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Isolate Internet Porn
By Michael Reagan

 

July 08, 2004
Thursday


Okay - the Supreme Court says the 1998 law that was meant to protect children from internet pornography is a threat to free speech, but there is a way to achieve what the Child

photo Michael Reagan
Online Protection Act sought to do without endangering anybody's right to free speech.

The Act was designed to keep kids under 17 from accessing sexually explicit material online, but the Supreme Court now says that you can't do that by violating the First Amendment, which the court insists the act does. As a result, in the words of the Family Research Council's Patrick Trueman, "Because of the Supreme Court, now, every hardcore porn site in the world is open to our children, no restrictions."

That does not have to be. The same result can be achieved without running into a roadblock in the courts.

How? Simply Isolate porn, shove it into a dark corner on the web where youngsters under 17 will be unable to venture.

Congress must enact a law which provides a specific domain solely for pornographic sites. This idea has been kicking around Capitol Hill for a long time, but nobody has done anything about it. The time has come to revive it.

I have a web site, hordes of individuals and groups have their own web site, dot-com, dot-org you name it. So why not establish dot-XXX and quarantine pornographic filth?

By doing this the smut peddlers will have their free speech rights protected, adults who get their jollies from viewing porn would still be able to satisfy their addiction, and children will be protected from filth in their homes. Parents could buy the software that will block access to the porn domain, as the court suggested parents do when it said technology may be best way to protect children. Wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, "filters are less restrictive" while avoiding putting a damper on free speech.

If the porn industry were intellectually honest they'd welcome the idea, but they're not honest. They probably would oppose having their own domain because they can then be blocked from the home. They want children to see porn. It is a well known fact that children can be aroused by viewing porn and as a result, will get into an addiction to pornography when they get older.

And pornography has been having an adverse effect on parents themselves. Husbands are becoming addicted and marriages are being destroyed because of the easy access to pornographic websites. Wives are being devastated by porn but the porn merchants are laughing all the way to the bank.

Unfortunately, up until now, the burden of shielding children from porn has been placed solely on parents. And parents have been helpless. The fact is that the only way to stop this onslaught on children's morals is Congressional action ­ by having Congress isolate porn by enacting a bill to mandate the creation of a separate internet domain where all pornographic websites would be required to locate. No porn site would be allowed to use any other domains to peddle their wares.

Once that is done parent can go out and buy the software that would block access to the porn domain and their children will be protected from falling into the clutches of the porn merchants. This makes the choice the parent's choice. What the courts have done is to take our choices away and let the pornographers run wild.

It's time for Congress to stop this idiocy and tell the pornographers "You've got your own domain. Get inside and stay there."

 

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.

 

E-mail Howard Dean

E-mail Michael Reagan at mereagan@hotmail.com

 

Copyright 2004 Michael Reagan,
All Rights Reserved.
Distributed exclusively by Cagle, Inc. www.caglecartoons.com to subscribers for publication.

 


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