sick mindes are a pederfill would have. As the web is a big plas and now one will evere find it unles it is them who is being killed or the pepel who is waching the crimes. The reson i have ia interesd of snuff is as i was waching just a normell d.v.d and i was astoned be that this can be reall and what the world has come to be pp killing pp just for the fun fo it. What happend to all the love in the wourld and pp looking out for there friends and pp who thay have nethere seen in there life befor. I think that thous who do mack the films want to be prisend for a long time or killed them self as this crime can and will not go on.

Kinda hard to argue with that. Mostly because it's hard to figure out what you're saying. Sorry.

You make some very interesting points on the topics in question, some of the comments I find it a little hard to relate to as I live in Australia. Some comments I am inclined to accept, however I think that some of the arguements you make are a little too simplistic. Going by the theory that it is OK to have Kiddie pron(I had to misspell that on purpose or it wouldn't accept my submission) and Snuff film etc in your possesion because you didn't make them, then it must also be OK to buy stolen goods because you didn't steal them, or to conceal a murder because you didn't commit it. The reason these things are illegal is because it creates a market for the product/service and encourages the continuance of the crime. But hey, that's what freedom of speech is all about. I don't have to agree, but if it makes someone think about a topic, then you have achieved something.

(Sorry about the filter on the word "porn"; I've got a filter to block people from cluttering up my comments with links to their porn sites, and that was one of the keywords it blocks. Obviously I've got nothing against the discussion of porn, so I've removed that one from the list.)

First, I'm not all that crazy about "receiving stolen goods" laws, either, but that's getting into a grey area, so I'm not prepared to argue against it. But I do think there's a difference between the way that receiving stolen goods creates a market for them and encourages peole to steal more stuff, and the way that possessing snuff films or kiddie porn would encourage making more. With stolen TVs there's a direct correlation between the one in Fred's possession and the one that was stolen from Nancy. You've got a clear, identifiable victim. But every time someone buys a snuff video, that doesn't mean another person got killed. It might create a direct demand in the snuff-film-distribution industry, but it's not killing any more people.

I'm not in the habit of pointing to George W. Bush as a good example, but his policy for fetal stem cells in research is that it's OK to use the cell lines already in existence, but no new ones should be created (from newly aborted fetuses). If you agree with his premise that abortion is murder (which I don't, but that's not the point) it makes perfect sense. We might even find that legal availability of old kiddie porn (maybe distributed through counseling centers, kinda like methadone clinics) would reduce the incentive for your local pervert to make his own, featuring the kid next door.

To think that the viewing of ANY kind of human degredation is OK because the person doing it isn't doing anything wrong by seeing it is asinine. Why? I'll tell you, because you can't seem to figure it out for yourself.
Watching a video of a rape isn't illegal, in the same fashion that looking at a blank video screen isn't illegal. However, show me a man who looks at Playboy for the articles, and I'll show you a woman who works out for her health. You CAN'T watch a rape flick, snuff flick, etc. on the moral basis that (insert moron voice here) "I'm only watching T.V.!" That's not the issue. The moral implication lies within the viewed medium as being ENTERTAINMENT. When a person deliberately seeks out and watches a film in which a girl is raped and killed, he's not doing it to critique the filming technique. He (or she) is doing it because the want to see someone get raped and killed. It's that simple.
So, armed with that information, we can deduce that:

a) Said person is a sick, twisted pervert, and

b) MORE OF IT IS GOING TO BE MADE BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SEE IT.

Don't believe me? Really??

If not, then I suggest that you look into news reports about child kidnappings, rapes, molestations and murders. It's not difficult; they're all over the place on the web. In doing so, you'll find that most, not just some, of the sex-based crimes involve the police finding (gasp!) evidence of child pornography, rape pornography, and sexually explicit material in the perpetrators' bedrooms, basements, and computers.
Coincidince? Hardly. Surely, there are viewers of such filth that don't commit the crimes in question. And plenty of sex-based crimes are the spawn of spontinaeity. But to use either point for argument is feeble, if not invalid.

