Louisiana legislator Laurie Schlegel wanted porn websites to do more to protect her state’s children. Now her law is the blueprint for the rest of the country.
Bruce, at the end of the day when I read the offering and peruse these comments, that great Rodney Dangerfield joke comes to mind:
‘I went to a boxing match last night and a hockey game broke out.’
Interesting story on the porn thing but it took only five minutes to come into the usual sniping about the Crime Syndicate Senility versus the Orange Grifter. Now if they both were in a porn video together I could see the relevance to the story..
Let’s see; IRS whistleblowers, 15 or more LLC’s, family members bank records, texts, several million dollar homes on a senate salary. Let’s see them release Joe’s bank records. You can’t possibly be that naive. Dems were quite willing to impeach Trump over a phone call because of the testimony of a disgruntled martinet.
My instinct is that he is correct. Between ballot harvesting and slick election laws, coupled with outright election interference by the executive branch and outright electioneering from the current White House, do you really think your presidential vote is meaningful at this point? All those polls are for is to educate the bad actors how many Vote Blue No Matter Who ballots they are going to need to harvest. I think if this is going to be corrected it must be from the lower levels up. It will take time. In the meantime every ounce of power possible needs to be wrested from the federal government.
We already have "one-party dictatorship," at least in a medium-sized dose: the "Uniparty." It is the combine of Big Money and Big Corporate, which Republicans, Democrats, and government bureaucracies worship and salaam as if Baal. There is no real difference between donkey and elephant on where our tax money goes and how bills get written. They only use different Culture War battle plans to get us to pull lever R or D.
Except it is not one-party leadership. It is governance by unelected career bureaucrats. If they were threatened by a strong Democrat they would make sure a non-threatening Republican was elected. I see two things that would help - election integrity because all elections are governed at the state level. And a claw-back of states rights from the bumbling morass that is the federal bureaucracy. ( Rumor is that is what Paxton was up to prior to his impeachment.) That will mean the federal judiciary will have to weigh in which will take time. But the former president likely left people like me well staffed there. In the meantime everybody needs to regain control of their school boards, city councils, sheriff's, prosecutors, judges. state legislators. governors and other state elected officials. By that I do not necessarily mean wrest control from Democrats but rather wrest control from federal domination. We have too long been beholden to federal dollars. Which after all come from taxpayers. I think Mrs. Schlegel is an excellent illustration of how this can be done.
I’ve always voted third party because I believed, over time and with enough support, it would cause the big two to adopt elements of third party platforms. Then covid hit and I learned that if 51 out of 100 people vote for coercion, coercion it is then.
Good ol’ reliable Bruce. You immediately turn a great piece about protecting against pornography into your obsessional hatred of Biden and the Dems. A one-note pony, boring...
Obama saw more governorships and state houses lost under his tenure than any president in history. Now with a Supreme Court that respects the Tenth Amendment, hopefully we will have more Rep Schlegels making positive changes at the state and local level.
A strong politically committed citizen active on the local/state level will ensue a sane national leadership. (And the grounded truth/fact based national dialogue we are all seeking.)
I wish we could take half the taxes we pay to the federal government and put it back into local communities. So much more could be accomplished with a lot less corruption.
She also strikes me as a reasonable conservative--recognizing that not every adult is going to want the same restrictions as she might and not trying to force her morality on them. If more people on the right and left were like this we might still all get along.
Took less than ten minutes before someone linked this to the right-wing hysteria about LGBT people and teenagers. This law will be widely used by parents to attack LGBT people
Having witnessed the outright debauchery tolerated - indeed, celebrated - at the NYC Gay Pride Parade when I had an apartment in the West Village and the many children in attendance, I would suggest that the gay community needs to do some serious soul searching.
Do some gay people go too far at these events, sure. But definitely not the majority, who don't even go to the parade or, if they do, are with groups like the "lesbian chess club" or some such. Women parade topless at Mardi Gras or lift their shirts in exchange for beads, and I've seen public sex at spring break, but that doesn't mean all, or even most, straight people behave that way.
That's a good point, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone encouraging parents to bring their young children to Mardi Gras parades or to hang out with debauching college students at spring break. However, some in the LGBT community - and even the local media - regularly tout the local Pride parade as family friendly these days. It most assuredly is not. And good progressives, trying to signal their tolerance, proudly and happily expose their children to these very "adult" themed events.
You indicated that people were chanting that in the early '70s, but your source indicates "two years ago" from 2023, which would be 2021.
The 2021 incident came across creepy and weird. But it wasn't "protests in the streets in the '70s," it was 81 guys a couple years ago. Your comment gives the incorrect impression that there's been some decades-long plot from LGBT people. And while I agree that kids are being taught too much sexuality and gender stuff in school, I think the song was supposed to be a facetious take on the old idea that gay people "recruit children."
Edit: This seems to have a new link since I commented? There was a New York Post link before. Either way, not evidence of chanting in the '70s.
That incident was from 2023, not "the early 70's" as the previous poster claimed happened. It's simply a bad joke some overzealous "queers" made to mock conservatives who claim we are all "coming for the children". Its also arguable that those were not gay and lesbians but simply radical "queer" activists.
Does it not bother you just a little bit that on an article about protecting children from hardcore porn, your first thought is about the "dangers" to LGBT? I'm far more concerned about protecting my children FROM the LGBT cult.
Translation: “I want guys with criminal records to be allowed to wave their dicks around in the ladies room because it makes me feel enlightened and tolerant.”
Cause that is exactly what is happening in ladies' rooms all across America... I wouldn't be surprised if you really were Kevin Durant with this weak ass sauce. Great job taking a good article about a good policy and turning it into a conversation that has nothing to do with the content. I think I heard your mom calling from the kitchen. Your pizza pockets are ready...
So basically you’d like to see sexual assault that is more widespread before issuing a verdict on whether or not it is wise to allow men with a boutique sexual fetish into the ladies room?
And these are chicken taquitos, thank you very much.
I’ve never really thought of it as porn since it is mainstream Democrat policy, promoted openly by 100% of Democrats, but I guess there is substantial overlap now that you mention it.
Bullshit, Alan! Sexual exploitation of pre-teen and younger teens is despicable and if you are FOR it then you, too, are despicable!
I've seen the "Gay Pride" parades where gay sex is displayed, although simulated and not actual, and NO kid should be exposed to it. If you think otherwise then push legislation to allow kids into titty bars so that they can get used to naked women doing suggestive things. Let them believe that abuse is normal and welcomed by women.
The general anger and frustration here today is at the before hand distortion of the narrative not the topic. It is almost impossible to have a rational conversation about any subject of serious social/political concern because they have all been captured, weaponized and polarized to prevent it. The purpose of the psyop is fear and confusion while creating hysterical emotional over reaction. It is an industry paid for with American tax dollars. The citizen is forced to have the conversation on the perpetrator's
terms. It's a way of talking over the top of grounded legitimate human moral reason and preventing solutions to the problem. Nothing changes, the manufactured hyperreality stays in place and the perps keep stuffing their pockets.
(1) No one here wants children watching porn and no one here cares what consenting adults, gay or otherwise, choose as a personal lifestyle.
(2) Porn like tobacco is a billion dollar industry. And like tobacco it doesn't care who it hurts.
(3) Porn is a perfect example of the true nature of corporate reality and the willing complicity of American elected political leadership in the immoral exploitation of natural resources without consequence. In this case the child as profit center. As in discussions about the classroom, the medical/trans debacle and the unborn child we find ourselves staring into a moral vacuum.
(4) This is symptom not disease. The disease is the conscious collusion of "woke" ideological utopianism, a mercenary political electorate, the malignant narcissism of corporate criminal financiers and the DNC created Stasi style CIC surveillance state assaulting the Republic. As with the CCP, people are interchangeable parts in a machine, if they're broken the euthanasia center is just down the street.
