Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom
Yes, I chose it because it presents the choice clearly - censorship or 1st amendment. Of course Amazon can do what it wants for its business, and it isn't the government, so there is no 1st amendment argument. I just wondered, if given the choice between censorship or 1st amendment, which would you choose? It is like the parents who object to violence or sex on television - do you want someone acting as Big Brother, and saving you from this, or do you want to make the choice yourself? The Pedophile book is good, because if you decide you don't want someone telling you what you can read, then you have to tolerate the pedophile book being for sale.
|
Is that last sentence strictly true? Even in the US there are legal limitations effecting freedom of speech. Not being a legal expert myself I resorted to Wikipedia for this
quote: "In the United States freedom of expression is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. There are several exceptions to this general rule, including copyright protection, the Miller test for obscenity and greater regulation of so-called commercial speech, such as advertising. The Miller test in particular rarely comes into effect." Whether the Pedophile book would be able to get hit with the Miller test I have no idea, but it seems like one possible option for removal on legal grounds ... or, given some of the more recent law changes in the USA and other jurisdictions, maybe it could be removed as being a treatise on terrorism.
I'm guessing the legal area is a minefield, so thankfully business is within it's rights to find some middle ground that meets with it's preferred customer base. It's a business decision. (Here I'm getting the image of Mr (Kirk) Milhouse being fired from the cracker factory on The Simpsons: "Kirk, crackers are a family food, happy families. Maybe single people eat crackers, we don't know. Frankly, we don't want to know. It's a market we can do without.") My only problem is that you didn't give me a simply "It's a business decision" option. I don't particularly want to say "good for them", nor to make a value judgment on a book I have never seen, I simply wanted to acknowledge that I support their right to make that decision.
ETA: To be clearer: I believe it's a business decision, I don't believe the term censorship applies to this situation.