The point that needs to be made is that with such hard evidence, it would be foolish to say that such material doesn't prepetuate that kind of behavior. If not, then what? At the least, masturbation in the bathtub. At worst, a child getting raped and killed. If someone already has that kind of inclination, the last thing they need is for some graphic material to push them over the edge. It's a downward spiral that is extremely difficult to fight, and with the modern availability of filthy material on the internet, it's more difficult to avoid than it is to find.
So, if Bob is convicted of child molestation, and the police find a stack of plain ol', run-of-the-mill Playboy magazines under his bed, should he be convicted of posessing them? No, of course not. He should be charged accordingly. But, should we ignore the potential connection between the two? That would be stupid. In fact, we might as well label ourselves as enablers, because we CHOOSE to ignore the obvious connection, or even worse, we blame Hugh Hefner for Bob's plight.

The solution?

We come down on Bob fast. We come down on Bob hard. We bring the righteous wrath of the American judicial system down on his sorry, lily-livered pencil neck so hard that he'll piss blood every time he hears the word "centerfold." And then, once he's given his linen-stripe monkey suit to soak up the sweat from breaking granite gravel all day, we make sure that he shares a cell with an ex-KKK stooge turned weightlifter named "Percy" who needs a new housemaid.

And then, people, we get serious.

No cockamamie "kiddie porn counselling centers." No advocation of "suspended disbelief" because it's "not real." No more politically correct B.S. about "hate crimes." What's the inverse? Love crimes? Feel good crimes?

They're ALL hate crimes. Hatred for good things. Hatred for pure things. Hatred for all of the things that make us live and love and laugh as human beings, and the belief that moral righteousness, not base self-indulgence, is the beacon for hope that guides all of the decent, good people of the world.

Because once we sign our names under the moral irresponsibility clause of "The devil made me do it," we've handed over our claim as sentient beings, and that the chaos of self-satisfaction is the driving force of our lives. And if we give in to that, then we put ourselves in the same dissolute cesspool as Bob, and we don't want that...

Do We?

P.S. I own a gun. A Biiiiig gun. An unregistered gun, with an unregistered scope attached to it. And, to spite the wishes of Adolph Hitler, it's going to remain that way. In addendum, to spite the wishes of criminals, (REAL criminals, mind you, not just potential criminals, which is what most Democrats think law-abiding gun owners are) if you are a rapist, robber, thief, molester, peeping tom, second-story man, pilferer, pornographer, KKK member, Neo-Nazi, anarchist, wife-beater, gay-basher, straight-basher, or kidnapper, and I catch you raping, robbing, thieving, molesting, peeping, burglarizing, pilfering, filming, lynching, goose-stepping, stealing, destroying, beating, bashing, or kidnapping,

I

WILL

KILL

YOU.

What happens from there is your own damn fault.

There are several huge, gapping holes in your "logic"... as big as the holes you might shoot with that "biiiig gun" you're waving around like a psycho.

First, you say that someone watching a rape video (for example) isn't doing it to critique the film technique. No shit. Neither is someone watching WWE Smackdown or Cops or Rambo or Aliens 13 or Tomb Raider or Big Titties 7 (or playing video games of the same kinds). They're doing it because it appeals to them... i.e. it excites them. There's no fundamental difference.

Second, you make the classic mistake of assuming - without evidence, but simply because it justifies your own violent revenge fantasies - that having a stash of (for example) rape videos makes someone likely to rape someone. Does my co-worker's library full of Star Trek videos make him likely to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before? Or does it make him more likely to sit home and watch TV far too much?

It makes a lot more sense to argue that people buy rape videos because they're sick than to argue that they're sick because they bought a library of rape videos.

(I suppose it's conceivable that someone watching these videos might be "pushed over the edge" and actually commit the crime himself. But by that same logic, watching "Cops" might push someone like yourself over the edge into using that gun you evidently fantasize about shooting people with. You sound like a "hate crime" waiting to happen, and are actually making a good case for taking that thing away from you.)

You do have a point about the demand for this kind of material causing a supply to be created. But it doesn't explain why we have laws against fake videos, in which no one was actually harmed. If you care at all about due process - and your complaint that Democrats treat potential gun violator as if they'd already committed a crime with one suggests that you are - then you might want to consider whether we should wait until someone actually hurts someone before we put them in jail for it.

