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1996-03-11
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Marilyn Todd
What is indecent?
I'm quite frankly puzzled about this new law that the US Congress has
passed (and the US president has signed) in an effort to control freedom of
expression on the world-wide Internet. This law cancels out the cherished
first amendment of the US Constitution, but it goes much further than that:
it also purports to decide what millions of people all over the world can
and can't say and can and can't read. Who appointed the US Congress arbiter
of world morals? Who gave it the right to decide what world-wide "community
standards" call decent and indecent?
I'm not a fan of indecency. but I don't think my definition is quite the
same as that of the US Congress. And, as I'm not an American citizen, I
don't think the US Congress has a right to tell me what is and isn't
indecent. I believe a lot of US citizens don't think their Congress has
that right either. But considerations like that don't seem to worry this
body
What is indecent? I understand the new law defines indecency as: "any
comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other communication that,
in context, depicts or describes in terms patently offensive as measured by
contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or
organs."
So that's indecency. It's not indecent that thousands and thousands of
people are homeless in the self-proclaimed "greatest country in the world"?
It's not indecent that those who have money get increasingly richer and
those without get increasingly poorer, through manipulation and outright
dishonesty? It's not indecent that the US has by far the greatest prison
population in the industrialized world? It's not indecent that the US is
one of the few remaining industrialized countries to maintain the barbarous
death penalty? It's not indecent that the political life of the US is full
of corruption and deceit, documented so often that it becomes boring? It's
not indecent that the environment of the planet is severely threatened by
the incredible abuse of its resources to feed the insatiable appetites of
this one country for itis own convenience and comfort? It's not indecent
that there always seems to be money for so-called defence purposes but
never enough for medicare, child welfare, education and other social
programs?
These realities, and many more that I see in the "great country" to the
south of me, are in my judgement indecent and obscene. But, according to
the US Congress, indecency has to do only with "sexual or excretory
activites and organs."
No wonder I'm puzzled. The US Congress's "community standards" just don't
jibe with mine - and I can't understand why it's wasting its time on law
that even its proponents believe won't withstand any court challenge.
Instead, it could be putting its collective mind to cleaning up the things
that are really indecent. But then, as a non-US citizen, what do I know?
"In the life of the spirit, one is always at the beginning."
Ralph Blum, The Book of Runes
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in other words. . . mtodd@inforamp.net
Marilyn Todd Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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