Quote:
Originally Posted by Charbax
It makes no sense to prevent everyone from getting access to all books, movies and music, just as it makes no sense to criminalize the activity of most of the users on the Internet. You can't punish a child for being curious.
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Sadly, sense has nothing to do with anything. All governments, including the U.S. government, have tried to suppress books and art with which they disagree or find offensive. In the 20th century in the U.S., criminal syndicalism statutes were used to ban "communist" books and to prosecute those who sold or distributed them. Religious groups protested the Robert Maplethorpe "art", leading to its banishment.
And it wasn't so long ago that the Inquisition (which didn't really come to an end until the mid-1800s) punished people who translated the bible into the vernacular languages.
So just because it makes no sense doesn't mean it won't occur and giving government the financial power via a tax that has to be collected and distributed is a dangerous proposition. Even with laws that are designed to insure objectivity, it takes time to go through the judicial system to remedy a wrong, assuming the judicial system will remedy a wrong. One famous example of that failure is the
Dred Scott decision.
More importantly, it is the executive power that would collect and distribute any tax, and as President Andrew Jackson is alleged to have said about a U.S. Supreme Court decision, "They have made their decision, now let them enforce it" (or something close to that).