P.S. You say you own a gun to spite Hitler (whose government exercised gun control). I support the right to create and own "degenerate" art for the same reason. Try reading up on history (beyond just NRA tracts) before you use it in arguments.

Wow. Quick turnaround time. I'm impressed.

Listen, I don't want to have any misgivings here. I obviously offended you, and in doing so, I've had some time to think.

If I sound like a hate crime waiting to happen, well, then, I suppose that the strong feeling of defending oneself might make it seem that way, and I'm sorry for any offense that might have created. However, by the same token, let's wait until I actually kill someone, and let the jury decide whether or not it was in self defense (which it would be, and even that is a big if) before determining whether or not I deserve to have a gun, simply because you don't like them. If strong words, even without visual aid, is a "strong case" for taking away what is legally mine to own even when it's unregistered, then I suppose it wasn't much of a right to begin with. But it IS my legal right, within bounds, despite the phalanx of legislation that might dictate otherwise, and that is that. I wish we could arrest Neo-Nazis for being assholes, but assholiness and a fistful of poorly written pamphlets isn't nearly enough to throw them in jail. It just don't work that way. But you know that.

I own several guns, two of them pistols. I also have a concealed carrying license, but I don't carry a pistol, and for two reasons: I don't try to put myself in a position to where I would need to use it. I don't go clubbing often, I stay out of dark alleys, and I don't think someone has tried to start a fight with me since 4th grade. Even when I DJ, I arrive early and leave late, usually with friends (bigger friends.) In doing these things, I keep myself from situations in which I would need to use one, and I would never want to, which brings me to my second point:

Whether you believe it or not, I would never, ever, EVER want to hurt someone that badly, much less kill them, unless I really had to in self-defense in my home. Human life is infinitely precious, as my father and grandfather---the former a var veteran, the latter soon to be---have taught me. Like the fabled Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump, every male member of my family has been in evey conflict America has been involved in since its birth. Both my brother and I have asthma, so the lineage stopped with us. But that didn't stop my father and grandfather, two uncles, and a cousin from pounding home the point that we are simply tiny beings on a tiny planet, little fleshy nothings in a universe filled with huge somethings, and that the absolute worst thing a man could do is rob another of his precious gift---the life that is unique to him, and only him. It's not ours to take. It doesn't belong to us. My father, being a historian, seeded in both my brother and I a deep love of history--from Thermopylae to Samuel Adams, Isandhlwana to Tibet. The lessons we learned from reading on such things were always punctuated with one searing, overriding lesson: that people dying is neither glorious nor wondrous, romantic or even tolerable. But unfortunately, despite all this, it is, and only in cases of extreme self-defense, when all words and pleas and offers fail, justifiable.

I left my religious beliefs out of this whole thing, because one can make perfectly moral decisions without it. Millions of people do that every day. However, I also believe this, and I don't need any kind of dogma to tell me: If I, or my loved ones, are threatened in any way, I will do whatever it takes, within my LEGAL RIGHTS, to defend myself and them. However, if the N.R.A. wants to divide and conquer, basing their division of people on whether or not they have the huevos to own a gun, that's their own looney, biased policy. NOT mine.

I wonder often about what I would do if I actually killed someone (See?! See?! He admits it!) but not for the reasons that you would think. The burden of owning a firearm is a heavy one, and leaden with contemplation.

I think about it because it would be a consequence I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I don't want to kill anybody, or hurt anybody, or cause anyone any pain. But believe me, if I had to---and did---I really don't know how I would plead in the courtroom. Would I be guilty? Yes! A thousand times yes! I would wrench myself into knots knowing that I had killed a man, and whatever came of that I would probably deserve.

But in self defense? Well, I would leave that to a jury of my peers.