I’m pointing out that this law will be used against gay people who are just, you know, existing as gay people. A large chunk of the population - read the comments here - cannot separate “gay” from sex and pornography. The mere existence of gay people is pornographic and therefore attackable under this law. Looks at how a large portion of the population has sexualized all drag queens, for example.
>>A large chunk of the population - read the comments here - cannot separate “gay” from sex and pornography.<<
I don't think that's true any longer. Gay is pretty mainstream these days, even where I live—in a rural, largely Trump-supporting community in upstate New York.
What I _would_ say is that trans is not mainstream. Trans is extremely controversial because it really isn't clear to what extent it's a genuine thing or a thing being pushed by a particular cultural agenda. So, to the extent that "T" can't be uncoupled from "LGB," yes, support for gay people generally may be perceived as being under attack.
When you start out a conversation by stating your sexual preference, you degrade the narrative. When you flaunt sexuality in public you're elevating a public nuisance. Are you saying these are uniquely gay traits? If so, where's the "pride" in that? You're boxing yourself into a very strange place with these comments; especially as the mainstream have come to accept gay people as "normal." Even if we don't accept that being gay has anything to do with trans or the multiple variants oddly added to LGB.
1) You elicited and abetted those comments which I suspect was your intent. 2) The comments I have seen are not really anti-gay but rather anti porn in Gay Pride parades. Do you think children should be deliberately exposed to sex acts, live or simulated, gay or otherwise? You seem to me to employ the same methodology as the porn purveyors - if it is off-limits to children it is unduly restricted. YOU are the one equating being gay to porn predilection which negates your position that gay people just want to exist (which I believe is the case). You should carefully consider whether hitching the gay team to the pornograohy wagon is wise.
Interesting, because nowhere in the article did this legislator mention gay porn at all; in fact, all of the "titles" she read seemed to deal heavily in hetero porn. And it also seems that most porn addicts are straight men or boys. The biggest profit in the porn industry by far comes from straight porn.
So exactly how will the law be used against gay people?
It depends on the definition of "displayed." There are people who flip out if two men or women even hold hands which is about as innocent as you can get in a relationship. Or if someone even MENTIONS the existence of gay people. I'm with you in that public sex in view of kids shouldn't be a thing, but that doesn't mean gay people should be hidden away and never mentioned.
It is a simple case of you don't want your shit regulated either. If the LGBTQIA++ conduct themselves in a non-sexually overt way, then all is good. Once they cross the line, becomes overtly sexual, it crosses into pornography. No one needs to see assless chaps in a Gay Pride parade. The same proud participant can wear decent clothes.
So now you are implying that public displays of sexuality and deviant behavior are solely owned by gay people? That they define them? This isn’t quite own you think it is.
Alan, I doubt many would make that distinction. Private acts should remain private. Period. That's the problem with some of the behavior tolerated - indeed flaunted - at "gay pride" events.
Is the pharmacist scanning IDs to VERIFY the identity of the individual(s) picking up hormone replacement medication(s) also a way for parents to attack LGBT people? What about when LGBT people get their IDs checked to buy alcohol or when they go through TSA security? Are “alarmist right-wing parents” also behind such security measures?
This reminds me of the hysteria over mentioning that Monkey Pox was largely being spread at group sex parties. CDC didn't want to harm the LGBT community by telling them to skip the orgies while a pandemic was going I guess.
I'm going to tell you right now that the greatest threat to the LGBT community is people who keep trying to include obviously pathological behavior like children watching porn and dangerous sex acts as part of their identity.
The comments section on FP leans a certain way (more than a little religious righty) but I wouldn’t take that as representative of society at large. It’s just selection bias.
And this lawmaker (and the law itself) is pretty clear about the age restriction, so it has no bearing on consenting adults. I don’t see a slippery slope here in general. Where there might be confluence would be regarding the subset of consent for medical gender transitions in juveniles.
Exactly! Thank you! I would hope that decent people, whether gay or straight would want to keep porn away from children. But Alan seems to be implying that porn and LGBTQ are synonymous.
TFP or Substack need to do something about these giant threads where it gets confusing to figure out who's responding to who. Like the @username symbol or something. [Shrugs]
How so? Books featuring openly gay characters and storylines are routinely blasted as pornographic. And then other commenters here have the temerity to claim I’m talking about “men in dresses waving their dicks around in ladies rooms”
The books that are objected to that I am aware of are because of depictions of explicit sex acts. I am sure there is overreach just as in the mention last week of a school district in the Toronto area pulling all books published before 2008. In the case of such overreach solutions can and should be reached. Do you think books with depictions or descriptions of sex acts, heterosexual, gay or bisexuality are okay in school books?
The recent objection to some books was due to sexually explicit graphics and descriptions of a sex act. It is critical to point out that the author of Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe, states that the book was written for adults not children. Kobabe's believes do coincide with Schlegel's idea of recongnizing the difference in an adult and child.
Books with gay characters (that are dignified, sensitive, and positively portrayed) have been published and read for years and are not "routinely blasted as pornographic".
Brava to Rep. Schlegel! It’s encouraging to see that although we have a pretty useless federal legislature, at the state level it’s possible to effect positive changes that other states notice and replicate. The Tenth Amendment is my favorite.
It’s also encouraging that as a society we’re starting to realize how harmful pornography is. Anti-porn sentiment has often been conflated with religious Puritanism, but more folks are understanding the strong secular argument against porn as well. I have no doubt determined kids and porn companies can find a workaround, but limiting the reach of this stuff is a rare public policy triumph. Thank you Rep. Schlegel!
You make an excellent point. How issues are framed is so essential. The mainstream media never does anything this good. Reading about book bans creates a feeling in one's mind. That is good journalism when you tell the truth about what is in them and allow people to decide. We have so many issues today as the population is ill-informed and directly related to the people running the major news outlets.
Framing is of course an issue, but the larger one, IMO, is the failure of discernment of the reader/viewer/listener. I mean, how often do you hear/read/watch something and say wait a minute, that makes no sense?
I don’t know if there is a strong secular argument against anything… much of what many take for granted as straightforward secular values are actually remnants of ancient Biblical worldview’s protection of women and children. Tom Holland write a fantastic book about it if you’re interested:
This is what I like best about The Free Press ... stories highlighting people who see a problem, provide a solution and who in the process remind us all that we have more in common than not. To The Free Press, bring us more of these stories; we need them. To Laurie Schlegel, thank you.
When I was a teenager working at Waldenbooks, I’d often find playboys tucked in the back shelves. Teen boys would sneak them back there to get a peek at the naked female form. It was hard to access and G rated compared to what is a click away today. God help us for what we are doing to our children.
Guilty. At about 11-14 years - at my local small town drug store not Waldenbooks - in the late 70s/early 80s. I think there were Penthouse there, too. My buddy and I would pull them from behind the plywood boards that were placed in front of the girlie mags and hide them inside a Sports Illustrated or a Road & Track while we perused the photo layouts inside. An employee (or even a customer - "What are you boys looking at? Why I should tell your mothers!") would catch us and chase us out if we lingered too long, but those few minutes were good enough for us. Playboy also used to have a page of dirty jokes, which were gold when shared with the other guys on the playground or the baseball field.
When I was 14 my future step-father entered my life and introduced me to Playboy magazine. Strangley enough, I read it for the stories. The photos were ok, but well beyond
my ability to relate or imagine what one could do with a female. Even then, I prefered a real female to look at. Now, there are real females in videos and the whole scene is different. You don't have to imagine anything.
