With Democrats like these, who needs the Republicans?

[Derec]

Rhode Island legislature considering $20 fee on accessing online porn

Rhode Island's state legislature could soon vote on a bill that would impose a $20 fee on residents accessing pornography online.
The legislation, which two Democratic state senators introduced in the General Assembly on Thursday, would require internet service providers to digitally block sexual content or “patently offensive material.”

And the ostensible boogeyman is "human trafficking".

The funds raised from the fees would be collected quarterly by the state and used to fund the state’s council on human trafficking.

What does porn have to do with "human trafficking" anyway?

The bill would also require providers to block child pornography, revenge pornography and websites that facilitate prostitution or human trafficking.

These legislators ignore the accidental experiment that happened in their own state, Ideology über alles, including facts and common sense.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Are child and revenge pornography not already illegal there? And they want to put a $20 fee for accessing porn? They want to to profit off of porn lol

 

[thebeave]

Is this a $20 one time fee, or every time you visit a porn site, you gotta fork over $20?

So, this suggested bill seems a little contradictory to the sexual freedom ideals the liberals are always pushing. On the one hand, they go out of their way to tell everyone they can freely have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want, and however many people they want, without shame or government restriction. But just don't watch a sex act or even just a picture of a naked woman in the privacy of your own home, without paying a price. Actually having sex?....no moral problems...go for it. The government will even give you free birth control. Watching it happen?...you're a dirtbag, so you must pay a price. Weird.

Restricting access to pornography has the effect of increasing sex crime rates, not to mention that this is essentially a tax that's going to have the biggest impact on the people that the Dems supposedly are supposed to be advocates for... low income people. So, yeah...good idea. Let's increase sex crimes against women and make poor people struggle even more.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What, no quip about net neutrality? Geesh you guys are getting rusty.

How ‘net nudetrality’?

 

[laughing dog]

Let me get this straight - two legislators want the state to get in on the profits from pornography, and that is somehow a bad thing.

 

[PyramidHead]

Are child and revenge pornography not already illegal there? And they want to put a $20 fee for accessing porn? They want to to profit off of porn lol

Let me get this straight - two legislators want the state to get in on the profits from pornography, and that is somehow a bad thing.

The state doesn't even get the money, it just goes to the ISP. The onetime fee is so absurdly small that it would not create any disincentive for an individual to stop looking at internet porn, nor would it significantly increase the bottom line of the huge corporations that provide internet service in the state, like Verizon. There is no way this law will ever pass.

 

[laughing dog]

Are child and revenge pornography not already illegal there? And they want to put a $20 fee for accessing porn? They want to to profit off of porn lol

Let me get this straight - two legislators want the state to get in on the profits from pornography, and that is somehow a bad thing.

The state doesn't even get the money, it just goes to the ISP. The onetime fee is so absurdly small that it would not create any disincentive for an individual to stop looking at internet porn, nor would it significantly increase the bottom line of the huge corporations that provide internet service in the state, like Verizon. There is no way this law will ever pass.

This law ought not to pass. Not only is it not enforceable, but if the fee is not collected by the state, it simply increases the revenues of a private firm.

 

[barbos]

It's technically impossible to implement without baning https and VPN.

 

[funinspace]

To the first White House Porn Czar..

Derec, you sure seem to obsess about what the Dums/liberals/feminists are doing a lot. I'd be much more concerned about the actions/desires of Repugs. For every feminist/progressive that wants to take away your cake, there are probably 3 neanderthalic fundagelical Repugs that want to take that cake away. Feminists in cahoots with the likes of Pence, sounds a little like political porn....

This one was a riot, and was discussed here:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/19/b...e-to-computer-with-20-fee-to-have-it-removed/

State Rep. Bill Chumley, a Republican from Spartanburg, pre-filed the legislation earlier this month, according to The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg.
<snip>
Sellers and manufacturers would be compelled to install digital-blocking capabilities on every piece of electronic equipment with internet capacity, or else be forced to pay a fine for each device sold.


The sellers can opt-out of the requirement by paying $20 for every device, and same goes for consumers, who can also pay $20 to have the porn-blocking filter removed after the purchase.