Would I want someone to be jailed for making a fake video of a person being killed? If I did, I'd be up poo creek. seeing as how I watch all kinds of movies. One can't very well launch a lawsuit against all of Hollywood, can they? Well, I suppose they could, but that would simply be illustrating the point that such a person is a self-serving, shallow zealot who doesn't take responsibility for their actions. If you don't want to watch it or see it, fine. Then don't. There's a gazillion other things out there that deserve attention. My point is---and I see now that I didn't illustrate it the way I should have---is that the connection between influential media and offensive action is pretty obvious. As well it should be; It's human nature, in the same way that music inspires us to create our own melodies, sculpture our own works, etc. But do the movies MAKE us do it? Of COURSE NOT, unless
you're pleading insanity, and you actually thing the movies are talking to you.

However, the great divide is this: how we are TAUGHT to interpret those media (medias? mediumses?) by those who are wiser than us; i.e., our parents. Such wisdom comes from a worldly environment, not from those poor souls who prefer to recluse themselves from the insight of multiple viewpoints. That, as you know, leads to lack of knowledge, which begets fear,and so on and so on. But you don't need me to tell you that. You even said it already, and in fewer words, too.

I realize that anyone can say anything on the internet with zero validity, lacking proof, but take this as earnest. I have straight friends, gay friends, black friends, white friends, hispanic friends, and every once in a while, a girlfriend. I work with hispanic people on a daily basis, and many of them are very good to me. I regularly donate goods from our store to a neighborhood Baptist church, which is almost exclusively black. The church itself was built with the purpose of helping poor people and kids in gangs to better themselves, not just to give their lives to Christ, and their doors are always open. I see too many people in the neighborhood wasting away, giving their lives to booze and drugs, not to do anything about it. In the winter I spend some of my time at a community college group that donates its time to doing yardwork for the elderly in my county. The service is often not needed, but I do it anyway.

I often think about a friend of mine that I had in middle school named Jesse. He was a goth-type kid, kinda freaky and waifish, but gentle. He was often picked on by some of the gangster wannabes because of his shuffling walk, limp wrists and lisping dialect. It didn't bother me much, but certainly led me to wonder. It didn't surprise me when I learned that he was a foster child in a house with fourteen other kids and a "mother" that chronically ignored him. It also didn't surprise me that his 8th grade year he announced that he was gay.
It didn't surprise anyone, really. We just kind of rolled our eyes and said, "Duh. What kept you?"

I quickly found out. I haven't forgotten since.

One night, after about two weeks of his announcement, I was eating dinner with my family when there was a knock at the door. I was closest, so I answered it. It was Jesse.
He asked if he could come in. Not really knowing what to say (I didn't want to interrupt our dinner) I stood in silence for a moment when my brother stood over my shoulder. "Sure," my brother said, "come on in and have some dinner with us."
He did, and I was shocked when he sat down at our table and dove into some roasted chicken. He ate quickly but quietly, like a starving animal. It came as a shock to me because in my three years of knowing him, he had never eaten a stitch of meat. Jesse was a pronounced vegetarian.
After we had eaten and retreated to my room, I asked Jesse what was up. I still remember the story.
The day before, he head gotten into a fight with his foster mother. She had lost her temper, and so he decided to split for a while. He left his house for a while, walking five miles to the YMCA. On his return trip home, he had to go through a neighborhood where one of our classmates lived. He ran into this classmate, named Jason, who had been waiting for him since he passed through. Upon approaching, Jason, who had three of his friends, told Jesse that he didn't want "a faggot-ass fudge-packer like you" in his neighborhood, and they tried to grab him. He got away, and half walked, half ran to the only other person he knew in the neighborhood, a girl named Stacy. After she turned him away, practically closing the door in his face, he walked another four miles to get to my house.

Just as I was about to stard doubting the credibility of the whole story, he rolled back his long-sleeved shirt and showed me the cuts where they had knocked him down. He also had several welts on his shoulders. When I asked where they came from, he said that they were from the argument with his mother. She had beaten him with a dowel rod.
"All of this happened today, and you didn't call me to pick you up at the YMCA?" I asked. "No," he said, "it happened yesterday." He had slept beneath an underpass, and hadn't eaten since he left home.
Silence ensued. After a minute, I said, "Well, I guess you can stay here overnight. You can ride with me to school tomorrow," and he looked at me like he was going to cry. Then he said, "Cool," and we sat down to a game of Contra.
The next day, as we were getting ready for school, he pointed to a hat on my wall. It was a golf-type hat that my uncle, a WWII vet, had worn, and my grandmother gave it to me when he died. Jesse said he liked it, so I let him have it. It was October, and he didn't have much in the way of clothes.
My mom took us to school. Just before the bell, Jesse split to go to his science class, and I met with my buddy Bryan to go to math. We were crossing the basketball course to go to the side entrance when I saw Jason standing there talking, a basketball under his arm. I then did what was possibly the worst tactic employed since the Charge of the Light Brigade.

