Censorship and the use of laws to further personal gain

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Rakuen Growlithe
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Censorship and the use of laws to further personal gain

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Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

If you go on other forums there's probably a good chance that you've come across a story about the US protect act (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/).

The basic idea is that a manga (Japanese comic book) collector was sentenced to 15 years in prison because one of the books had 'child porn'. If he were a child molester/paedophile I wouldn't really care about this but the fact is he isn't and there are no signs that he would do anything to a child.
The manga had illustrations of children engaing in sexual acts but he was a collector. He has hundreds if not thousands of manga books of all sorts of genres, not focussed on stories about child porn. He also didn't have any actual child porn. Another point is that this is sold freely in Japan. I don't know about Japan's stats on child molestation but I do know that if you watch the uncensored Dragonball GT (it was censored when translated into English by the Americans) it had quite a few scenes of kid Goku naked.
The big difference between this and real child porn is that one is real and the other isn't. He wasn't hurting anyone.

How does this affect you though? You're not in the US, aren't a manga collector and have no interest in child porn. Well it affects you because if this sort of thing continues people will be punished for stuff that they have not and will not actually do.
What if possessing yiffy art resulted in a jail sentence for bestiality possession? That would affect you.
What if playing a first-person shooter got you arrested for murder? Sound ridiculous? That's effectively what has just happened.
Another thing you should be asking is who is decided what should be allowed and what shouldn't and how are they making those decisions? Are those decisions made for a good, logical reason or were they made due to personal preference or religious affiliations? There are a few things I find distasteful in the fandom but I wouldn't ever try to ban them because there's no reason to. On the other hand I do not agree with sex with children because they cannot think properly and consent. At what age they can is up to debate and I'm not interested in going into that. Decisions made due to religious reasons should never ever be applied to people that are not part of that faith (how children who can't consent can be expected to choose a religion so early in life is beyond me). I wouldn't be surprised if the people who came up with the protect act did it because they can't tell the difference between reality and imagination.

Laws should not be made except against something that causes harm to another person. Laws are meant to protect people, not to be used against them when they aren't doing anything to anyone else. Sometimes even this principle can cause problems when people who consent to being hurt inadvertently cause they're partner to be arrested and charged with assault.

When people start telling you what you can and can't watch and read, you should start taking a very good look at their motives.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
~John Milton~
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