Derek Bambauer at the INFO/LAW blog concludes against the CP80 Initiative, which proposes a means of regulating internet pornography.  This is what I have to say of his post, in summary: he glibly dismisses the harm of pornography while discouraging an arguably Constitutional measure which could very well effectively regulate it, which measure in my opinion he very hastily (never mind erroneously) labels "Unconstitutional", while he does not even accurately reflect the measure's presentation, and responds to problems which the measure does not pose.  Further he does not either seek out or propose an effective alternative to what he believes would be ineffective.  He is of course not obligated to do that last (or to take the measure seriously, for that matter), but it would be more helpful than his misled, prolonged "No."

I would not write as extensively as I have here if Bambauer's arguments were not taken seriously, but they are.  At the moment two trackbacks to Bambaeur's blog (say that ten times fast!) - [here's one] - [here's another] express sympathy with them, and my own well-liked visitor Hydralisk previously seemed to express sympathy with the arguments.  A quick 'net search reveals others who would disagree with them - [here] - [here] - [here] - [here].  I'd like to note that several of these seem to link support of CP80 with a necessity of religious action (specifically, Mormon or Latter-Day-Saint religious action), and I'm uncomfortable with that.  The Mormon church does not tell its members which political or legislative measures (or parties) they should support, but advises members to support whatever they individually believe is best; which admits and expects the possibility of variance in legislative and political preferences - so Mormons should not presume or imply that we should support any political effort as a religious matter.  Unfortunately, doing so is an exceedingly common (and irritating) mistake that Mormons make.

Now, as contrasting with Bambauer's post and the apparent agreements with it, I very much think we need an entirely different vantage on CP80.

My arguments go into (very great) detail, but I'll start by summarizing some of the reasons I think CP80 could do wonderful things for the United States of America.

  1. It is an arguably Constitutional proposal which could effectively regulate internet pornography (where current regulations virtually do not exist).
  2. As a visitor to Bambaeur's blog pointed out, there is a longstanding and sizable amount of research indicating that pornography damages people; here only in summary I might suggest that legally and effectively upholding the possibility that pornography is detrimental to people's Pursuit of Happiness could only do so many good things, because in general, when people are given the option to have their Pursuit of Happiness protected (here, by being given a choice to have their right to avoid pornography enforced), they tend to choose the Happy path, and Happy people do wonderful things for our nation :) among those things being more productive and contributing to our nation's economic growth (or "General Welfare"), which leads to the next point.
  3. Pornography overwhelms the internet in terms of page usage (what people access on the internet), and very possibly overwhelms high technology commerce; while there are virtually no effective safeguards against it for people who do not wish to access it. If CP80 would effectively keep pornography out of the workplaces and homes of citizens who do not desire it - where otherwise that is something quite difficult to do (the most cautious people run across internet pornography accidentally) - and pornography is a very substantial economic hindrance where workers who are hooked on it can waste great amounts of work time and resources on it - by enforcing means of voluntarily removing a very sizable obstacle to economic growth, it could prove a very sizable economic boon.
  4. CP80 could much more effectively protect one of the rights of children in an area where that right is virtually unprotected; that right being to not be molested: for when a child is exposed to sexually illicit material it is a form of molestation.  On "virtually unprotected", effective safeguards are difficult for consumers to access, existing safeguards are paltry and easy to go around, and there is substantial data that very large numbers of youth and children are being exposed to pornography - in private and in public places.

According to the "about" page at his blog, Bambauer is an assistant professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School in Michigan (but I do not wish my first advertisment for his reasoning on this topic to imply that his reasoning is always so, nor that his school is so).  Two other lawyers also write at the blog, both of them respectively Assistant and Associate professors of Law elsewhere, and the blog is hosted at their former Law school, Harvard.

I've been working at this entry on-and-off since Hydralisk left a comment at my previous post on the CP80 initiative - quite a while ago, but as these are unresolved very democratic questions the debate remains very relevant. Last entry on the topic I didn't much say what the CP80 initiative proposes to do. The larger abstract concept is to break the Internet in the United States into two separate "Channels" - one channel where pornography is allowed, and another channel dubbed the "Community Channel" or "Community Port 80", hence "CP80", where such things are banned. I think this is a fantastic idea for the reasons I summarized above, and there may be other reasons you'll see throughout this post (in addition to the details of my reasons).  Before responding to Bambauer's post in detail I'll respond to Hydralisks' previous comment.

[Click "show" to unfold the rest of this post.]

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