As kids in the 70s, my friends and I would sometimes sneakily flip through a Playboy or Hustler at the corner convenience store just for giggles. How crazy to think looking at Hustler magazine was the "innocent, wholesome, good old days." The Internet will be the fall of civilization.
Free speech absolutist here, but why is it so very hard for some people to differentiate between children and adults? First amendment applies to adults. Period. Protect our kids!
Yes. And more importantly, I wish we as a nation would step back and consider WHY the First Amendment guarantees us the right to free speech:
The intent, and what matters, is to ensure that all Americans are free to express ideas and concerns regarding political issues -- we have a right to publicly protest and/or dissent against government action, or to speak out in support of proposed policies, or suggest remedies for public ills. Free Speech has nothing to do with pornography or violence; the Bill of rights was not meant to guarantee such behaviors as these -- only actual speech, free from fear of recriminations by the powerful, needs to be absolutely guaranteed. Porn isn't speech. I don't advocate prosecuting people for creating pornography, but I completely agree with many here that a) the type of pornography proliferating today is disturbing and destructive to healthy human thought & relationships; and b) it is absolutely in our interest as a society to do what we can to prevent even some (if not all) young impressionable minds from being utterly warped and scarred by the sick misogynistic violent attitudes on display in these disgusting videos.
“U.S. District Judge David Ezra recently agreed, calling Texas’s law “constitutionally problematic because it deters adults’ access to legal sexually explicit material, far beyond the interest of protecting minors.”
Looked him up and he's a Reagan appointee who served in the Marines. Maybe it's just more evidence that our gerontocracy (he's 76) is not serving us well
Oh great so he’s one of those dipshit libertarians who thinks we live in a utopia with zero rules even though we have 28,000 rules for literally everything.
Bruce - as an 86 year old woman, I detected JUST A SMIDGEN of ageism in your remark. at my age I have dispensed with ALL absorpent material if you get my drift. Indeed, I don't have a box of Depends in my nursing home closet. Yesterday while shopping at Walmart where the nursing home van stopped, I took a look at some bikini briefs (we used to call all undergarments "unmentionables" in my day - and was about to buy a pair, but unfortunately, they didn't have my color - I only wear blue to match my blue hair!
Dorothy, instead of taking offense it would be better if you recognized that there are people near your age who are clinging to power in a way that is psychotic and megalomaniacal and these folks deserve to be trashed as harshly as possible.
Kevin I did not take offense at all but thanks for the advice
comment was simply a small effort at adding some humor to the discussion. Obviously we do not share the same sense of humor. But I do suspect there is a bit of ageism ⛹️🤦 in your reply to me with comments about manipulative evil older people. Maybe you better check that out happy day to you
Laurie Schlegel is my hero. It is inconceivable to me that people who are opposed to this minor restriction can read those titles and not agree that restricting their access to children does not trump every other concern.
“If you’ve never had your first kiss but you’ve seen hardcore pornography, it’s going to mold the way you view sexuality,”
—————————————————————
Yes but I have been reliably informed by the teachers unions and MSNBC and other child molesters that you are BURNING BOOKS NAZIS if you restrict this sort of thing.
Next you’ll be telling me masks affect speech development which is a debunked MAGA conspiracy.
"anti-censorship advocates worry about privacy. They note, for example, that every driver’s license in Louisiana was recently exposed to cyberattack." - Wow, the lack of network security for a State Agency is their biggest argument. Hmmm, maybe the TSA won't require an ID to fly on a plane because their systems could be exposed to a cyberattack? Come on man! This argument is as stupid as voter ID - adults who desire to do a myriad of things adults do require proof of their age and identity.
We have so much social dysfunction in our country today. Laurie Schlegel is helping to repair that. The more difficult we make things for industries that hurt people’s self-worth, the better. If you were to google the name of a female porn star, too often you will find that she is already dead, either by accidental drug overdose or suicide. Others after they “retire” spend much time trying to get their videos removed from online sites as they were tricked into joining the industry or were abused in some way. And as for young viewers, they become confused about love, sex, interpersonal relations, and what is considered normal or pleasurable. There is no reason to make all of this easy for the porn industry or for underage consumers. Let the porn companies leave these states or implement a universal age check. Let young people be forced to subscribe to a VPN if they still want to gain access. Over time, legislation can be sponsored to make VPN users have to prove their age, too.
When porn was available only in magazines or in adult video stores, young people had very limited access. Today it is out of control and a significant contributor to mental health issues in teenagers, both male and female.
I remember the days where the local video store had a curtain behind which all the adult videos were stored--and seeing many red-faced dads walking out when someone in town recognized them.
I would point out though, that you can go Google stuff and videos will still pop up that you can access without any age verification.
If I had to guess, a lot of the companies are creating shell companies and they are changing web addresses or routing things through other locations.
I also have to ask how they are dealing with kids that use a VPN and perhaps bounce off of IP addresses in states that do not have these laws or even international sites?
I think this is a good first step but I am convinced, as someone who has worked in IT for almost 30 yrs, that the only way we are going to get a lot of what goes on on line under control is to regulate access to the internet generally and force internet providers to filter content based on age. There really does need to be some version of a license to access information online, one for adults and one for kids. Maybe we even need 3 levels, children, adolescents and adults. Personally, I do not think that anyone under 18 should be allowed to access the internet anonymously. And I am not sure that all aspects of the internet, to include social media, should be allowed to be used anonymously. For those that worry that this is a dangerous idea, I will tell you that you are already not anonymous when online, your IP provider knows exactly where you have gone, your searches are tracked and maintained. Most sites archive everything you ever say or do. That is one reason we need such large data centers and so many of them. We might well get a better internet and have a better society if we stopped pretending that the internet, for all the sense of anonymity it seems to give, is really a public forum.
Let’s say one agrees, in principle, that people should not be able to access the internet anonymously... My question is who can be trusted to do the regulating but also not violate privacy, and more importantly, limit speech? The government certainly can’t be trusted with those responsibilities? Is this a job for the crypto space?
That said, we have found ways to rate movies, music and even books. Is it perfect? Nope. Nothing is gonna be perfect. And yes we would have to give a lot of thought to how we would implement anything. Not gonna do that between the two of us on a chat forum. Gonna take a lot of work and a lot debate.
That said, I think that most of us would agree that there is a lot that goes on and gets said on the internet that is highly destructive to our social order. Anonymity seems to have brought out the worst in a lot of people. It is easy to say and do things that you would never ever do if your name and reputation were on the line.
Are there instances where that can be a positive? Sure. But on the whole I think it has lead to extremism and destructive behavior such as online bullying.
I am also convinced that no child should be legally able to carry a smart phone. They need to be able to call and text their friends and guardians, they need to be able to perhaps take photos, but they do NOT need social media or the internet. Their parents need to be able to track them and reach them. Maybe they should be able to have downloaded music. Again, on balance, smart phones have proven to be a negative for kids. Heck, we could argue they are negative for adults but adults at least should have the maturity to handle it.
The phone companies and app dev companies will freak out, but I think it would be, on balance, the best move for the country and our kids.
I can agree with a lot of your points, but rating movies, etc, is a far cry from the kind of real regulation - on all of our lives, in a deep manner - you’re speaking of. You’re right that it’s not perfect, and nothing ever will be, but with the goal of being more perfect in mind, it seems that our institutions and related bodies seem to trend towards more corruption. This is disturbing because it makes the question of doing real regulations more and more tenuous. There is little we can find common ground and agree upon in society today, and there are myriad opportunities for nay-sayers to ruin progress and corrupt/destroy institutions, etc that have been well-thought out and well intentioned.
Movie ratings, at the end of the day, are, to me, a clear case of both corruption of the intent (forces in the movie industry gaming for the ratings that will help their bottom line), as well as being an instinct that the public doesn’t care about very much. When we deal with the all-pervasive monolith that is “the internet”, there will be far more voices ringing into the system.
