And once again the anime and manga fanbase gets decimated by the media. Though this event is fitting, because it's part of the dark underworld of the fanbase that really shouldn't belong in America.
Hentai Collector Sentenced to Jail Over "Obscene" Material
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Crap, I was hoping with the backing of the Comic Book Defense Fund and everything behind him that he wouldn't go to prison. So much for the first amendment. Shit. As for the guy's level of "pervertness" he didn't strike me as a pedophile; just a rabid otaku of all things anime manga, including the hentai stuff. I saw a picture of his bookcase on some site- he collected EVERYTHING. This poor guy was just enjoying his hobby, imported some books, the post office circumvented it, and were freaked out by what they saw. The people who reported this do not know the culture behind lolita and hentai, etc. etc. This guy was the whipping boy for a Christian Fundamentalist Conservative knee-jerk reaction and I'm disappointed. Heck, I even bought some stuff from the Comic Defense fund to help fund his case (good stuff in their store btw, got a signed copy of Sin City and everything for cheap!)
That's sooooo true, man.Krythe said:
Right! Had he been involved in serious crimes, by all means, toss him into the prison showers and make him pick up the soap! Otherwise, there are millions of crackheads and junkies on the streets that are thousands of times more dangerous than a guy with child hentai fetishes...Emphraim said:
Write over the hard drive 37 times with random zeros and ones, and then crush the iron oxide making up the hard drive into a fine powder to be mixed into cement that's about to be used to build the foundations of a large building.Rednog said:
You can't fault the FBI's method for thoroughness, even if it is a little extreme.
Alternatively have some thermite on your HDD ready to be triggered when the FBI bust down the door.
While certainly disgusting, I don't think possessing any visual depictions of illegal acts which are clearly fictional (i.e. not depictions of an event that has actually taken place, which is obviously the case with animé) should be made illegal, regardless of the content.
In a liberal civil rights democracy, only that which violates the harm principle should be punishable, and such animations/cartoons etc., sick and twisted as they may be, have not been proven likely to inflict harm of anyone.
"Obscenity" is also far to loose a term to use in the criminal law of a just state: Anything not the majority norm can be punished under it. It's very interesting to see that the lawyers argument was the the (layman) jury would certainly find him guilty upon viewing the pictures, which just shows that it's not what legal definitions are in the law, but what (perhaps narrow and oppressive) morality is prevalent in the majority of the area which determine not only what is clearly socially unacceptable (as this should be), but also what is punishable.
Thus it's a "torch and pitchfork" application of justice, which leave it up to the masses to dish out convictions, thereby eliminating the very core of the "justice state", in which one answers to clearly defined law, not the dictatorship of the many.
In a liberal civil rights democracy, only that which violates the harm principle should be punishable, and such animations/cartoons etc., sick and twisted as they may be, have not been proven likely to inflict harm of anyone.
"Obscenity" is also far to loose a term to use in the criminal law of a just state: Anything not the majority norm can be punished under it. It's very interesting to see that the lawyers argument was the the (layman) jury would certainly find him guilty upon viewing the pictures, which just shows that it's not what legal definitions are in the law, but what (perhaps narrow and oppressive) morality is prevalent in the majority of the area which determine not only what is clearly socially unacceptable (as this should be), but also what is punishable.
Thus it's a "torch and pitchfork" application of justice, which leave it up to the masses to dish out convictions, thereby eliminating the very core of the "justice state", in which one answers to clearly defined law, not the dictatorship of the many.
I agree. It's wrong to screw with this guy's life like this. Just because he has some weird fetishes doesn't mean he's going to act them out in real life. The authorities only should have stepped in if he was harming children. Otherwise, fuck off Big Brother!
Neglect isn't murder. At least that's not how we charge it in this state. Nor in Iowa, the neighboring state where this man was charged.Krythe said:
I swear to many pegan gods that was locked a couple hours ago....scotth266 said:
I'm familiar with some of Iowa's laws. See there is a big Iowegian city across the river from here and sometimes our criminals and their criminals go back and forth for funsies so we have to communicate. I can say they have a much less draconian sex offender registry then we do. I'd be surprised if he ended up on it.
I register my agreement. We cannot afford to throw people in jail just because those people have problems (after all, if that happened, wouldn't we all be in jail?) and locking this man up won't help anyone. Not society in general, and certainly not him. This man will rot in jail and probably get seriously mistreated while he's in there (how kindly do you think gangbangers will treat a lonely nerd who's in there on child porn charges?) and he will have no life when gets out (he'll have no money, no job or employment history, and he'll probably still be hooked on hentai).Nemu said:
There are no winners in this affair.
Good thing homosexual stuff isn't illegal anymore, because Jesylin & I both own a shit-ton of yaoi. & I'm sure someone here has an equal shit-ton of yuri.
Don't really understand the beastiality one. I thought 1/4 of Americans were into furries & yiffing & stuff. At least that's the impression I get on DeviantArt. There are things there you can't unsee.... But $5 says that the "beastiality" was little more than a guy screwing a Catgirl.
Don't really understand the beastiality one. I thought 1/4 of Americans were into furries & yiffing & stuff. At least that's the impression I get on DeviantArt. There are things there you can't unsee.... But $5 says that the "beastiality" was little more than a guy screwing a Catgirl.
You don't mind if I reserve my judgement despite your valuable witnessing.Mcface said:
This honestly sounds like the "killing in video games makes you want to kill in real life" argument.
Regardless the guy didn't hurt anyone. Putting him on some watch list seems reasonable, jailing him as a criminal who doesn't have a single victim is not.
Surprisingly, this is the part that pissed me off the most. Do any of the people involved actually know what they are looking for? How do you test for the ability to like drawings?????Andy Chalk said:
What other criminal behaviour could come from that?
As for the "obscene" ruling...
How come this isn't child pornography? (And you all know that said material exists on the web)
This was already said in lordlee's thread, but who's willing to bet that the judge/jury heard Naked, Child and comic in the same sentence, and then immediately decided he was a sexual deviant kids should stay away from?
Axeli said:
Pretty much this. They've destroyed a man's life basically beyond repair over something I honestly wouldn't have thought to have been an issue. Just because the guy has manga with bestiality and child-porn does not mean he's going to act upon those drawings. While you could argue the drawings are morally wrong, they aren't 15-years-in-prison-with-psych-testing wrong.
Two adults in the early stages of homosexual sex? I don't really see how that helps the case.reciprocal said:
Because he's not getting fucked or in a sexual scenario?The_root_of_all_evil said:As for the "obscene" ruling...
How come this isn't child pornography? (And you all know that said material exists on the web)
**EDITED**
The entire topic opens a sticky subject to the mind of the reader - just what do you find offensive?
Some people don't find comics depicting underage sex offensive. Whether you find it arousing is a different matter, but that's your pot, not mine. Its the words the defense said that interested me -
This is the thing we should all be focusing on.
The entire topic opens a sticky subject to the mind of the reader - just what do you find offensive?
Some people don't find comics depicting underage sex offensive. Whether you find it arousing is a different matter, but that's your pot, not mine. Its the words the defense said that interested me -
Does that mean a photograph of a sexual act isn't pornography, simply an image depicting something in action? Is a movie only a copy of a memory? Quite an abstract concept.Brownstein said:
(Quote edited for relevance, sorry for butchering it 'fix-the-spade')fix-the-spade said:
This is the thing we should all be focusing on.