Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by smr
What's your view on this, LessBread?

I think crush videos are obscene.

So do I, but would you ban them? Surely they should be going after the sick bastards who made these videos?

That question could also be applied to pedophile videos. And SFIK they are banned... To me there is no difference between abusing a child and torturing an animal to death.

Well, on this note what about videos of people getting killed or tortured? I mean, there are lots of historical videos of execution and war (both legal and otherwise) and those are considered perfectly legal. I'm not sure which of these videos should be considered obscene. On one hand, it would be unfortunate if people started killing people and making videos of it. On the other hand, one expects that the fact that there are laws against murder should make the video aspect of it more or less moot, and it would also be highly unfortunate if it suddenly became illegal to accurately document war.

Quote: Original post by cowsarenotevil
Well, on this note what about videos of people getting killed or tortured? I mean, there are lots of historical videos of execution and war (both legal and otherwise) and those are considered perfectly legal. I'm not sure which of these videos should be considered obscene. On one hand, it would be unfortunate if people started killing people and making videos of it. On the other hand, one expects that the fact that there are laws against murder should make the video aspect of it more or less moot, and it would also be highly unfortunate if it suddenly became illegal to accurately document war.

I understand your concern. Still I find it pretty easy to tell the difference between a documentary about war and a video of a "women slowly crushing animals to death 'with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes, talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter'.

Just in the same way I can tell the difference between a video of two adults having sex and adult with a little kid.

I don't really think the line is so blurred on the topic in question.

Quote: Original post by cowsarenotevil

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by smr
What's your view on this, LessBread?

I think crush videos are obscene.

So do I, but would you ban them? Surely they should be going after the sick bastards who made these videos?

That question could also be applied to pedophile videos. And SFIK they are banned... To me there is no difference between abusing a child and torturing an animal to death.

Well, on this note what about videos of people getting killed or tortured? I mean, there are lots of historical videos of execution and war (both legal and otherwise) and those are considered perfectly legal. I'm not sure which of these videos should be considered obscene. On one hand, it would be unfortunate if people started killing people and making videos of it. On the other hand, one expects that the fact that there are laws against murder should make the video aspect of it more or less moot, and it would also be highly unfortunate if it suddenly became illegal to accurately document war.

I think the point is that videos showing Real violent acts that are in question need to be illegal. With exemptions for historical documentations such as news reporting, etc.

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by cowsarenotevil
Well, on this note what about videos of people getting killed or tortured? I mean, there are lots of historical videos of execution and war (both legal and otherwise) and those are considered perfectly legal. I'm not sure which of these videos should be considered obscene. On one hand, it would be unfortunate if people started killing people and making videos of it. On the other hand, one expects that the fact that there are laws against murder should make the video aspect of it more or less moot, and it would also be highly unfortunate if it suddenly became illegal to accurately document war.

I understand your concern. Still I find it pretty easy to tell the difference between a documentary about war and a video of a "women slowly crushing animals to death 'with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes, talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter'.

Just in the same way I can tell the difference between a video of two adults having sex and adult with a little kid.

I don't really think the line is so blurred on the topic in question.

Of course it doesn't look blurred when you only pick and contrast things on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. But consider this: What if both were the same movie? Someone went to war to stop this shit -- so now your war reporter doesn't know if it's okay to release his video because the 'obsenity' was playing on a TV in the background. Or maybe they're trying to document and expose war crimes, and the 'animals' are human POWs.

Even if we accept the argument that what's moral has a clear and defined boundary (I don't), the fact that they're citing concerns over e.g. hunting magazines indicates that the law in question clearly lacks that clear and defined boundary.

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey
Of course it doesn't look blurred when you only pick and contrast things on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. But consider this: What if both were the same movie? Someone went to war to stop this shit -- so now your war reporter doesn't know if it's okay to release his video because the 'obsenity' was playing on a TV in the background. Or maybe they're trying to document and expose war crimes, and the 'animals' are human POWs.

