While some of these terms have some case precedence, the issue of subjectivity frequently comes up when a case is appealed, and many, many elements are nullified on appeal review. For more in-depth analysis, see: https://www.firstamendment.com/obscenity-laws/
For an especially problematic issue see "Reason Number 3: Because You Don’t Know Whether You’re Guilty Until the Jury Renders Its Verdict"
| The more troubling aspect to this defect in obscenity laws is the inability for law abiding Webmasters to steer clear of inadvertent violations of the law. It is an essential element of any fair criminal justice system that all laws must adequately advise citizens how to comply with them, and more importantly, how to avoid breaking them. Citizens should not be so uninformed that they avoid lawful conduct in order to keep from violating an inadequately defined law. For example, Congress has determined that no one should drive faster than 65 miles per hour, but it is perfectly fine-and in many cases citizens are encouraged-to drive right at the speed limit. Every driver understands his or her rights and obligations, and can easily comply with the law. Imagine the chaos and outcry if the speed limit were defined as “the highest speed measured in cubits per hour that the average person, if polled today, would find that a Unicorn could gallop, with a serous purpose as measured by a reasonable person in the community.” Imagine how slowly people would go; imagine how many tickets would be written for speeding. Imagine how long it would take for such an inane standard to be repealed.
Those established legal meanings (even the ones that are “objective” as that term is used in law [0]) are themselves subjective.
[0] “objective” in legal standards often refers to a subjective standard where the decision-maker is not to apply their opinion on the overt rule, but to apply their opinion of what a “reasonable person” would opine about the overt rule.
You think that's bad, look at the "I know it when I see it" ruling that was literally 6 old white men ruling that they could decide what was pornographic based on their own personal opinion.
Important to note that in this case they weren't trying to define pornography but were stating that the film for the case in question was not pornographic and so Ohio couldn't infringe on the directors first amendment right to display the film.
Your framing makes it seem like they decided something was pornographic, when what they were doing was protecting free speech.
From your own source:
>I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
What a bunch of puritan bullshit. It’s not for any court to decide what is pretty and what is ugly. There should not be any sanctums, especially not in the legal system
Before the Miller test, standards for "obscenity" were arbitrary and varied greatly from place to place. A magazine that printed an excerpt from James Joyce's Ulysses was banned as obscene, while a few years later the book as a whole was allowed to be published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Call...
Many of us like to think of the First Amendment as broadly protecting the right to say whatever you want, dating back to its enactment over 200 years ago, but that interpretation is much newer.
This is why I prefer literal textualism to originalism. The plain text of the First Amendment is a much more absolute affirmation of liberty than you would guess from observing the subsequent law-making of the founders and their contemporaries, e.g.
I was very surprised by this completely irrelevant part. Seems very unusual for Wikipedia.
> The Utah County region had often boasted of being one of the most socially conservative areas in the United States. However, researchers had shown that guests at the local Marriott Hotel were disproportionately large consumers of pay-per-view pornographic material
I'd expect an encyclopedia to be politically neutral.
Unfortunately, in case of wikipedia, it does not surprise me at all. US left-wing activists have weaponized the "facts" (or, the authority to be the bearer of "facts", to be exact) a long time ago, and a free-for-all public encyclopedia is a perfect proxy for that.
Or, maybe, being overtly hypocritical like that kinda pisses reasonable people off. Do articles about democrat institutions not talk about overt hypocrisy? The article on the ACLU talks about how people are upset that they don't openly support "unpopular" speech.
For an especially problematic issue see "Reason Number 3: Because You Don’t Know Whether You’re Guilty Until the Jury Renders Its Verdict"
And their whitepaper, https://www.firstamendment.com/articles/Nexus_Obscenity_in_t...
| The more troubling aspect to this defect in obscenity laws is the inability for law abiding Webmasters to steer clear of inadvertent violations of the law. It is an essential element of any fair criminal justice system that all laws must adequately advise citizens how to comply with them, and more importantly, how to avoid breaking them. Citizens should not be so uninformed that they avoid lawful conduct in order to keep from violating an inadequately defined law. For example, Congress has determined that no one should drive faster than 65 miles per hour, but it is perfectly fine-and in many cases citizens are encouraged-to drive right at the speed limit. Every driver understands his or her rights and obligations, and can easily comply with the law. Imagine the chaos and outcry if the speed limit were defined as “the highest speed measured in cubits per hour that the average person, if polled today, would find that a Unicorn could gallop, with a serous purpose as measured by a reasonable person in the community.” Imagine how slowly people would go; imagine how many tickets would be written for speeding. Imagine how long it would take for such an inane standard to be repealed.