I walked up to Jason and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and leered at me. "What 'choo want, punk?"
My balls shrank. "I know what you did to Jesse yesterday," I said, "And don't think you're going to get away with it."
"What the fuck you talkin' about?"
"I said," I feebly grabbed his lofty collar, "that if you ever do that again, I'm going to kick your ass so hard you'll be wearing it for a hat." It wasn't true, but it was the best I had. I sounded like a terrified Clint Eastwood on helium.
He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me about a foot off of the ground. "Wanna bet, motherfucker?"
Our football coach, Mr. Conrad, pried us apart and sent us to class, writing us up in the process for being late and starting a fight. As I walked, my friend Bryan was quick to point out that I was the luckiest dude in the world that morning. He swears to this day that my knees were shaking worse than wheatgrass in the wind. I'm pretty sure he's right.
I never got into trouble with Jason again, mostly because he moved away to Ohio, or somewhere. It was shortly after that Jesse dropped out of school and disappeared, never to call me. For a long time I wondered how he was; if he was in good health, or even still alive. He was always somewhat sickly, all of the time I had known him.
Surprisingly, only a few years ago, Bryan told me that he had seen Jesse in a Whataburger somewhere close by. He was doing all right, apparently, and living in Nevada with a friend of his. I was glad to hear that. I was also glad to hear that he was still wearing my hat.

Why do I relate this story? Because it's the closest thing to a "hate crime" that I've seen. It is my experience with hate crime. It is the closest I ever wish to get, unless you count a situation where I might have to do something similar again, God forbid.
It is also one of the many reasons why I own a gun. Jesse was my friend, and I loved him, simply because he was Jesse. I didn't own a gun way back then, but I do now, to protect myself and those I love from the Jasons of the world. Would Jason have tracked Jesse to my house, broken in, and attacked us? Hardly. Am I sitting in my Lay-z-boy, polishing my shootin' iron, waiting for someone to kick my door in and declare war? That's absurd. No one even knows that I am a gun owner, unless they ask. I then explain to them that one of them is a 1891 Mauser that has never been fired, or ever will be, if I don't fancy a potential for an exploding antique. Another is my great-great-great grandfather's 12 gague shotgun that is a cornerstone of his family's history of life on the frontier. Another is a black-powder pistol that my father gave to me during Christmas, but I would never use, because black-powder pistols tend to be rather volitale.
I don't fire most of my guns, except for my rifle, adorned with the aforementioned scope. I don't hunt, because I don't live off of the land. And I don't even fire my gun that often, but when I do every once in a while, it serves to remind me of exactly what it is: a tool, and nothing more. But a REALLY GODDAMN DANGEROUS tool, and one that I have to treat with extreme care and respect, if I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't "wave it around like a psycho," despite what you may think, and I'm sorry that you come to that conclusion based upon what you have read. I don't have "violent revenge fantasies." I don't want revenge on anyone. I try to be good to people in the hopes that they will be good to me, even if I know if it is not so. I do it simply because it's the right thing to do, even if I don't want to. I'm sure you know how that goes; everybody has worked a retail job at one point in their lives.

You do make an excellent point about a person not being defined about what they buy, or own, or read. It was the point I was trying to make, but failed in my ramblings. I extrapolate:

I have a friend named Rick who loves horror movies. Not the ones with Bela Lugosi, mind you, but the other kind, rife with innards. He thinks it's "cool." What his definition of "cool" is, I often wonder, but I do know this---he also has violent temper fits. When he gets mad, he gets REALLY mad, and we ofen have to drag him, kicking and screaming, from the source of his agitation. Now, do I believe there is a connection between his hobby and his attitude? I don't know. It could be that he exerts his frustrations in his interests, but I know something else, too.
I KNOW Rick. He is a good man with a good heart, willing to work hard and give all he has for his friends. Sure, there have been plenty of people who seemed perfectly decent, who were all the time murdering people in clandestine ways. Were those people prone to watching violent things?