A decent article going over recent Repug porn musings and trends:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ez3nk7/republicans-are-coming-for-your-porn

As time went on, though, Trump began to pay lip service to old Republican anti-porn stances, signing a pledge to prioritize obscenity prosecutions in August. He also surrounded himself with staunch critics of the adult industry like Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Vice President Mike Pence. Trump almost certainly doesn't care about porn—his model wife has appeared in some pretty raunchy nude photos—but as with so much else, he seems willing to go along with the conservative view on it.

The Trump administration has yet to take any concrete action against the adult industry—and probably won't anytime soon because it has a lot of other things going on.
<snip>
But Republicans at large are still committed to waging war on porn. Since November, anti-porn bills and resolutions have flooded state legislatures. In at least 13 states, most visibly Alabama and South Carolina, conservatives are pushing variants of the Human Trafficking Prevention Act.

And in a serious WTF is wrong with these neanderthals; done in a voice only vote:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/health/florida-legislature-porn-dangerous-but-not-weapons/index.html

After 17 students and teachers were gunned down at a Florida high school, the state Legislature voted 71-36 Tuesday against a measure to consider banning the sale of assault weapons.

But on the same day, it declared pornography to be a public health risk.

 

[PyramidHead]

This law ought not to pass. Not only is it not enforceable, but if the fee is not collected by the state, it simply increases the revenues of a private firm.

In a way, it's similar to the laws in some states that require an extra fee for plastic bags. The state doesn't get the fee, the restaurants and businesses do. But the idea is to make people less likely to use a plastic bag when a paper one will do and is cheaper.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Derec, you sure seem to obsess about what the Dums/liberals/feminists are doing a lot. I'd be much more concerned about the actions/desires of Repugs. For every feminist/progressive that wants to take away your cake, there are probably 3 neanderthalic fundagelical Repugs that want to take that cake away.

Why not call them out regardless of party affiliation?

And it is especially alarming when coming from the Democrats, who are supposed to be the sensible ones. If they go bad on this, who remains good?

 

[funinspace]

Derec, you sure seem to obsess about what the Dums/liberals/feminists are doing a lot. I'd be much more concerned about the actions/desires of Repugs. For every feminist/progressive that wants to take away your cake, there are probably 3 neanderthalic fundagelical Repugs that want to take that cake away.

Why not call them out regardless of party affiliation?

Read Derec's title, which is part of why I responded the way I did. If Derec would have included at least a itty bitty teeny weeny caveat that the Repugs play a significant part in this 'control the porn' political games, then I would have let it slide. But Derec seems to have some fixations...

And it is especially alarming when coming from the Democrats, who are supposed to be the sensible ones. If they go bad on this, who remains good?

The Dums are not monolithic; and they are not always sensible. IMPOV they are generally simply less bad than the Repugs on a range of issues.

 

[Keith&Co.]

What, no quip about net neutrality? Geesh you guys are getting rusty.

How ‘net nudetrality’?

Or: Know Net Neutrality, Know Net Nudes. No Net Neutrality, No Nude Net!

Or a Neutered Net.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Read Derec's title, which is part of why I responded the way I did. If Derec would have included at least a itty bitty teeny weeny caveat that the Repugs play a significant part in this 'control the porn' political games, then I would have let it slide.

I see your point, but did you read the thread title? I read that as him implying Republicans are even worse.

I think its a play on "with friends like these who needs enemies"

 

[funinspace]

Read Derec's title, which is part of why I responded the way I did. If Derec would have included at least a itty bitty teeny weeny caveat that the Repugs play a significant part in this 'control the porn' political games, then I would have let it slide.

I see your point, but did you read the thread title? I read that as him implying Republicans are even worse.

I think its a play on "with friends like these who needs enemies"

Well, I guess that is one way to take it. I take it to mean they are just as bad, just as I take the friend-enemy phrase that way. Maybe I have the wrong assumption about both, but I couldn't tell from a quick Googling on "with friends like these who needs enemies" on which way the intent is. Of course Derec could always clarify....

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Read Derec's title, which is part of why I responded the way I did. If Derec would have included at least a itty bitty teeny weeny caveat that the Repugs play a significant part in this 'control the porn' political games, then I would have let it slide.

I see your point, but did you read the thread title? I read that as him implying Republicans are even worse.

I think its a play on "with friends like these who needs enemies"

That's how I read it, also.

As for the other points in here: It does go to the state, the ISP just collects it.

I can't imagine this standing up to a constitutional challenge.