I’m for Internet freedom until there is a trustless way to regulate that doesn’t interfere with our core values (speech, privacy, etc), that is not easily corrupted, and in the case corruption occurs, the system can be patched in an equally trustless, transparent way, keeping the core values always at paramount.
That being said, this type of legislation seems very pragmatic, given our current circumstances and the harms (borderline atrocities) being committed specifically at youth, not only by porn, but by smart phones and current internet business incentives, etc, etc.
They work as far as giving a bit of a warning about the content, certainly in the case of porn, but arguably much less so in terms of other content. Ratings have no bearing on access to the material in the current world, which is part of the reason I don’t see the same parallel you’re drawing in your argument. Movie ratings would have worked pretty well in 1910 and 1990, but not in 2010 and certainly will not in 2090, if we’re still here.
I think you seriously underestimate the power of those rating systems. Content is very heavily impacted if for no other reason than standards were instilled by decades now of studios abiding by the rules.
And put a safety app in your kid’s phone, like BARK. I’ve caught other kids sending porn to my kids this way. And yes I know the kids can get around it but at least make it hard for them to access anything like porn.
So true. I had a conversation with my husband last night. This morning I've been inundated with ads from various companies trying to sell me variations of the object of my discussion! Crazy! They are listening to Everything!
There was an attempt several years ago to require all adult web sites to use the .xxx extension which would have made filtering them a lot easier. It obviously didn't go anywhere.
> I also have to ask how they are dealing with kids that use a VPN and perhaps bounce off of IP addresses in states that do not have these laws or even international sites?
VPNs are rare. I use one, but it's like less than 5% of people who are tech-savvy enough to know how to use it, to go through the motions of doing it, to be able to actually buy it (parents credit card?), etc. And I'd expect the younger generation to know much less about computers/internet than Millennials do, simply because it's *there* and convenient.
How fast will they figure it out once they know that it will allow them to get to what they want?
Teens have lots of time to talk to one another and do research and to figure out ways to get to where they want to be. Kinda like how we used to get beer when we were 17 or 18, we found ways to get IDs or find someone to buy for us or we copped our parents stuff.
What was great about this article is that it showed a serious issue and a serious politician who wants to solve it. We have so many clowns on both sides of the aisle. From Trump to Kamala Harris, AOC, and MTG, politicians are dumb as a box of rocks and get publicity because of it. This article showed another side that tells an ordinary woman with a passion going into politics to make a difference. Rep. Schlegel didn't have a messianic message but saw an issue, shared what she felt about it, researched, and pursuaded. Yes, the porn industry will balk, and people will complain about putting a driver's license number on a website. If that prevents you from doing something as an adult, the person has more significant problems. Yes, kids should not be looking at these images, and thanks to Rep. Schlegel for that. But also, thank you for being an adult with passion, intellect, and character, which gives me hope when dealing with the awful people I have to watch and read about daily.
Now this is what an elected official is supposed to do. Protect and make her constituents lives better. If only more elected officials would do the same. Porn is a proven sickness and needs to be regulated to prevent it from reaching minors. IMHO I see no use for it what-so-ever.
Long road ahead, for sure. And, a fight worth fighting. Am especially impressed by the consideration noted for the "other side". Informed dialogue, and willingness to understand the other side, is a vital generosity so rarely observed of late. Well stated, well written, and agreed with the blueprint description. Well deserved. Thanks to the author and to the congresswoman. Sending you strength for the next steps on your path.
Proof positive that one person can, indeed, make a difference. Well done, Laurie Schlegel.
This is what I mean when I say we need to stop voting in presidential elections, but instead focus on our local communities:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-we-need-to-stop-voting-in-presidential
Great work by Laurie in LA and thanks to the FP for covering this story!
Stop voting in presidential elections? Sure, we need more senile, corrupt imbeciles setting our national policy.
Or megalomaniac grifters who incite sedition.
We'll put you down as having voted for a lifelong grifter who presides over the Biden Crime syndicate.
Bruce, at the end of the day when I read the offering and peruse these comments, that great Rodney Dangerfield joke comes to mind:
‘I went to a boxing match last night and a hockey game broke out.’
Interesting story on the porn thing but it took only five minutes to come into the usual sniping about the Crime Syndicate Senility versus the Orange Grifter. Now if they both were in a porn video together I could see the relevance to the story..
Funny comment, Lee.
But my comment was directed to the claim that we should stop voting in presidential elections. I doubt you'd agree.
"Now if they both were in a porn video together I could see the relevance to the story.."
Dear God I need mental bleach for that ; D
Amen!
Thanks for attempting to get us back to the point. Don't think it will work, though.
No, put me down for a guy who voted for a decent human being named Mitt Romney, but I know you preferred the egomaniac grifter who incited sedition.
Funny that Trump was never charged with sedition in any court. Why is that?
Even as you swoon for Willard the Rat. Who made millions by killing the jobs of hardworking Americans.
We all voted for Romney in 2012, when he was a Republican. Now he’s Liz Cheney with more family money.
You mean the man who told his supporters to go “peacefully and patriotically” to the capitol? Don’t see where he ever told people to riot.
First we do NOT know if or what crimes Biden has done so this is a pointless comment.
Let’s see; IRS whistleblowers, 15 or more LLC’s, family members bank records, texts, several million dollar homes on a senate salary. Let’s see them release Joe’s bank records. You can’t possibly be that naive. Dems were quite willing to impeach Trump over a phone call because of the testimony of a disgruntled martinet.
You haven't read much history, have you?
No need to answer. If you say anything but no, I won't believe you, because that is an astonishingly ignorant thing to say.
My instinct is that he is correct. Between ballot harvesting and slick election laws, coupled with outright election interference by the executive branch and outright electioneering from the current White House, do you really think your presidential vote is meaningful at this point? All those polls are for is to educate the bad actors how many Vote Blue No Matter Who ballots they are going to need to harvest. I think if this is going to be corrected it must be from the lower levels up. It will take time. In the meantime every ounce of power possible needs to be wrested from the federal government.
I'm afraid it is too late for anything that will take time. The threat of a one-party dictatorship in the United States is imminent.
We already have "one-party dictatorship," at least in a medium-sized dose: the "Uniparty." It is the combine of Big Money and Big Corporate, which Republicans, Democrats, and government bureaucracies worship and salaam as if Baal. There is no real difference between donkey and elephant on where our tax money goes and how bills get written. They only use different Culture War battle plans to get us to pull lever R or D.
I agree. All the while milking the American populace for everything it is worth and instilling fear about any candidate who threatens their power.
Except it is not one-party leadership. It is governance by unelected career bureaucrats. If they were threatened by a strong Democrat they would make sure a non-threatening Republican was elected. I see two things that would help - election integrity because all elections are governed at the state level. And a claw-back of states rights from the bumbling morass that is the federal bureaucracy. ( Rumor is that is what Paxton was up to prior to his impeachment.) That will mean the federal judiciary will have to weigh in which will take time. But the former president likely left people like me well staffed there. In the meantime everybody needs to regain control of their school boards, city councils, sheriff's, prosecutors, judges. state legislators. governors and other state elected officials. By that I do not necessarily mean wrest control from Democrats but rather wrest control from federal domination. We have too long been beholden to federal dollars. Which after all come from taxpayers. I think Mrs. Schlegel is an excellent illustration of how this can be done.
This is a great post!
Stopping voting sends a clear message to both Party's.
However I would think it more pertinent to vote a 3rd party.
Not choosing between two idiots anymore. My vote is my consent and I don’t consent. I’m out.
