Where the Magazines Are So Blue

A county prosecutor in Alabama has apparently decided that even Playboy, whose claim to fame as a magazine now consists largely of being tamer than many European evening news broadcasts, is nevertheless too raunchy by the standards of his state's hyperstrict obscenity laws.

Comments

[gwb]

It's not so much that Alabamians are backwards as it is the influence of fundamentalist Christian doctrine. Alabama can't pass a lottery referendum to help fund education due the power of the Christian voting bloc. Banning Playboy is small potatoes...

[steve in ca]

rst,

OK, how about a state that bans the sale of all guns?

God, this is ridiculous. If the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to the states, why should the 2nd?

[rst]

OK, how about a state that bans the sale of all guns?

There ya go. Constitutionally valid. Alabama preventing a truck from Mississippi to get to Florida with guns in the back? Constitutionally invalid.

However, what the Constitution is never as compelling as what the SC wants it to say. So who really knows.

[rst]

I should have said what the Constitution says...

Indecency is outside of the realm of the first amendment. I can go take a shit on the White House lawn and call it free expression, but regardless of how expressive it might be, it's still indecent.

[ed]

There is no sex in Alabama?
I am assuming, then, that Jeeee-Suss takes care of all matters, er, procreational?

[Dan]

I just knew I could get somebody to argue that the US Constitution doesn't preclude censorship but does preclude gun confiscation!

That the US Constitution doesn't preclude censorship is pretty glaringly obvious. Unless you care to argue that the Constitution was intended to enshrine your right to commit perjury, libel, slander, fraud, and counterfeiting? The laws against these activites are all forms of censorship -- they represent the government placing a legal restriction on what you're allowed to say or print.

In our next episode, we discuss why the ban on laws restricting "the free exercise of religion" do not allow for ritual human sacrifice. 🙂

By the way, you appear to be stupidly assuming that everyone who points out that censorship isn't necessarily unconstitutional is "defending censorship". That's nonsense, of course; observing that censorship isn't necessarily illegal doesn't mean you think censorship is ok.

An example: if California passed a law to inflict the death penalty on anyone convicted of owning a goldfish, would that be constitutional? Yes, it would. Would pointing out that it is mean that I was defending the law? No, it just means I understand the Constitution. I can still think goldfish owners are being horribly mistreated. 🙂

[Potential Thief]

Um, who's minding the store while you guys pretend to work?

[Dan]

If the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to the states, why should the 2nd?

The first amendment does apply to the states. But obscene speech isn't protected by the first amendment -- that's been the court's position pretty much from day one.

What's "obscene speech"? Good question...

[Warren]

I spent a year in Mobile and can report that the native population consist entirely of; illiterate bible-thumping racist rednecks, illiterate BET-pimp/ho-wannabe blacks, and transplanted wealthy (i.e. society snobby) northerners, with just enough native old money assholes to make the local culture 'quaint' in the old southern "pity about that slavery thing" sense of the word.

[Jennifer]

I abhor censorship but just noticed another Constitutional technicality in favor of the law--the Constitution says you can "speak, write and publish" on all subjects; it doesn't say you can buy or sell. Sooner or later I expect someone to actually try that argument, if it hasn't happened already.

I wish the Founding Fathers had focused on the rights of the PEOPLE instead of the STATES. How about an amendment stating : Neither Congress nor any other governmental body shall infringe upon the rights of the people unless failure to do so proves a clear and present danger?

That'll cover murder, rape and arson but should take care of the wars on sex and drugs.

[thoreau]

Jennifer-

Rights of the people taking precedence over the rights of the states? But, that would mean a federal court could order a state to leave people alone. And that would just pave the way to tyranny!

The only way to free ourselves from the yoke of the feds is to let our lothesome state and local politicians do whatever they want to us without any wimpy liberal judges saying "That tramples on the rights of the people."

[Virginia Warren]

As a resident, I like to call it "Alabamastan".

[Dan]

the Constitution says you can "speak, write and publish" on all subjects; it doesn't say you can buy or sell. Sooner or later I expect someone to actually try that argument, if it hasn't happened already.

Some of the founders themselves believed that was the case, actually.

In the modern era, "consumer rights" activists are also waging war on that front, by urging that "commercial speech" be stripped of most of the rights given to "non-commercial speech". If you want to say something, ok -- but if you want to make money saying it? Better watch your ass, at least if Ralph Nader's in town. 🙂

[Larry Flynt]

Val, get Hef on the phone, the savior is coming to the rescue. Nothing like a good free speech battle to get the blood coursing through these useless legs. I am going to get midevil on their southern white asses!