In the same context: Is a documentary on pedophilia allowed (legally and morally) to show pedophile explicit content? Why not? After all, the documentary makers should also have the right to freely express their opinnions. But for some reason they don't. I'm wondering what reason is that.

Sorry for going off topic here...

Quote: Original post by Promit

Quote: Original post by owl
The United States Supreme Court thinks these videos despicting such acts are OK?

No, they think it's constitutionally protected free speech. Are you too stoned to tell the difference?

How about taking a bit of your own advice?

Quote: Original post by Promit
Then you should probably start by asking a more mature question. It's awfully surprising how behaving like an adult results in being treated like one.

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by smr
What's your view on this, LessBread?

I think crush videos are obscene.

So do I, but would you ban them? Surely they should be going after the sick bastards who made these videos?

That question could also be applied to pedophile videos. And SFIK they are banned... To me there is no difference between abusing a child and torturing an animal to death.

I do respect your high ideals -- I think high ideals are something we should all strive towards -- but there most definately is a difference and you can prove it to yourself by honestly evaluating a scenario where you actually had to make that choice: Allow a young child to be abused sexually, or an animal to be tortured to death. Agonizing in either case to even know exists, but its clear, to me at least, which is the lesser of two evils.

I also don't think the decision is quite so cut and dried -- How I read the decision is that depictions, even of animal cruelty, are presumed protected as part of free speach -- after all, what if the folks at PETA were suddenly unable to protest using signs depicting the cruelty of medical testing, factory farms, etc (even though I'm frankly not a fan of PETA's work). We cannot forget the forest for one dispicable tree.

I also don't think this decision would preclude such a 'crush video' from being declared obscene and stripped of its free-speach status case-by-case -- remember that obsenity is essentially a catch-all defined by so-called community-standards, and can be applied, or at least contested, quite liberally.

Finally, production of these videos should still fall under applicable cruelty laws, and the video being free speach does not preclude it from also being evidence at trial. If they want to target these videos, they should attack their production and participants, rather than their disemination.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by smr
What's your view on this, LessBread?

I think crush videos are obscene.

So do I, but would you ban them? Surely they should be going after the sick bastards who made these videos?

Yes, ban them. That's why I used the word obscene. In many states in the USA animal cruelty is a serious crime, so making such videos - to the extent that the animal cruelty shown in them was authentic - would already be a crime. The sick bastards who make such videos typically live in countries where animal cruelty isn't a crime, like Japan.

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey
Of course it doesn't look blurred when you only pick and contrast things on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. But consider this: What if both were the same movie? Someone went to war to stop this shit -- so now your war reporter doesn't know if it's okay to release his video because the 'obsenity' was playing on a TV in the background. Or maybe they're trying to document and expose war crimes, and the 'animals' are human POWs.

In the same context: Is a documentary on pedophilia allowed (legally and morally) to show pedophile explicit content? Why not? After all, the documentary makers should also have the right to freely express their opinnions. But for some reason they don't. I'm wondering what reason is that.

A thousand politicians screaming "think of the children".

I have issues with, for example, high schoolers being charged, criminally, for taking pictures of themselves. That's just fucking ridiculous -- and yet it happens. I'd much rather have the police going after, say, actual child molesters. Where someone's rights are actually being infringed upon by a criminal.

I think this quite adequately demonstrates that there are problems -- large ones -- quite possibly constitutional ones -- with the law. Problems which must be fixed. I can see the need to protect children from future humiliation and harm by prohibiting the distribution of the crimes committed against them. This protection already exists in some form, and not just for children: there's a reason photographers try to have release forms signed. This does not infringe upon the first amendment, as the first amendment is not carte blanche to infringe upon the rights of others.

I don't see the need to extend that same protection to animals. I can understand protecting them from sadism, but that can be done without encroaching upon the first amendment. Ban the act, not the depiction, go after the bastards doing the deed rather than the observer. And if they are one and the same, there's no reason to discourage them from what amounts to self incrimination: evidence.