Panama Red

Gay Porn Gone Good… April 24, 2006

After looking over Mr. Lucas' blog and chapter 10 in the class textbook, I think that what Mr. Lucas is doing is very beneficial for society!  I think that he is doing society a favor in trying to get people to associate good connotations with gay sex and gay pornography.  He is leading a crusade.  I think that too much of society looks down upon gay sex and gay porn.  Being gay is a fact of life, there is no escaping it.  People are supposedly born gay, and there is no way to ditch your real feelings to conform to society.  Mr. Lucas tries to teach this through his acting in gay porn.  I found this very encouraging.  He teaches good morals, etc. through his gay porn instead of the stereotype.

Some questions I have for Mr. Lucas are:

– Do people in the homosexual pornography business mock you or alienate you for trying to change how people look at homosexual porn?

– Is it easy to find people who are qualified for your porn movies (not drug addicts, willing to wear condoms, no disease)? 

Gay Porn Gone Good… April 24, 2006

After looking over Mr. Lucas' blog and chapter 10 in the class textbook, I think that what Mr. Lucas is doing is very beneficial for society!  I think that he is doing society a favor in trying to get people to associate good connotations with gay sex and gay pornography.  He is leading a crusade.  I think that too much of society looks down upon gay sex and gay porn.  Being gay is a fact of life, there is no escaping it.  People are supposedly born gay, and there is no way to ditch your real feelings to conform to society.  Mr. Lucas tries to teach this through his acting in gay porn.  I found this very encouraging.  He teaches good morals, etc. through his gay porn instead of the stereotype.

Some questions I have for Mr. Lucas are:

– Do people in the homosexual pornography business mock you or alienate you for trying to change how people look at homosexual porn?

– Is it easy to find people who are qualified for your porn movies (not drug addicts, willing to wear condoms, no disease)? 

Children Fighting Porn, A New Solution April 23, 2006

As seen in lecture # 31, the government is doing a lot to try and combat child porn and child molesters. It seems to be a very hard job to try and track down child predators on the Internet. It seems that law enforcement would not be as successful as it is in fighting child porn on the Internet with out the help of the public. It is seen in the lecture that neighborhood watch groups such as CyberAngels and pedowatch.com are very efficient in helping law enforcement to catch these child molesters.

My opinion is that one very efficient way to fight child molestation and pedophilia over the Internet is to educate children on the subject. In school, kids take health class to educate them concerning sex, etc. This class is a very successful one, and I believe that a class at a young age concerning child predators would help educate kids on the dangers of these people, and help keep children away from these people. The class could also teach children how to identify child predators on the Internet and how to report these people to the right authorities.

One more way I think we could minimize child predators over the Internet is to slap perpetrators with very harsh sentences in order to discourage them from ever violating children again. Also, harsh jail sentences will make Internet predators think twice before committing the act in the first place. Though this won't stop all Internet child pedophilia, I think it will help a little bit! For example, in the "hotseattle" case, the perpetrator got no jail time at all. I think if there is a mandatory minimum sentence, as there is in some states for drug offenses, more perpetrators will get jail time, which will discourage them from ever doing this act again. The mandatory minimum sentence would definitely prove to be an effective tactic in combating Internet child pornography!

I think that molesting children is a worse crime than smoking Marijuana, but the sentence for an Internet predator is less than for someone caught with marijuana. Isn't this a little bit ass-backwards? We need to get our priorities straight!!

Downloading Kiddie Porn?! April 22, 2006

I am just curious to see what other people's feelings towards child porn are…  What are most people's thoughts concerning downloading child porn?  If I accidentally download child porn should I be subjected to arrest and prosecution?  I don't think so.  There has to be an effective way to differentiate between people who download child porn purposely and the ones who do it accidentally!  The worst case scenario should be that everyone who downloads child porn gets arrested, but after a thorough investigation is conducted, the accidental perpetrators should be granted immunity.

Porn Filters April 22, 2006

In response to LawLibrary's Blog concerning How Many States Have Library Internet Filtering Laws,   I am under the impression that no states have laws like this.  I was led to believe that the states are encouraged to put filters in public libraries with a promise of more funding.  I could be wrong though.  If you read my recent blogs, I address this issue in this blog.  I think this kind of "bribe" was a good idea for the government, since the Supreme Court kept shooting down the acts that congress suggested concerning indecency and child pornography.

