"The Fine
Print", by M.H. Schrader
THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY
FLYNT AND THE PEOPLE
(Published 15 April 1998
in the Neighborhood Journal.
Posted 6 March 2003.)
Larry Flynt, the erstwhile publisher of
"Hustler" magazine, once again faces prosecution (or persecution, as
the case may be) in Cincinnati on obscenity charges for selling pornographic
videos. Back in 1977, Flynt was
convicted on eerily similar charges, except in that case, it was for the
publication and distribution of obscene literature, "Hustler"
magazine.
The 1996 movie, "The People vs. Larry Flynt",
chronicles Flynt's fights against authorities.
As you may or may not be aware, Flynt was not only charged in Cincinnati
on obscenity charges, he was also charged in Georgia. There is a line in the movie where Flynt, when asked by a
reporter how he feels when he is arrested in Georgia, replies, "Why should
I have to go to jail to protect your First Amendment rights?" Later on in the film, Flynt, speaking about
his Supreme Court case, states "If the First Amendment protects a scumbag
like me, it will protect you, too."
You are probably wondering why I am bringing this
up. After all, Larry Flynt is an evil
smut-peddler who deserves to be shut down before he poisons the minds of all
Americans. He is doing Satan's work and
we must stop him before it is too late. (So the argument goes.) I have read some interviews (in the
main-stream press) with Larry Flynt regarding his run-ins with the law, and
agree with him on a major point--the government should not have the right to tell any adult what they can and
cannot read, no matter how disgusting "society" may find it, as
disgust is in the eyes of the beholder.
In short, censorship, no matter what the justification,
is wrong. It is also rather insulting,
as it assumes that we, as adults, are too stupid to decide for ourselves what
we think is right and wrong.
Censorship is alive and well in Arkansas. There is a movement asunder to make it
illegal for any Arkansas to view "offensive" material on the
Internet. (Of course, it will be up to
the Legislature to determine what is offensive, so start lobbying your
legislator now.) The justification for
this censorship is, as typical, the children.
The children are always the justification for censorship. "We must protect the children."
Except, the responsibility to protect the children rests with the parents, or
it is supposed to, anyway. With each
censorship law, however, the government is becoming the parents. Eventually, parents will no longer be
needed, because the government will dictate how our children should be raised.
I, for one, do not want my children to become wards of
the state. As the parent, I believe
that I, not the state, am the most qualified to raise my children. There are shows that many children
throughout the country watch that I find offensive. Therefore, I do not let my children watch them. However, just because I find them offensive
does not necessarily mean that my neighbor will find them offensive. What gives me the right, then, to tell my
neighbor that his children cannot watch these shows? Absolutely nothing. I
have the right (right now, at least) to raise my children the way I see fit; he
has the right to raise his the way he sees fit. I may not approve of the way he raises his children; he may not
approve of the way I raise mine. It is a
stalemate; we are both right, we are both wrong, and neither one's rights are
abridged.
I may not approve of what my neighbor reads, what kind of
music he listens to, or what movies he watches, but, I do not have the right to
tell him he can't. That is his choice,
his life. If I want to keep my children
from being exposed to things that I find offensive, I exercise parental
control. I do not take away my
neighbor's rights. Period.
Once Pandora's box is opened, it can never be
closed. First it's smut. Then it’s music. Then it's books. Then
it's the rebel flag. The list goes on
and on. Just about everything that is
published, photographed, written, or sung could be found to be offensive to at
least one person out of the 250 million or so that inhabit our nation. If we ban every possible thing that could
be found to be offensive to someone, there would be nothing left.
Is this a great country, or what?