[erf]

Further proof that this state needs to be renamed "Ala-fucking-bama."

[joe]

Go ahead. Demonstrate an absence of social value in Alex Haley's interview of the Grand Wizard of the KKK. Knock yourself out.

[thoreau]

I'm waiting for somebody to argue that the first amendment doesn't preclude Alabama's action.

Come on, I know somebody must be itching to show his committment to limited government by arguing that the first amendment does not interfere with a state's right to engage in censorship!

[it's true, it's DAMN true]

I heard someone give the best description of that state...

Alabama - the ANUS of America!

Hey, the shi@t's gotta go somewhere, right?

[tchiers]

Thoreau,

There's nothing in the 1st amendment that precludes Alabama's actions.

Now, let's talk about that 14th amendment....

[rst]

I was born down south, and spent a few years there before defecting permanently to a more reasonable section of the country (not the south). The people are slow and backwards, and are of such insufficient moral character that they need the state to protect them from "indecency," notwithstanding the fact that in a capitalist society you need only choose not to buy the magazine.

Stories like this are amusing however. It reminds me how accurate many of the southerner stereotypes really are.

[D_Hutch]

Sad as it is to report, I am from the town that is being reported about, Cullman, Alabama. While out of some sense of local pride, I must lamely point out Cullman (and Alabama) possesses a variety of positive attributes. However, embarrassing things like this continue to plague my existence and give continual fodder for my out-of-state friends to rib me about. Cullman's "blue laws" are plainly a legal standard of the 19th century, not the 21st. Pornography, the sale of alcohol, and commerce before 1PM on Sundays are restricted by law, and actually enforced by the police. Even mighty Wal-Mart, which operates 24 hours a day everywhere else, bends to the local blue laws and does not open until 1PM on Sundays. Periodically, Reason-able people like myself will organize to vote out these legal remnants of another century, but to no avail. Any suggestions?

[rst]

I'm waiting for somebody to argue that the first amendment doesn't preclude Alabama's action.

It doesn't. A state has the right to set its own standards of decency. It further has the right to regulate the parameters of commerce against those standards of decency, and Constitutionally the federal government has no right to interfere. They will anyway, because who are we kidding, the Constitution has progressively meant less and less since it was signed.

[thoreau]

Thank you, rst!

I knew I'd get somebody to give me a good "limited government" defense of censorship!

Next up: Gun control. How dare anybody suggest that the federal constitution precludes a state from confiscating guns! Discuss.

[rst]

How dare anybody suggest that the federal constitution precludes a state from confiscating guns! Discuss.

1. Apples and oranges (taking something away vs. not allowing somebody to obtain it). 2. The government is limited by the Constitution, not empowered by it.

[Franklin Harris]

Thoreau,

Who needs the federal constitution when the Alabama one says, in plain language, "That no law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of speech or of the press; and any person may speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty."

[thoreau]

I knew it! I just knew I could get somebody to argue that the US Constitution doesn't preclude censorship but does preclude gun confiscation!

Gotta love this place.

[rst]

Well, it is a legal document. The technicalities arise out of jurisprudence. The Constitution can be construed to mean what I hold it to mean, or the exact opposite, depending on which path one follows through the history of case law. The Constitution is something of a non-entity in that fashion. But the fact remains that there is a stark legal difference between taking something away that someone already has, and not allowing someone to buy something that they don't yet have.

[Brendan Perez]

I could argue that neither the 1st nor 2nd amendments are constraints on STATE action, only on federal action. So Yes, Alabama could ban guns and completely curtail free speech.

That is, until that 14th amendment comes in. Doesn't it basically apply the constitution's (then) current limitations on federal government action to the states? If that's the case, then federal government action is constitutionally permitted here.

As for limited government, let's start with that which is unconstitutional, then we can move on that which is constitutional but viewed by some as unnecessary. The complete disregard for the 10th amendment through bizarre inerpretations of the commerce and general welfare clauses are first on my path towards limited governement.

[Will Spencer]

On the other hand, Len Brooks has taken a stance which Osama bin Laden would whole-heartedly support.

Maybe Len's just trying to do his part for Middle East peace?

😉

[Rich]

The government is limited by the Constitution, not empowered by it.

Uhh, at the risk of being a bit technical, the Constitution both empowers and limits the government.