And The Winner Is… HOWARD STERN! April 22, 2006

Howard Stern has recently been recognized as a patriot.  He was just awarded the Freedom of Speech award from Talkers Magazine.  You can read the article here.  He was awarded the award because he has fought for our first amendment right, freedom of speech.  For those of us who live in a cave and don't know, Howard Stern has recently moved to satellite radio in order to dodge restrictions put on him by the FCC on regular terrestrial radio.  The FCC was regularly fining Stern for indecency.  One problem that Howard Stern sees with the FCC guidelines according to the article, is that the rules are too vague.  This seems to be an underlying characteristic of many rules, guidelines, and acts concerning indecency, etc.  We see this in lecture # 29 with CDA and CIPA.  One main reason why these two acts weren't passed was because they were too vague.  I believe that the FCC needs to be more specific in its guidelines, so that they don't have the absolute power of fining anyone because they say something the government/FCC does not like.

ACTS, ACTS, ACTS April 22, 2006

I agree with the professor that children should never be subjected to pornography, especially on the internet.  It is extremely easy for children to innocently stumble on porn when surfing the web.  With this being stated, I agree with the supreme court for declaring the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and the Child Decency Act (CDA) unconstitutional.  Both of these acts, that were supposed to protect children from pornography on the internet, were way too broad.  It would have been extremely hard to come up with a uniform definition of what was porn and what wasn't.

The Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was a very good idea.  It was a good compromise in order to shield children from porn.  Since Congress could not pass an act restricting porn on private computers, the passed an act restricting porn on all public computers.  The way they got this act declared constitutional is very interesting.  The act doesn't say public institutions are not allowed to show allow their customers porn, but that if these public institutions put a filter on their computers, which filters out porn, then the government will share some money with these institutions.  But if these public institutions decide not to put a filter on, they will get no funding from the government.  This was a good idea by Congress to get this act passed! 

A Smack a Day Keeps Doctor’s Away… April 17, 2006

In response to Skeeter's Blog, I agree that parent – children relationships have changed a lot over time, and so has the way parents treat their children.  I disagree that the way parents treat their kids has necessarily changed for the better.  It is true that parents "hit" their kids a lot less often now days, but children these days are a lot less well  behaved than they were when our parents were kids.  It is my belief that law enforcement has instilled fear into parents, so they are afraid to hit their kids.  I am a believer that a "smack or two" for your kids is something that will keep them in line, as long as you don't go overboard and start abusing them.  I would go as far as to say that a little "smack here or there" is healthy for kids!
 It seems to me that thoughts concerning pornography and children is getting more leniant as time goes on.  Laws concerning pornography used to be much more rigid and strict.  As time progresses on, it seems like thoughts concerning porn get more liberal.  This can clearly be seen with grandparents.  I am 21 years old and my grandpa is 84, I guarantee if you asked his generation what they thought about porn, you would get nasty remark most of the time.  On the other hand is you ask a 21 year old today, most 21 year olds do not mind porn, and you would get a remark mimicking this.

Suspended Rights? April 17, 2006

Here is just an interesting article concerning our right to free speech (1st amendment).  This article describes the people who have suspended our rights the most, starting with President Bush.  The point of the article is to raise awareness that this type of thing is constantly happening in the U.S., even if we are not aware of this.  Our own president is guilty of suspending many, many rights, which goes to show that if he can do it, many other people in power can do it also.  

It is seen in this article that Google has been at the center of a debate.  Google refused to hand over records to the U.S government, which concerned a new law that would protect children from child pornography.  I doubt anyone at Google actually thinks that child porn is beneficial for youths.  They did not want to hand over the information because they did not want any subscriber's information to be compromised.  In fact, I am sure most of the executives at Google are morally against child porn, but not against it enough to suspend their client's rights.  The executives at Google were also scared that if they hand over the records this time, then more intrusive requests will be made in the future. 

Zone This April 17, 2006

After listening to lecture # 28, I have made up my mind that between the zoning methods used in Detroit and Seattle, to eradicate the ills of porn-based businesses, the method used in Detroit would probably work better.  I believe this because the method used in Seattle grouped all the porn-businesses together in one area, so that the crime, etc. that comes along with porn-based businesses will stay in that one area only.  On the other hand, Detroit said that no porn-based shop can be within 1000 feet of another porn based shop, etc.  In my opinion this approach is better because spacing these establishments out will discourage crime because there is not one centralized area for pornography.  Though there are many smaller sites, there is not just one "mother" site that everyone can gather at.