[Worldwalker]

I have to wonder ... what should we do about Lolita? The book, I mean. It describes a relationship which cannot be called anything other than child molestation.

And then there's The Anarchist's Cookbook. Assuming you avoid the (one assumes untested) recipes which will kill you, that explains, in detail, how to commit illegal acts.

As for shouting "fire" in a theater: It's perfectly, totally, 100% legal for me to write a book describing, in detail, the best ways to do it. It's committing the act (deliberately causing a panic leading to deaths), not talking about the act (speech) that's illegal.

Child pornography is something that bypasses our brains and goes straight to our viscera. It's probably hardwired into our species that we should want to kill anyone who harms our young. I can't easily talk about it rationally either -- I get the same visceral reaction. The problem comes in when we allow those definitions to expand, and to be attached to the reactions we already have.

For example, photos of a child being molested are clearly bad, because they're proof that the act has occurred. That is the reason why they're bad. However, people have taken another use of those photos -- real or potential molesters can fantasize about them -- and made that the bad thing instead. So they've decided that drawings are the same as photos, since someone could fantasize about either (even though the person making such a drawing might never have been within ten feet of a chld). If drawings are bad, for the same reason -- as we're seeing in this case -- writing is bad. Even though it's no more proof that any actual act has occurred (did Vladimir Nabokov rape little girls?) than a drawing, a written description might be exciting to a child molester. And non-sexual photos of children are bad: catalogs, magazines, in England it's illegal to take pictures in public parks that involve children other than your own (and people have been arrested for taking pictures of their own children) because a pedophile might fantasize about those children playing on the swings. So we started with "having proof that you committed a crime is a crime" and have (thanks to the fear engendered by the people who know going straight to our viscera is a way for them to go straight to power) changed that to "having anything that someone might use to fantasize about committing a crime is a crime."

That's the logic being used against teenagers who are arrested, jailed, and treated as sex offenders for life (which is basically a sentence of outlawry) for sending their lovers pictures of their own genitalia. They're "distributing child pornography." Yet the victims are themselves. You can punch yourself in the face and it isn't considered assault. We don't arrest the victim for the crime. The logic, in these cases, is that child molesters might use the photos to fantasize about molesting children. We've gone from arresting people for having proof that they committed a real act to arresting (and outlawing) people for things which might enable another person, who might not even exist, to commit a thoughtcrime.

Murder is a worse crime than child molestation. You can live after being molested; you can't live after being killed. It's the irremediable crime. Yet it isn't a crime to fantasize about murder (if it was, most of us would be in jail, especially those who have dealt with Dell). It isn't a crime to write about murder (there are not only books but whole series in bookstores). It isn't a crime to visually depict murder (Dexter, anyone?). It's only a crime to commit murder. And that is as it should be.

Care, in your worries about your kids, do you ever worry that one of them might "sext" a picture to a boyfriend or girlfriend, or that boyfriend or girlfriend might send such a photo to them? A child as young as 12 can be sentenced to life-long punishment for a moment's stupidity -- and an act that would have been legal were they of age -- for committing a "crime" against themself. That could happen to your kids. Do you worry that they could be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for decades in a "he said, she said" case where there is not only no physical evidence supporting conviction, but all existing evidence disproves the accusations? That has happened, too. Those are real threats. Those are things that have really happened. Those are things that came out of the blue, and keeping your kids away from creepy Uncle Chester wouldn't stop them.

Liu Xiaobo has a mother. No doubt she worries about him. Considering the son she raised, I doubt that she wants a world with less freedom in it. It was that very lack of freedom, a lack of freedom no doubt justified to "protect" children -- protect them from social instability, protect them from defamation of their government, protect them from counter-revolutionary thought -- that has led to his arrest. He had all the protection a totalitarian society could provide; he decided he'd rather have, and advocate for, freedom.

Protecting children is a good thing. But "protecting" them from freedom is not protection; it's better-disguised slavery. A fluffy, pampered dog in a diamond-studded collar is undoubtedly safe and protected, but it's not free. The most well-fed, secure, and protected slave is not free. China has protection; it doesn't have freedom. For example, parents naturally want to be sure their children do not get terrible diseases, but in their efforts to protect them indiscriminately from all germs, they are instead raising children who not only have no defenses against diseases, but whose immune systems turn on their own bodies; the children who don't make mudpies because it's "too dirty" instead die of allergic reactions to common foods. Children "protected" from the devastating effects of losing a game or failing a test never learn to cope with failure, and when they meet it in the real world, as they inevitably will, they are devastated. Protection can be taken too far. And when it comes to taking away the rights of real people because of imagined and potential scenarios, that's taking it too far.

I feel dirty for speaking up on behalf of the writing of someone I would, viscerally, prefer to strangle (thoughtcrime! thoughtcrime!). But freedom isn't an easy or comfortable thing. It wouldn't need any defense if it was. It's all dirty and sticky, and for every noble Tiananmen Square protester, there are ten people you really wish never existed in the first place. But most "good" people stay within their (and society's) comfort zones, and never do anything that puts freedom to a test. To protect the rights of the Gerald Amiraults of the world, we have to defend the rights of the Philip Greaves. Because in the end, those rights are yours and mine.