 ANOTHER ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH, ANOTHER NEW DIRECTION FOILED My regular readers know that I've long held a strange fascination with the United States Constitution. I'm not an American citizen and it is increasingly unlikely to ever become one, so I really shouldn't care about it, but I do. I happen to think that if you're attempting to order a society, you could do worse than that document. The Bill of Rights in particular is a beautiful read. Read the proper way, it's litany of "fuck you's" to government at every level. The only exception is the Eighteenth Amendment, which said that the citizenry couldn't drink. This was, of course, quickly repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment, which declared that only local government - itself not recognized in the rest of the Constitution - could decide that you couldn't get soused. Can you think of another country that devotes most of its founding document to what the government isn't allowed to do? As you might imagine, I'm a really big of the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. When you run a blog like this, freedom of spech is pretty important, unless you like having short, nasty people with bad moustaches beating your feet. And I don't. I don't like it because I happen to have really pretty feet. Ask around, you'll be surprised by what you hear. Other than not being American, I probably shouldn't care about the Constitution and the First Amendment because the U.S government stopped that particular practice a long time ago. You see, life was much different when the Founding Fathers established the republic and freedom was much more important than it is now. Mostly because there wasn't a whole lot of it to go around. Free speech was essential because the British were offended by virtually everything. Saying things like "fuck it, let's start our own country" could have gotten you imprisoned, dead, or worse - sent to Australia. The real genius of the Founders was that they were the first to understand that if the British were also offended by simple concepts like dentistry, then they really weren't that much of a force to fear. 
So when it came time to write the Bill of Rights, the document came right out with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Pretty impressive, no. And it really couldn't be clearer. And to think it took a little over a decade for the American government to attempt to subvert it. The second president, John Adams, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were thinly vieled attempts to quash criticism of him by force of law. President Truman allowed for "loyalty oaths," which Congress exploited to allow for endless investigations into the Communist influence on virtually everything. Even though membership in the Communist Party of the United States was never a crime, Congress saw no matter no pressing than learning just how many of those members were on the set of Gone With the Wind. All along, the greatest bete noir in the free speech wars was pornography. And not just the good kind with all the pictures, either. Text was long considered so subversive that authors like Henry Miller's works were banned in the United States for decades. Since the early Ninties, Public Enemy #1 has become child pornography. And I agree with that - so long as we remember why child pornography is so evil. Images - moving or still - of children being sexually exploited neccessitates the sexual exploitation of children. It's just that simple. And, as we all seem to agree, since children cannot consent to sex with adults, they are victims of rape. Period. But it seems to me that there's a United States Attorney out there who seems intent on seeing how far she can take things. A woman who authorities say ran a Web site that published graphic fictional tales about the torture and sexual abuse of children has been indicted on federal obscenity charges.
"Use of the Internet to distribute obscene stories like these not only violates federal law, but also emboldens sex offenders who would target children," U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said Wednesday in announcing the charges against Karen Fletcher, 54.
Excerpts of her stories were available to all visitors to her Web site, while others paid to read whole stories, prosecutors said.
Fletcher was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on six counts involving six stories about the kidnapping, torture, sexual molestation and murder of children 9 and under. The charges carry five years in prison each.
Fletcher, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said Wednesday that federal authorities "didn't like my site." She had no other comment on the charges.
In court papers, the FBI said Fletcher told agents she wrote most of the stories and posted contributions from other people.
I should admit that I haven't seen Ms. Fletcher's website or anything other than the above cited story. In fact, I don't really need to. Besides, sex sites devoted to children really aren't my thing, as I feel children are far more annoying than sexy. But the A.P story - and I'm sure Fletcher's indictment bears this out - pretty clearly states that the violations revolve around the stories themselves. There is no indication that there are any illegal images at issue here, or even that the stories are true. What is at issue here is fiction. Horrible, disgusting fiction, to be sure, but fiction, nonetheless. And the law hasn't prosecuted fiction - the written word, without accompanying photographs - in some years. This is because the standard became almost impossible for the government to meet. From the early Sixties onward, obscenity became harder and harder to prove, particularly when dealing with text only. The famous Miller Test that I've recently written so disapprovingly of, in fact made obscenity prosecutions much less likely to succeed. Remember, child pornography is particularly hienous because its very production demonstrably harms children. But there is no "production, " in the commonly understood meaning of the word, at issue in this case to harm anyone. But the very idea of child pornography is so revolting that it might very well go a long way in covering up U.S Attorney Buchanan's specious legal logic and her violent over-reaching in the material's possible impact. Yes, what Fletcher put out there might very well "violate federal law" but that is a law that no one has been able to successfully prosecute in over thirty years. I'm not sure that the federal government has filed an obscenity action at all since Ronald Reagan was president, let alone one that centered entirely on the written word. But the ugliness of speech does not necessarily make it obscene. Were that the case, Toni Morrison would have been on death row for years now. After all, How Stella Got Her Groove Back is nothing but a tale of sex tourism. And it is very poorly written, to boot. Shouldn't sex tourism at least be, well, sexy? Furthermore, almost anything could "embolden sex offenders who would target children." Christ, the Sears catalogue is pornography to those animals, to say nothing of Full House re-runs. But punishment, not pre-emption, is the duty of the law. If you punish people based on what their "art" might lead others to do, John Wayne would've have been jailed, lest every American wind up dead, because Westerns "embolden" idiots with guns and grudges. Ms. Buchanan's prosecution seems particularly taken with the gruesome violence in Fletcher's stories, which is dangerously misleading. Is she seriously implying that the Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita gets a pass because Humbert H. Humbert kisses her lovingly and takes her on a road trip between motel trysts? Is she really saying that there are some "acceptable" kinds of child pornography? Although beautifully written beyond words, Lolita is still about fucking a twelve year old girl. That sort of is the entire point of the book. Oh, and I almost forgot, the two or three film adaptations of it. And if you don't think depictions of "the kidnapping, torture, sexual molestation and murder of children 9 and under" isn't legal, I'd suggest you go to the movies sometime. Oh, and you might want to change the channel right quick the next time Mystic River comes on TV. Because if Buchanan gets her way, winning a bunch of Oscars might not be a defense much longer. On the other hand, this could mean the end of all of the daytime talk shows, which have made millionaires out of those who exploit victims of child sexual abuse all over again. I might just be willing to sacrifice literary freedom if it means Oprah gets thirty years, too. Hey, keep it up and pretty soon you'll have the same level of "free speech" that Canada enjoys. Hope you enjoy it. 