Definitely vote third party
I’ve always voted third party because I believed, over time and with enough support, it would cause the big two to adopt elements of third party platforms. Then covid hit and I learned that if 51 out of 100 people vote for coercion, coercion it is then.
Small and local is the only way.
Good ol’ reliable Bruce. You immediately turn a great piece about protecting against pornography into your obsessional hatred of Biden and the Dems. A one-note pony, boring...
If you had the wit to follow an argument, I was replying to a comment that suggested we stop voting in presidential elections.
I agree that local elections are super-important.
But so are national elections.
Obama saw more governorships and state houses lost under his tenure than any president in history. Now with a Supreme Court that respects the Tenth Amendment, hopefully we will have more Rep Schlegels making positive changes at the state and local level.
Reading this I was thinking Lousiana ought to send her to Congress. Much as I hate to wish that on her.
Yeah, no. She’ll be swallowed up by puppet party protocol. She’ll be better off running for Governor, imo.
Hope things are well.
They are? You?
Not bad..
A strong politically committed citizen active on the local/state level will ensue a sane national leadership. (And the grounded truth/fact based national dialogue we are all seeking.)
I wish we could take half the taxes we pay to the federal government and put it back into local communities. So much more could be accomplished with a lot less corruption.
She also strikes me as a reasonable conservative--recognizing that not every adult is going to want the same restrictions as she might and not trying to force her morality on them. If more people on the right and left were like this we might still all get along.
“You can either have a dead child or a Pornhub child.”
-porn executive somewhere
Lol
Took less than ten minutes before someone linked this to the right-wing hysteria about LGBT people and teenagers. This law will be widely used by parents to attack LGBT people
"This law will be widely used by parents to attack LGBT people."
Pray tell how? But we'll put you down as being fine with 10 year olds watching snuff videos.
Did you like how he called other people hysterical and then 0.6 seconds later he wrote
“THIS PORN RESTRICTION WILL RESULT IN LGBT ATTACKS AAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!”
😂😂😂
Hysteria will get you everywhere. Especially around here..
My thoughts, exactly. Attacking LGBT is quite a stretch.
Alan is the only one lumping LBGT in with porn. Do you think he believes LBGT is porn and that is why he is so upset?
Having witnessed the outright debauchery tolerated - indeed, celebrated - at the NYC Gay Pride Parade when I had an apartment in the West Village and the many children in attendance, I would suggest that the gay community needs to do some serious soul searching.
Do some gay people go too far at these events, sure. But definitely not the majority, who don't even go to the parade or, if they do, are with groups like the "lesbian chess club" or some such. Women parade topless at Mardi Gras or lift their shirts in exchange for beads, and I've seen public sex at spring break, but that doesn't mean all, or even most, straight people behave that way.
That's a good point, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone encouraging parents to bring their young children to Mardi Gras parades or to hang out with debauching college students at spring break. However, some in the LGBT community - and even the local media - regularly tout the local Pride parade as family friendly these days. It most assuredly is not. And good progressives, trying to signal their tolerance, proudly and happily expose their children to these very "adult" themed events.
Never happen. "serious soul searching" that is.
Good, and no snuff films either.
Just remember the early 70s after Stone Wall, the protests in the streets.
“We are here, we are queer, and we want your children “
So yes, there is a direct link to LBT folks pursuing our children.
Is there a source you could direct me to for "we want your children"? Thanks in advance.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/24/new-york-city-lgbt-activists-chant-coming-for-your-kids/
Watch and weep for our children. Children should be shielded from these people.
You indicated that people were chanting that in the early '70s, but your source indicates "two years ago" from 2023, which would be 2021.
The 2021 incident came across creepy and weird. But it wasn't "protests in the streets in the '70s," it was 81 guys a couple years ago. Your comment gives the incorrect impression that there's been some decades-long plot from LGBT people. And while I agree that kids are being taught too much sexuality and gender stuff in school, I think the song was supposed to be a facetious take on the old idea that gay people "recruit children."
Edit: This seems to have a new link since I commented? There was a New York Post link before. Either way, not evidence of chanting in the '70s.
That incident was from 2023, not "the early 70's" as the previous poster claimed happened. It's simply a bad joke some overzealous "queers" made to mock conservatives who claim we are all "coming for the children". Its also arguable that those were not gay and lesbians but simply radical "queer" activists.
Can you explain your logic here, Alan Miles?
My LGBT friends are not advocates of giving children access to porn. I don't think they would be upset by this bill.
Exactly
Does it not bother you just a little bit that on an article about protecting children from hardcore porn, your first thought is about the "dangers" to LGBT? I'm far more concerned about protecting my children FROM the LGBT cult.
Bingo Aaron...solved.thanks.
As long as LGBTQIA++ people flaunt their sexuality publicly they can expect pushback, and deservedly so!
Translation: “as long as gay people are gay, they can expect pushback”
Translation: “I want guys with criminal records to be allowed to wave their dicks around in the ladies room because it makes me feel enlightened and tolerant.”
....and you must shut up and like it
Guys? I’m more worried about the girls with criminal records scaring the shit out of the kids with dicks.
Cause that is exactly what is happening in ladies' rooms all across America... I wouldn't be surprised if you really were Kevin Durant with this weak ass sauce. Great job taking a good article about a good policy and turning it into a conversation that has nothing to do with the content. I think I heard your mom calling from the kitchen. Your pizza pockets are ready...
So basically you’d like to see sexual assault that is more widespread before issuing a verdict on whether or not it is wise to allow men with a boutique sexual fetish into the ladies room?
And these are chicken taquitos, thank you very much.
Boebert doesn't even wait to get to the ladies room to grope a dick while flashing her boobs. What a freaking hypocrite!
Mike’s powerful argument about Boebert being a slut has caused me to reconsider my opposition to systematic child sexual abuse by Democrats.
🤡🤡🤡
Interesting insight into the kind of porn you consume. Not really my thing
I’ve never really thought of it as porn since it is mainstream Democrat policy, promoted openly by 100% of Democrats, but I guess there is substantial overlap now that you mention it.
Bullshit, Alan! Sexual exploitation of pre-teen and younger teens is despicable and if you are FOR it then you, too, are despicable!
I've seen the "Gay Pride" parades where gay sex is displayed, although simulated and not actual, and NO kid should be exposed to it. If you think otherwise then push legislation to allow kids into titty bars so that they can get used to naked women doing suggestive things. Let them believe that abuse is normal and welcomed by women.
Gay sex and hetero sex are much the same.
The general anger and frustration here today is at the before hand distortion of the narrative not the topic. It is almost impossible to have a rational conversation about any subject of serious social/political concern because they have all been captured, weaponized and polarized to prevent it. The purpose of the psyop is fear and confusion while creating hysterical emotional over reaction. It is an industry paid for with American tax dollars. The citizen is forced to have the conversation on the perpetrator's
terms. It's a way of talking over the top of grounded legitimate human moral reason and preventing solutions to the problem. Nothing changes, the manufactured hyperreality stays in place and the perps keep stuffing their pockets.
(1) No one here wants children watching porn and no one here cares what consenting adults, gay or otherwise, choose as a personal lifestyle.
(2) Porn like tobacco is a billion dollar industry. And like tobacco it doesn't care who it hurts.
(3) Porn is a perfect example of the true nature of corporate reality and the willing complicity of American elected political leadership in the immoral exploitation of natural resources without consequence. In this case the child as profit center. As in discussions about the classroom, the medical/trans debacle and the unborn child we find ourselves staring into a moral vacuum.
(4) This is symptom not disease. The disease is the conscious collusion of "woke" ideological utopianism, a mercenary political electorate, the malignant narcissism of corporate criminal financiers and the DNC created Stasi style CIC surveillance state assaulting the Republic. As with the CCP, people are interchangeable parts in a machine, if they're broken the euthanasia center is just down the street.
