Don't you hate when that happens (the Internet thing)?
You sound more cautious than normal; of course, I flew off the handle last time a bit more than usual.
Actually, a story, or the Mona Lisa, does continue to give after the fact; you ponder what the story was really about, or what in the heck she's smiling about.
You think about porn later, it's only a withdrawal from the spank bank, deposited instantly on gratification once again.
Actually, in another ironic twist, I believe I am the one being more rational here. The definitions are a bit beside the point, because historically speaking, censorship has occurred, frequently, and in areas where speech is "protected." Once again, getting amazingly on topic, Omaha the Cat Dancer was banned in England as "bestiality" porn, despite the fact that it, well, isn't.
What I'm trying to say is censorship will occur; the fact that it, in a perfect world, shouldn't occur has no bearing on reality, which is not perfect. My call for self-censorship of cub porn is a pre-emptive strike before it is inevitably censored by those on the outside, in other words, censored for real. It has happened in the past; the only reason comic book content was not federally mandated in the 1950s is because the comic book publishers censored themselves before Congress could. In fact, FurAffinity's ban of cub porn was mandated by their pay sources, so even in the specific, it has already happened.
You say "freedom of speech," and honestly seem to believe that will keep Mr. Congress-Man-Who-Needs-An-Issue-To-Keep-His-Job-And-Why-Not-This-Furry-Stuff-It-Looks-Likely at bay. Okay, fifty years after it's over historians will look back and say, boy, that was VERY BAD, and we should all feel VERY GUILTY it happened, but the damage will have been done. Furthermore, you can't appeal to Mr. Congress-Man-etc.'s conscience, because it is very possible that he may feel he is in the right, honestly and truthfully, to protect innocent children from this dirty cartoon animal smut. And there will be people genuinely concerned; the guilt of not censoring will outweigh the guilt of censoring.
Yes, the 1950s and Fredric Wertham's comic book crusade were a long time ago, but as late as the 80s, the music industry was in about the same place; Congress's list of the horrible, no good, rotten songs that are destroying out children included Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It", which included the horrible, horrible words, "We'll fight," and, uh, it referenced the movie Animal House, I guess. Seriously, five minutes on FurAffinity with the wrong Congressman, you can kiss that site goodbye.
And nobody's going to give a crap. You think the rest of the Internet are gonna save us? 4chan, one of the founding points of modern Internet subculture, effectively banned furry since the site's inception. Furries are not, by and large, charismatic people; our insular, not very sociable fandom has left us with very few friends. In fact, it is a kind of idiotic point of pride that we only hang out with each other. You can quote that one guy saying "They came for the Jews ... blah, blah, blah," but the rest of the world will just tell you broke Godwin's law, and that's about it.
My point is, we have got to clean house before someone does it for us; sacrifices have to be made. Something's gotta be thrown under the bus, and you throw the porn under to save the art and the immoral porn to save the okay porn. The way I see it, we can't have it all, and if we try to save everything, we will only lose everything.
Also, whatever your own feelings on porn are, the American legal system frowns upon it. You have to be 18 to purchase it; to the legal system, pornography is as harmful to you as smoking, and smoking kills you. Furthermore, I'm sure we've all heard the "you know it when you see it" definition; if I'm not mistaken (and I might just be, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now), this came from the decision to allow James Joyce's Ulysses into America. It was banned because it contained a few scenes of sexuality, including, most contreversially at the time, a woman's inner monologue thinking about masturbation. I know. Shocking, right?
In this case, free speech did win, but it helps when the book in question is widely considered a modern masterpiece (and this may be one of those cases of "art as rubbish" you were talking about; it's been called the book nobody understands, so everybody thinks must be great if they could). Even then, it came down to a judge basically saying "not porn" to get to America.
It's happened before, it'll happen again. And there is some nobility in refusing to give an inch, but, in your case, for a guy who loves rationalism as much as you say you do, maybe nobility shouldn't be your biggest concern.