But you folks really don't care what a yutz like me thinks of this shit, now do you? Of course you don't. You're here for the truckloads of dick jokes and boobie shots that some of you haven't been shy about demanding of late. I'll admit that I' ve been somewhat lax in that department. But you teenagers are a confusing lot. Some of you are filled with sorrow that I write about sex at all, and others cry to the heavens if I don't write the phrase "glistening, ravaged beaver" at least twice every paragraph. Much as once happened to James Dean, "You're tearing me apart!" And if the last couple of weeks have taught me anything, it would be that all of this thinking and writing is fucking hard! After I write about things like, oh I don't know, the Confederate flag, I just really want to have a long nap. And those essays almost never result in my getting fellated. And if I need anything that isn't a new computer, it's to get fellated more. On the other hand, writing about Lindsay Lohan's cunt didn't do a lot for me. That didn't get me fellated , either. Chances are the first part of this very post aren't going to much help in that quest. And writing this drivel has actually gotten me fellated in the past. Perhaps not as much as I would prefer, but not so little that I'm in a position to fairly complain about it. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I had done everythng I could with the Enjoy Every Sandwich concept, and it was time to scrap it completely. I even had a high-concept idea of what to replace it with - long, rambling essays about celebrity sex-tapes. Who wants to read 5,000 words on the emotional impact of a night-vision lens in a fuck video? I do, I do! And lo, the Gods did smile upon me. When I returned home from work this evening, I learned that Screech has a fuck-tape coming to a retailer near you! Screech, I tell you! SCREECH!That kind of thing is Manna From Heaven to a pervert like me. Everyone who remembers Diamond as a lovable putz is in for a shock once they see a 40-minute video in which he engages in a kinky three-way with two women, sources tell us.
We can't get too graphic here, but word is that the action includes some bodily functions and an act known as a "Dirty Sanchez."
Phoenix-based agent David Hans Schmidt, who has brokered some of Hollywood's biggest celebrity-skin deals, confirms that he's acquired the rights to a tape featuring Diamond.
"Just when you think you have seen everything in this business," he tells us, "mankind has raised the bar another notch. Or lowered it."
This is the kind of shit that writes itself, my friends. I would actually have to do very little work at all. At that moment, my concept changed compltely. Enjoy Every Sandwich would die a firey death, and from its ashes Dustin's Dirty Sanchez would rise triumphant. 
The beauty of the concept would be the total lack of work it would require on my part. That's the absolute best part. I would forevermore write only about the Dustin Diamond fuck-tape and the sunshine it brings into everbody's lives. And nothing - nothing - is more joyous than the image of Saved By The Bell's Screech smearing the face of an unsuspecting young lady with her own poo during an act of love. Unless of course it's two unsuspecting young ladies. And then you have the greatest cinematic experience ever! This is something I was born to write about. Alas, the tape is reportedly only forty minutes long. That means I might run out of material after four or five years. No matter how poetic I am - and I'm the geatest poet of my generation - I can only have so much to say about the angle of Dustin's finger in relation to his paramour's anus. This would force me to brance out. I would therefore suggest other co-stars for Screech. Who better to start with than the Black Eyed Pea's very own Fergie? After all, just look at that body. And a little feces on her grill really wouldn't distract that much from the rest of her face. I was going to devote the rest of my creative life into encouraging Screech's new passion. And I would have been fellated constantly as I did. Probably by a girl with a "shit-eating grin." But the United States Attorney in Pittsburgh scared me out of it. Mary Beth Buchanan has single-handedly taken all of the fun out of the Internet. And you're the ones that suffer for it. That's because you're all now stuck with the same shitty blog you've been reading for three years now. And that's how I became the Boy Without Joy. Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: Lord of the Thighs By: Aerosmith From: Get Your Wings Permalink Labels: Celebrity Skin, Laughter Joy and Lonliness and sex and sex and sex
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