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Old 05-19-2005, 09:19 AM  
Redrob
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: In a refrigerator box by the tracks.
Posts: 4,790
Cowardly Customers Don't Want Name on Govt Lists

The people of the USA are too bashful to publicly support porn websites due to feelings of guilt, moral superiority, fear that church and family will discover their secret sin, and their repressed sexual feelings.

We need to recognize the general public will not carry picket signs supporting PORN, they will not sign petitions complaining about 2257 Regulations, and they will not speak up in support of adult webmasters' rights in government meetings where new regulations and laws are being passed.

Like a teenage boy with a copy of Playboy under the mattress, they will spend the money watching movies and buying memberships; but, they don't want their name on any list. As soon as the Govt starts demanding access to membership records, like library records today, our consumer base will disappear like fog on an hot, summer morning.

If we want our consumers to support our legal efforts, we have to frame the argument as a First Amendment issue, not a porn issue. Secondly, in order to frame the issue as a First Amendment issue, we must have our content protected by the First Amendment. This is a very real possibility we might lose that protection in the near future.

With the Radical Republicans attacking the Federal judiciary in order to stack the courts with their ideologues and remove the powers of liberal judges, we might find our content outside the protections of the First Amendment.

In the past week, I have observed Tom Delay's promise to make case judges "pay for their behavior", Republican congressional staffers calling for mass impeachment, James Dobson's call on Congress to eliminate entire court circuits, and Pat Robertson's statements that judges pose a worse threat than the September 11th terrorists.

What this means is that the support from our industry must come from within the industry itself. It is up to us, webmasters, content producers, etc., to fund whatever needs to be done to protect ourselves. You can't wait for somebody else to do it for you.

As a minimum, every adult company should join and support the efforts of the FSC to challenge oppressive regulations. Every webmaster should have a First Amendment page on their websites explaining the DOJ's war on our industry. Every website should have a link to FSC for their consumers to join the FSC at an individual level and support our cause. Every webmaster should make an effort to at least once a week, write a letter to a newspaper, call a radio station's ultra conservative talk show, or talk to a local TV reporter/news editor about local and national issues.

If you humanize yourselves to your local media, they will respect you as an individual and seek out your opinion when these issues arise in your area. Only you, the members of our industry, can stop this wave of censorship.

It is ironic that "Revenge of the Sith" is opening today accross the USA just as we see our DOJ moving further to the Dark Side. And, today in the Senate, we see Darth Frist daring the Democrats to challenge him with their puny filibusters.....over the appointment of their minions to the Federal Court.

Finally, keep the faith, support all civil rights, and when we pass...Let's leave the USA a free-er country than when we found it.

Fight the good fight!
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