Got Constitution?
I’m pointing out that this law will be used against gay people who are just, you know, existing as gay people. A large chunk of the population - read the comments here - cannot separate “gay” from sex and pornography. The mere existence of gay people is pornographic and therefore attackable under this law. Looks at how a large portion of the population has sexualized all drag queens, for example.
>>A large chunk of the population - read the comments here - cannot separate “gay” from sex and pornography.<<
I don't think that's true any longer. Gay is pretty mainstream these days, even where I live—in a rural, largely Trump-supporting community in upstate New York.
What I _would_ say is that trans is not mainstream. Trans is extremely controversial because it really isn't clear to what extent it's a genuine thing or a thing being pushed by a particular cultural agenda. So, to the extent that "T" can't be uncoupled from "LGB," yes, support for gay people generally may be perceived as being under attack.
When you start out a conversation by stating your sexual preference, you degrade the narrative. When you flaunt sexuality in public you're elevating a public nuisance. Are you saying these are uniquely gay traits? If so, where's the "pride" in that? You're boxing yourself into a very strange place with these comments; especially as the mainstream have come to accept gay people as "normal." Even if we don't accept that being gay has anything to do with trans or the multiple variants oddly added to LGB.
1) You elicited and abetted those comments which I suspect was your intent. 2) The comments I have seen are not really anti-gay but rather anti porn in Gay Pride parades. Do you think children should be deliberately exposed to sex acts, live or simulated, gay or otherwise? You seem to me to employ the same methodology as the porn purveyors - if it is off-limits to children it is unduly restricted. YOU are the one equating being gay to porn predilection which negates your position that gay people just want to exist (which I believe is the case). You should carefully consider whether hitching the gay team to the pornograohy wagon is wise.
You are the person that cannot seperate gay from pornography.
Interesting, because nowhere in the article did this legislator mention gay porn at all; in fact, all of the "titles" she read seemed to deal heavily in hetero porn. And it also seems that most porn addicts are straight men or boys. The biggest profit in the porn industry by far comes from straight porn.
So exactly how will the law be used against gay people?
You think everyone is dumb.
Except you.
I get it, I see people like you online all the time
So much smarter than all the rest of us.
It depends on the definition of "displayed." There are people who flip out if two men or women even hold hands which is about as innocent as you can get in a relationship. Or if someone even MENTIONS the existence of gay people. I'm with you in that public sex in view of kids shouldn't be a thing, but that doesn't mean gay people should be hidden away and never mentioned.
Most Asian countrys men hold hands a lot of the time.......they are not all gay.
It is a simple case of you don't want your shit regulated either. If the LGBTQIA++ conduct themselves in a non-sexually overt way, then all is good. Once they cross the line, becomes overtly sexual, it crosses into pornography. No one needs to see assless chaps in a Gay Pride parade. The same proud participant can wear decent clothes.
just a comment, cuz it somewhat is a pet peeve...pretty much all chaps are assless, it ain't just a sex thing.
Chaps are meant to protect rider's legs on horseback, their ass mostly is on the saddle and don't need no more protection.
(steps off the pedantic soapbox)
Dude in the parade will have significantly worse saddle sores than the denim protected cowboy.
So now you are implying that public displays of sexuality and deviant behavior are solely owned by gay people? That they define them? This isn’t quite own you think it is.
Are you denying that a straight couple making out in public is treated differently than a gay couple doing exactly the same thing?
Alan, I doubt many would make that distinction. Private acts should remain private. Period. That's the problem with some of the behavior tolerated - indeed flaunted - at "gay pride" events.
That is not what is being discussed and you know it. PDA’s and simulated sex acts in public are hardly the same thing.
Alan, define making out. What you think is acceptable might not be an issue. Sex and nudity isn't making out.
Yes. Yes I am.
That's just YOUR INTERPRETATION, Alan. Don't worry, nobody is coming after your porn collection...
No. You are wrong.
BS
Is the pharmacist scanning IDs to VERIFY the identity of the individual(s) picking up hormone replacement medication(s) also a way for parents to attack LGBT people? What about when LGBT people get their IDs checked to buy alcohol or when they go through TSA security? Are “alarmist right-wing parents” also behind such security measures?
How about we all stay on point and keep the focus on CHILDREN?
Thsnk you. I t doesn't take long until someone derails the discussion with a side issue and it morphs into politics.
This reminds me of the hysteria over mentioning that Monkey Pox was largely being spread at group sex parties. CDC didn't want to harm the LGBT community by telling them to skip the orgies while a pandemic was going I guess.
I'm going to tell you right now that the greatest threat to the LGBT community is people who keep trying to include obviously pathological behavior like children watching porn and dangerous sex acts as part of their identity.
The comments section on FP leans a certain way (more than a little religious righty) but I wouldn’t take that as representative of society at large. It’s just selection bias.
And this lawmaker (and the law itself) is pretty clear about the age restriction, so it has no bearing on consenting adults. I don’t see a slippery slope here in general. Where there might be confluence would be regarding the subset of consent for medical gender transitions in juveniles.
Yay! Logic.
I rarely see any religious references from anyone on here, no matter the politics
You do realize that you are indirectly condemning LGBT people, don’t you?
You do realize you are trying to intimidate people into silence, don’t you?
iCBW but I think Contrarian was addressing Alan. Alan is who equated LGBTQ with porn.
Exactly! Thank you! I would hope that decent people, whether gay or straight would want to keep porn away from children. But Alan seems to be implying that porn and LGBTQ are synonymous.
TFP or Substack need to do something about these giant threads where it gets confusing to figure out who's responding to who. Like the @username symbol or something. [Shrugs]
That would be nice. But I guess 350,000 and counting takes priority. But I do think the comments are part of what drives the popularity.
How so? Books featuring openly gay characters and storylines are routinely blasted as pornographic. And then other commenters here have the temerity to claim I’m talking about “men in dresses waving their dicks around in ladies rooms”
Because some of them are.
Yes but they are being blasted!!! We must stop the book blasting, Contrarian!!!
(NOTE: ‘blasting’ refers to the process of opening the books Alan is trying to show children and pointing at the pornography)
Alan is conflating age inappropriate with pornographic. Projecting a lot of shit on heteros.
I’ve lost track of how you think I’m indirectly condemning gay people and who the “them” refers to here
The books that are objected to that I am aware of are because of depictions of explicit sex acts. I am sure there is overreach just as in the mention last week of a school district in the Toronto area pulling all books published before 2008. In the case of such overreach solutions can and should be reached. Do you think books with depictions or descriptions of sex acts, heterosexual, gay or bisexuality are okay in school books?
The recent objection to some books was due to sexually explicit graphics and descriptions of a sex act. It is critical to point out that the author of Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe, states that the book was written for adults not children. Kobabe's believes do coincide with Schlegel's idea of recongnizing the difference in an adult and child.
Books with gay characters (that are dignified, sensitive, and positively portrayed) have been published and read for years and are not "routinely blasted as pornographic".
Is this what you are referring to? The book which was found in middle school libraries: https://images.axios.com/ikUsvFe2IztgzuhgInLbFG766b4=/0x0:1920x1080/1366x768/2022/08/04/1659652294159.png?w=1366
I did a page search on hysteria and you are the only one using it.
I support your Constitutional right to sex up the kids, Alan.
Alan, you are part of the problem.
For God’s sake Alan.
KD? referenced an argument. You made the leap.
As it should, if that's what LGBT chooses to be.
🤣🤣priceless
Brava to Rep. Schlegel! It’s encouraging to see that although we have a pretty useless federal legislature, at the state level it’s possible to effect positive changes that other states notice and replicate. The Tenth Amendment is my favorite.