If no, then it becomes more of a mystery. If yes, then we have to examine the link between the two. Does this mean that we should censor all such material?

Of course not!! This country was founded on, among other things, the freedom of speech and expression. That includes the making of material some find offensive. That being the case then we should---and this is important---make careful steps to ensure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. So what are the wrong hands?

In the case of sex and violence, children. Among other things, I could go on and on about definitions of the "wrong hands," but above all, it is, of course, up to parents to determine what they think is appropriate for their kids. And then, once the kids isn't kids anymore, we let them make their own decisions about what to see and what to avoid.

I personally believe that the greatest American right is not the right to freedom of speech. Rather, it is the right to not to have to listen.

I take comfort in the fact that I can pick up a Playboy every now and then. I can play Silent Hill until 4a.m. if I want to. And in a way, I'm glad that all such things are available to us, even if some really graphic stuff is on the 'net.
I'm glad that I don't have a bunch of bureucratic hooligans censoring everything that shows some skin, and that a coalition of soccer moms trying to get rid of the latest video game can be defeated by common sense (I.e., keep it from your OWN kid, lady!)
And looking at that picture of the three men in the shower that you did, I actually appreciate it simply for what it is. It reminded me of when I was little, and my dad was teaching me how to take a shower without getting soap in my eyes. To me, it is a picture that evokes a feeling that couldn't be farther from sexual, or even offensive. It is a wonderful picture, and if someone wants to label it as porn, well, they have nothing better to do than find evil in everything they see.

My ramblings stem from many frustrations. Frustrations about violence, frustrations about inappropiate images for children, frustrations about how we as humans sometimes view each other. (Writing early in the morning doesn't help.) And nooooo, I'm not going to kick the door in at some triple-x store with my artillery and take the law into my own hands. I'll leave that to Hollywood.

So, all things considered, I hope this makes my viev a little clearer. Forgive the anger of a tired man. You're obviously a very smart person, and I'll be keeping an eye on your forum. Consider this an apology.

I'm sorry.

Peace.

P.S. I don't know about your co-worker, but Star Trek makes my home slice Bryan boldly go all over the place. Sometimes he even makes little engine sounds.

P.S.S. I don't like the N.R.A. All they ever want is my money.

Most of what was said, depics Anarchy.
The whole basis of Anarchy is no Rules, No Laws, No enforcment of anykind.
In order to make any of which was said to happen,
things would have to become Anarchu

I think you're reading way too much into that, "Anarchy". Just because I'm talking about relaxing some laws doesn't mean I'm talking about getting rid of them all.

I think that "kiddie porn" laws are too irrational. Some people like little kids, and find them sexually appealing, but it's not their fault their brain cells connect like that. If people had problems with porn in like the '50s but gave up and allowed porn(featuring adults) to be distributed on a city street where there were children present, they should have thought REAL hard about what they were doing. If they didn't want kids to see porn, they shouldn't have released it, but it's a good thing they did, because people stopped making illegal porn, right? It's like...the same thing with kiddie porn. Eventually, the opposing forces will cave and allow kiddie porn to be viewed by anyone anywhere. In the meantime, we have naturist and nudist videos to watch for our pleasure. Lets hope they cave REAL soon.

P.S.

I love the drawing you made(if you made it, not meaning that I don't think you did if you did, but if you didn't it's awesome anyways.)

Yes, that's one of my paintings; thanks for the comment.

I don't think we're ever going to have no restrictions on the availability of porn to children, and I don't think we should. I'm not saying that because of the whole "sex is harmful" mindset, but because there are things that young minds simply aren't ready to deal with, and there's no reason they should have to. An 8-year-old shouldn't be exposed to the details of tax audits, 8-hour factory shifts, fatal gunshot wounds, differential equations, or kinky sex. There'll be plenty of time for that later, when they're older.