So I was watching TV news some time back, and then it happened, the way it always happens. As if killer pods from outer space had invaded, the anchor person soberly and emphatically begins punctuating a story about a child pornography case. Cut to video. This time, appearing in a courtroom before the TV news cameras, it's a 22-year-old man who actually looks a few years younger, and his subdued gaze is fixed forward like a deer's eyes caught up in judicial headlights. He doesn't look like an old pervert; instead, he's the blond, fair-skinned boy next door, nice-looking and seemingly non-threatening -- but dazed. One assumes the cops went in for the bust like hell on wheels, and his mind still spins. Last I heard, he was discovered to have two computers chock full of child porn images, and cops were still exploring bit by bit.
But back to the TV. I'm already bored. Because I know what's coming next. Perfect, right on schedule. The camera skips to some member of the district attorney's office, outraged that it's a child porno case, and by holy freakin' God he's not going to stand for it, and this is also a federal case, so that will bring even more charges. Bang, that's a wrap, cut back to the studio and the next story, apparently about a murder somewhere. TV news divisions love murders and they drool over the slightest allegations of child pornography, and one must wonder how those folks would spend their valuable minutes of air time without such reportage opportunities.
While I sweat blood, pounding out these delightful little blog entries for you, I usually do so without benefit of the Internet, so I tend to communicate in generalities. Therefore, I can't recall the exact date or specifics from years ago when the government declared that First Amendment rights excluded viewing child pornography, and the crime for doing so was as serious as actually making such films or taking photos. This occurred before the personal computer era settled in, and depending upon your age you may remember there arose a steady procession of drug stores, and other places where people dropped off their camera films for development, where clerks and technicians began faithfully calling the police to turn in even parents innocently photographing their two-year-old taking a bath. Nobody required real child porn to inflame hysteria.
But there's been a tangible, ongoing, attack dog-style war on child pornography in the U.S. and elsewhere, often in conjunction with Interpol and other agencies. Sounds good, doesn't it? A war on child pornography. Hmm. Wait a minute. . .
War on. Haven't we also been conducting an endless war on drugs? How's that worked out, as Fentanyl and a host of chemical concoctions creep all over the country, even as that old standby called marijuana enjoys the popularity of legal acceptance?
Today's visual is a newspaper letter to the editor I wrote 22 years ago, following a Supreme Court decision regarding child pornography involving no actual children. Since that time, society has gone absolutely bonkers, intent upon restricting into oblivion even the slightest hint of child porn created by AI which has absolutely no relationship to children, living or dead.
The outstanding problem appears to be society's outrage over the mere idea of child-child or child-adult sexual relations. Fair enough. But again we turn to the First Amendment and must realize that as soon as you ban depictions of one thing, then subjects that may be important to you or others also become fair game for censorship. The overwhelming truth here is that computer-generated child porn -- which early on DID tend to use facial photos of real children -- now requires absolutely no real "victims" on display. That the courts are going nuts over fictitious images and fantasies unrealized in computerized enactments is, like it or not, the worst possible affront to the First Amendment.
If artificial intelligence has the power to replace real people with realistic no-victim digital images AND to replace real online animal cruelty with unreal depictions craved by a particular audience, maybe various perturbations of the mind can be satisfied in most instances. Yes, there will always be those who follow up with hands-on sexual and cruelty crimes, but we would hope and expect them to remain in a tiny minority if allowed to experience their profound desires by way of AI.
If the current courts of hysterical opinion have their way, however, expect an increase in child sexual assaults and murders, as those of a particular mind pursue their obsessions and realize that no living evidence of their deeds can afford to be left behind.
Iran's president dies in a helicopter crash: Burn, burn dude, too bad your final minutes couldn't have exerted torture upon you, just as your efforts resulted in the torture and deaths of Iranian people yearning to be free of dangerous lunatics like you and Iran's Ayatollah El-Douche-Bagia. We assume the black turban around your head during the funeral procession contained anti-psychotic pills and Viagra for the afterlife?
If vs. if: I wish I could be a fly on the wall when well-intentioned parents order up the new movie about childhood fantasy friends called "If" and instead by error end up with the somewhat lackluster 1968 (lower case title) movie "if" which is all about a violent insurrection at a British boys school, including allusions to and an apparent practice of homosexuality among some students. Enjoy the movie, kids!
Meanwhile, in New York. . .Trump's alleged trial is a clown show presided over by a very compromised leftist Judge Marchan. When this mess is over, what should happen is this judge's removal from the bench -- but this is New York, where good is bad and bad is good when politics are involved, so his black robe will probably be displayed in City Hall as something worn by a God one day. We are disgusted, we are outraged. So what?
The Senate re-introduces a terrible immigration bill: Thanks, Sen. Schumer, but again this monstrosity will be defeated. How's about the House's HR-2 which has sat on your desk for months, as you refuse to even consider this excellent piece of legislation? The treasonous Biden gang, which even went so far as to fly illegal immigrants into the country under cover of darkness, must be held criminally accountable, once the DOJ and FBI are cleaned up under new leadership.
New York school budget voters defeat EV bus purchases overwhelmingly: Gov. Hochul and her progressive lapdog legislators need to get the message: EVs are not wanted, are too expensive and the technology is nowhere near ready (especially in cold climates where EV batteries instantly lose around 40 percent of their charge). NY State's governing body is poised to inflict some very bitter energy hardship sequences upon its residents, and when the worst happens I look forward to retribution in the courts -- if any fair courts exist by then. One can hope.