It’s also encouraging that as a society we’re starting to realize how harmful pornography is. Anti-porn sentiment has often been conflated with religious Puritanism, but more folks are understanding the strong secular argument against porn as well. I have no doubt determined kids and porn companies can find a workaround, but limiting the reach of this stuff is a rare public policy triumph. Thank you Rep. Schlegel!
You make an excellent point. How issues are framed is so essential. The mainstream media never does anything this good. Reading about book bans creates a feeling in one's mind. That is good journalism when you tell the truth about what is in them and allow people to decide. We have so many issues today as the population is ill-informed and directly related to the people running the major news outlets.
Framing is of course an issue, but the larger one, IMO, is the failure of discernment of the reader/viewer/listener. I mean, how often do you hear/read/watch something and say wait a minute, that makes no sense?
Bingo! Get off MSM, Facebook and Social media - get back to church and community, we will all be better off!
I don’t know if there is a strong secular argument against anything… much of what many take for granted as straightforward secular values are actually remnants of ancient Biblical worldview’s protection of women and children. Tom Holland write a fantastic book about it if you’re interested:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/dont-be-a-normie
But that’s semantics I suppose - thank you for supporting the fight against evil!
Great article thanks for posting.
Thanks!
I think the 10th is going to have to be used to protect the others.
This is what I like best about The Free Press ... stories highlighting people who see a problem, provide a solution and who in the process remind us all that we have more in common than not. To The Free Press, bring us more of these stories; we need them. To Laurie Schlegel, thank you.
When I was a teenager working at Waldenbooks, I’d often find playboys tucked in the back shelves. Teen boys would sneak them back there to get a peek at the naked female form. It was hard to access and G rated compared to what is a click away today. God help us for what we are doing to our children.
There was a time when showing Mons pubis was off limits in Playboy. I can’t imagine the sick minds that produce this garbage.
Guilty. At about 11-14 years - at my local small town drug store not Waldenbooks - in the late 70s/early 80s. I think there were Penthouse there, too. My buddy and I would pull them from behind the plywood boards that were placed in front of the girlie mags and hide them inside a Sports Illustrated or a Road & Track while we perused the photo layouts inside. An employee (or even a customer - "What are you boys looking at? Why I should tell your mothers!") would catch us and chase us out if we lingered too long, but those few minutes were good enough for us. Playboy also used to have a page of dirty jokes, which were gold when shared with the other guys on the playground or the baseball field.
When I was 14 my future step-father entered my life and introduced me to Playboy magazine. Strangley enough, I read it for the stories. The photos were ok, but well beyond
my ability to relate or imagine what one could do with a female. Even then, I prefered a real female to look at. Now, there are real females in videos and the whole scene is different. You don't have to imagine anything.
As kids in the 70s, my friends and I would sometimes sneakily flip through a Playboy or Hustler at the corner convenience store just for giggles. How crazy to think looking at Hustler magazine was the "innocent, wholesome, good old days." The Internet will be the fall of civilization.
Free speech absolutist here, but why is it so very hard for some people to differentiate between children and adults? First amendment applies to adults. Period. Protect our kids!
Yes. And more importantly, I wish we as a nation would step back and consider WHY the First Amendment guarantees us the right to free speech:
The intent, and what matters, is to ensure that all Americans are free to express ideas and concerns regarding political issues -- we have a right to publicly protest and/or dissent against government action, or to speak out in support of proposed policies, or suggest remedies for public ills. Free Speech has nothing to do with pornography or violence; the Bill of rights was not meant to guarantee such behaviors as these -- only actual speech, free from fear of recriminations by the powerful, needs to be absolutely guaranteed. Porn isn't speech. I don't advocate prosecuting people for creating pornography, but I completely agree with many here that a) the type of pornography proliferating today is disturbing and destructive to healthy human thought & relationships; and b) it is absolutely in our interest as a society to do what we can to prevent even some (if not all) young impressionable minds from being utterly warped and scarred by the sick misogynistic violent attitudes on display in these disgusting videos.
I think we have left it to late , how do you get the kids off their phones and iPads?
Take them away!
The parents will have to remove them. Of course that may lead to parenticide.
“U.S. District Judge David Ezra recently agreed, calling Texas’s law “constitutionally problematic because it deters adults’ access to legal sexually explicit material, far beyond the interest of protecting minors.”
———————————————————-
I bet this guy’s browser history is terrifying.
Looked him up and he's a Reagan appointee who served in the Marines. Maybe it's just more evidence that our gerontocracy (he's 76) is not serving us well
Oh great so he’s one of those dipshit libertarians who thinks we live in a utopia with zero rules even though we have 28,000 rules for literally everything.
Who knows if he even thinks beyond his next Depends change.
Bruce - as an 86 year old woman, I detected JUST A SMIDGEN of ageism in your remark. at my age I have dispensed with ALL absorpent material if you get my drift. Indeed, I don't have a box of Depends in my nursing home closet. Yesterday while shopping at Walmart where the nursing home van stopped, I took a look at some bikini briefs (we used to call all undergarments "unmentionables" in my day - and was about to buy a pair, but unfortunately, they didn't have my color - I only wear blue to match my blue hair!
Dorothy, instead of taking offense it would be better if you recognized that there are people near your age who are clinging to power in a way that is psychotic and megalomaniacal and these folks deserve to be trashed as harshly as possible.
Thank you for retiring like a normal person.
Kevin I did not take offense at all but thanks for the advice
comment was simply a small effort at adding some humor to the discussion. Obviously we do not share the same sense of humor. But I do suspect there is a bit of ageism ⛹️🤦 in your reply to me with comments about manipulative evil older people. Maybe you better check that out happy day to you
Such witty repartee. I love it
I do, too. And apologies for lumping you in with those relics.
But you have to admit that between Biden rambling incoherently and Mitch short circuiting, there's a serious problem with our leadership class.
🤣🤣🤣
I bet he and the ever senile Joe have Depends stories they can swap.
Better tp wear Depends than to wet the bed.
True.
Tis better to have failed you Wasserman than to never loved at all.
The most rational response in over four hundred of them here.
Or worse - see Nadler, Jerry.
Laurie Schlegel is my hero. It is inconceivable to me that people who are opposed to this minor restriction can read those titles and not agree that restricting their access to children does not trump every other concern.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. This is why “book banners” need to read filthy books at school board meetings
I couldn’t agree more.
“If you’ve never had your first kiss but you’ve seen hardcore pornography, it’s going to mold the way you view sexuality,”
—————————————————————
Yes but I have been reliably informed by the teachers unions and MSNBC and other child molesters that you are BURNING BOOKS NAZIS if you restrict this sort of thing.
Next you’ll be telling me masks affect speech development which is a debunked MAGA conspiracy.
I’m reporting this to the local magistrate.
"anti-censorship advocates worry about privacy. They note, for example, that every driver’s license in Louisiana was recently exposed to cyberattack." - Wow, the lack of network security for a State Agency is their biggest argument. Hmmm, maybe the TSA won't require an ID to fly on a plane because their systems could be exposed to a cyberattack? Come on man! This argument is as stupid as voter ID - adults who desire to do a myriad of things adults do require proof of their age and identity.
We have so much social dysfunction in our country today. Laurie Schlegel is helping to repair that. The more difficult we make things for industries that hurt people’s self-worth, the better. If you were to google the name of a female porn star, too often you will find that she is already dead, either by accidental drug overdose or suicide. Others after they “retire” spend much time trying to get their videos removed from online sites as they were tricked into joining the industry or were abused in some way. And as for young viewers, they become confused about love, sex, interpersonal relations, and what is considered normal or pleasurable. There is no reason to make all of this easy for the porn industry or for underage consumers. Let the porn companies leave these states or implement a universal age check. Let young people be forced to subscribe to a VPN if they still want to gain access. Over time, legislation can be sponsored to make VPN users have to prove their age, too.