Don't you hate when that happens (the Internet thing)?
You sound more cautious than normal; of course, I flew off the handle last time a bit more than usual.
Actually, a story, or the Mona Lisa, does continue to give after the fact; you ponder what the story was really about, or what in the heck she's smiling about.
You think about porn later, it's only a withdrawal from the spank bank, deposited instantly on gratification once again.
Actually, in another ironic twist, I believe I am the one being more rational here. The definitions are a bit beside the point, because historically speaking, censorship has occurred, frequently, and in areas where speech is "protected." Once again, getting amazingly on topic, Omaha the Cat Dancer was banned in England as "bestiality" porn, despite the fact that it, well, isn't.
What I'm trying to say is censorship will occur; the fact that it, in a perfect world, shouldn't occur has no bearing on reality, which is not perfect. My call for self-censorship of cub porn is a pre-emptive strike before it is inevitably censored by those on the outside, in other words, censored for real. It has happened in the past; the only reason comic book content was not federally mandated in the 1950s is because the comic book publishers censored themselves before Congress could. In fact, FurAffinity's ban of cub porn was mandated by their pay sources, so even in the specific, it has already happened.
You say "freedom of speech," and honestly seem to believe that will keep Mr. Congress-Man-Who-Needs-An-Issue-To-Keep-His-Job-And-Why-Not-This-Furry-Stuff-It-Looks-Likely at bay. Okay, fifty years after it's over historians will look back and say, boy, that was VERY BAD, and we should all feel VERY GUILTY it happened, but the damage will have been done. Furthermore, you can't appeal to Mr. Congress-Man-etc.'s conscience, because it is very possible that he may feel he is in the right, honestly and truthfully, to protect innocent children from this dirty cartoon animal smut. And there will be people genuinely concerned; the guilt of not censoring will outweigh the guilt of censoring.
Yes, the 1950s and Fredric Wertham's comic book crusade were a long time ago, but as late as the 80s, the music industry was in about the same place; Congress's list of the horrible, no good, rotten songs that are destroying out children included Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It", which included the horrible, horrible words, "We'll fight," and, uh, it referenced the movie Animal House, I guess. Seriously, five minutes on FurAffinity with the wrong Congressman, you can kiss that site goodbye.
And nobody's going to give a crap. You think the rest of the Internet are gonna save us? 4chan, one of the founding points of modern Internet subculture, effectively banned furry since the site's inception. Furries are not, by and large, charismatic people; our insular, not very sociable fandom has left us with very few friends. In fact, it is a kind of idiotic point of pride that we only hang out with each other. You can quote that one guy saying "They came for the Jews ... blah, blah, blah," but the rest of the world will just tell you broke Godwin's law, and that's about it.
My point is, we have got to clean house before someone does it for us; sacrifices have to be made. Something's gotta be thrown under the bus, and you throw the porn under to save the art and the immoral porn to save the okay porn. The way I see it, we can't have it all, and if we try to save everything, we will only lose everything.
Also, whatever your own feelings on porn are, the American legal system frowns upon it. You have to be 18 to purchase it; to the legal system, pornography is as harmful to you as smoking, and smoking kills you. Furthermore, I'm sure we've all heard the "you know it when you see it" definition; if I'm not mistaken (and I might just be, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now), this came from the decision to allow James Joyce's Ulysses into America. It was banned because it contained a few scenes of sexuality, including, most contreversially at the time, a woman's inner monologue thinking about masturbation. I know. Shocking, right?
In this case, free speech did win, but it helps when the book in question is widely considered a modern masterpiece (and this may be one of those cases of "art as rubbish" you were talking about; it's been called the book nobody understands, so everybody thinks must be great if they could). Even then, it came down to a judge basically saying "not porn" to get to America.
It's happened before, it'll happen again. And there is some nobility in refusing to give an inch, but, in your case, for a guy who loves rationalism as much as you say you do, maybe nobility shouldn't be your biggest concern.