This controversial decision stirs a lot of concerns, mainly on the potential censorship extensively beyond pornography (a word which “is notoriously hard to define” for some semanticists and jurists). The wily decoy is to protect minors, the same claim in the Supreme Court case of Island Trees Schools versus Pico (1982) for banning “filthy” schoolbooks. I do not want to lay my finger on the same claim further since I already have addressed it in my essay “Checks and Balances in a Law”. But I want to talk about some more American experiences.
The American law is set to protect the people, but people still have to keep fighting for their rights. Linus van Pelt, a boy from the comic strip Peanuts, said “Security, like liberty, has to be won and re-won many times.” In the Bill of Rights (ratified in 1791), the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the quintet of rights to the people. It reads:
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.Justice Hugo Black (1886 – 1971), one of the most notable justices for civil rights in the United States Supreme Court history, insisted on a literal and absolute interpretation on the First Amendment; the term of “Congress shall make no law…” was unequivocal to him. This is called the “First Amendment Absolutism”, and the majority of America is with his view. Black was against the so-called “First Amendment Balancing”, whose gist is that “the balance between the individual and governmental interests here at stake must be struck in favor of the latter”. Under the First Amendment Absolutism, Black opposed to limiting “subversive” speech, “whether or not such discussion incites to action, legal or illegal”; against controlling “libel” speech; and against punishing “obscene” speech, even “prurient” materials.
The ambiguousness of pornography could easily defile certain philosophies and make them expendable, such as Epicureanism, an ancient Greek philosophy founded by Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC) and often misunderstood as sensualism. Yet, it is less on bodily pleasure, but more on spiritual happiness. According to Epicureanism, the maximum pleasure is freedom from fear, a claim which was shared by Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 – 1945, president in 1933 – 1945). Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826, president in 1801 – 1809) was a self-claimed Epicurean. Thus, it is understandable why Jefferson substituted “the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in place of John Locke’s (1632 – 1704) “the right of life, liberty, and property” when he wrote the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is worth to note that Stoicism, the main opponent of Epicureanism and often mistaken as asceticism and founded by Zeno (around 300 BC), played an important role in Renaissance Humanism (around 14th to 16th century). Francesco Petrarch (1304 – 1374, the father of Renaissance) was the first reviver of Stoic doctrines that believe “virtue is sufficient for happiness”.
There are two kinds of people in China: those political eunuchs who have lost their thinking abilities and fear others to think and to learn; and those political slaves who have been persecuted for thinking and speaking out and wish to think freely. Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) said that “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” The Chinese people deserve the right to doubt and to think freely for it is an entitled natural right for all human beings.
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