When porn was available only in magazines or in adult video stores, young people had very limited access. Today it is out of control and a significant contributor to mental health issues in teenagers, both male and female.
I remember the days where the local video store had a curtain behind which all the adult videos were stored--and seeing many red-faced dads walking out when someone in town recognized them.
Good for her! Nice job.
I would point out though, that you can go Google stuff and videos will still pop up that you can access without any age verification.
If I had to guess, a lot of the companies are creating shell companies and they are changing web addresses or routing things through other locations.
I also have to ask how they are dealing with kids that use a VPN and perhaps bounce off of IP addresses in states that do not have these laws or even international sites?
I think this is a good first step but I am convinced, as someone who has worked in IT for almost 30 yrs, that the only way we are going to get a lot of what goes on on line under control is to regulate access to the internet generally and force internet providers to filter content based on age. There really does need to be some version of a license to access information online, one for adults and one for kids. Maybe we even need 3 levels, children, adolescents and adults. Personally, I do not think that anyone under 18 should be allowed to access the internet anonymously. And I am not sure that all aspects of the internet, to include social media, should be allowed to be used anonymously. For those that worry that this is a dangerous idea, I will tell you that you are already not anonymous when online, your IP provider knows exactly where you have gone, your searches are tracked and maintained. Most sites archive everything you ever say or do. That is one reason we need such large data centers and so many of them. We might well get a better internet and have a better society if we stopped pretending that the internet, for all the sense of anonymity it seems to give, is really a public forum.
Let’s say one agrees, in principle, that people should not be able to access the internet anonymously... My question is who can be trusted to do the regulating but also not violate privacy, and more importantly, limit speech? The government certainly can’t be trusted with those responsibilities? Is this a job for the crypto space?
Believe me, I have similar concerns.
That said, we have found ways to rate movies, music and even books. Is it perfect? Nope. Nothing is gonna be perfect. And yes we would have to give a lot of thought to how we would implement anything. Not gonna do that between the two of us on a chat forum. Gonna take a lot of work and a lot debate.
That said, I think that most of us would agree that there is a lot that goes on and gets said on the internet that is highly destructive to our social order. Anonymity seems to have brought out the worst in a lot of people. It is easy to say and do things that you would never ever do if your name and reputation were on the line.
Are there instances where that can be a positive? Sure. But on the whole I think it has lead to extremism and destructive behavior such as online bullying.
I am also convinced that no child should be legally able to carry a smart phone. They need to be able to call and text their friends and guardians, they need to be able to perhaps take photos, but they do NOT need social media or the internet. Their parents need to be able to track them and reach them. Maybe they should be able to have downloaded music. Again, on balance, smart phones have proven to be a negative for kids. Heck, we could argue they are negative for adults but adults at least should have the maturity to handle it.
The phone companies and app dev companies will freak out, but I think it would be, on balance, the best move for the country and our kids.
I can agree with a lot of your points, but rating movies, etc, is a far cry from the kind of real regulation - on all of our lives, in a deep manner - you’re speaking of. You’re right that it’s not perfect, and nothing ever will be, but with the goal of being more perfect in mind, it seems that our institutions and related bodies seem to trend towards more corruption. This is disturbing because it makes the question of doing real regulations more and more tenuous. There is little we can find common ground and agree upon in society today, and there are myriad opportunities for nay-sayers to ruin progress and corrupt/destroy institutions, etc that have been well-thought out and well intentioned.
Movie ratings, at the end of the day, are, to me, a clear case of both corruption of the intent (forces in the movie industry gaming for the ratings that will help their bottom line), as well as being an instinct that the public doesn’t care about very much. When we deal with the all-pervasive monolith that is “the internet”, there will be far more voices ringing into the system.
I’m for Internet freedom until there is a trustless way to regulate that doesn’t interfere with our core values (speech, privacy, etc), that is not easily corrupted, and in the case corruption occurs, the system can be patched in an equally trustless, transparent way, keeping the core values always at paramount.
That being said, this type of legislation seems very pragmatic, given our current circumstances and the harms (borderline atrocities) being committed specifically at youth, not only by porn, but by smart phones and current internet business incentives, etc, etc.
But film/TV ratings do work otherwise porn would be as ubiquitous in theaters and television screens as it is on the internet.
They work as far as giving a bit of a warning about the content, certainly in the case of porn, but arguably much less so in terms of other content. Ratings have no bearing on access to the material in the current world, which is part of the reason I don’t see the same parallel you’re drawing in your argument. Movie ratings would have worked pretty well in 1910 and 1990, but not in 2010 and certainly will not in 2090, if we’re still here.
I think you seriously underestimate the power of those rating systems. Content is very heavily impacted if for no other reason than standards were instilled by decades now of studios abiding by the rules.
And put a safety app in your kid’s phone, like BARK. I’ve caught other kids sending porn to my kids this way. And yes I know the kids can get around it but at least make it hard for them to access anything like porn.
So true. I had a conversation with my husband last night. This morning I've been inundated with ads from various companies trying to sell me variations of the object of my discussion! Crazy! They are listening to Everything!
Me too. And I very deliberately not use voice commands on anything.
There was an attempt several years ago to require all adult web sites to use the .xxx extension which would have made filtering them a lot easier. It obviously didn't go anywhere.
> I also have to ask how they are dealing with kids that use a VPN and perhaps bounce off of IP addresses in states that do not have these laws or even international sites?
VPNs are rare. I use one, but it's like less than 5% of people who are tech-savvy enough to know how to use it, to go through the motions of doing it, to be able to actually buy it (parents credit card?), etc. And I'd expect the younger generation to know much less about computers/internet than Millennials do, simply because it's *there* and convenient.
I would tend to agree ...HOWEVER
How fast will they figure it out once they know that it will allow them to get to what they want?
Teens have lots of time to talk to one another and do research and to figure out ways to get to where they want to be. Kinda like how we used to get beer when we were 17 or 18, we found ways to get IDs or find someone to buy for us or we copped our parents stuff.
Interesting thoughts and information. She does acknowledge, though, that some kids will push through (VPN) somehow. And I like your idea on levels.
Common sense at last great post!!!
What was great about this article is that it showed a serious issue and a serious politician who wants to solve it. We have so many clowns on both sides of the aisle. From Trump to Kamala Harris, AOC, and MTG, politicians are dumb as a box of rocks and get publicity because of it. This article showed another side that tells an ordinary woman with a passion going into politics to make a difference. Rep. Schlegel didn't have a messianic message but saw an issue, shared what she felt about it, researched, and pursuaded. Yes, the porn industry will balk, and people will complain about putting a driver's license number on a website. If that prevents you from doing something as an adult, the person has more significant problems. Yes, kids should not be looking at these images, and thanks to Rep. Schlegel for that. But also, thank you for being an adult with passion, intellect, and character, which gives me hope when dealing with the awful people I have to watch and read about daily.
It also illustrates that bi-partisanship can work.
Thank you for a great profile of this very reasonable champion for our children❤️
Now this is what an elected official is supposed to do. Protect and make her constituents lives better. If only more elected officials would do the same. Porn is a proven sickness and needs to be regulated to prevent it from reaching minors. IMHO I see no use for it what-so-ever.
Long road ahead, for sure. And, a fight worth fighting. Am especially impressed by the consideration noted for the "other side". Informed dialogue, and willingness to understand the other side, is a vital generosity so rarely observed of late. Well stated, well written, and agreed with the blueprint description. Well deserved. Thanks to the author and to the congresswoman. Sending you strength for the next steps on your path.