The recent Supreme Court ruling on animal cruelty videos has gotten me thinking about the First Amendment again.  I tend to be a free speech absolutist in that there are very few restrictions that I would support.  Fundamentally, I don't trust anyone with the power to determine what kind of speech or expression is worthwhile and deserving of protection, so we need to prevent that power from being expanded whenever possible.  That lovely, concise piece of prose that is the First Amendment gives us the broadest free speech protections of any country in the world and is the backbone that keeps our country from wholly degenerating.

So, when the court strikes down a law like this (which banned depictions of animal cruelty, primarily aimed at fetish videos of women in high heels crushing small animals while talking like a dominatrix) as too broad, normally I'd feel pretty good; once again, the slippery slope of censorship has been avoided, and SCOTUS saves the day.  But one of the arguments made in support of the law, and an analogy the court (and the lower appeals court) made, compares these videos to child pornography, where the depiction of the act is integral to the act itself.  That is, the reason these animals are tortured and abused (like the children in child porn) is to film that act and sell the videos; stop the depiction and stop the act. 

This makes sense; after all, if we agree that children are a vulnerable population and that sexual depictions of them are illegal, such that even if they are not physically abused or molested in the process an irreparable damage has been done, why does that same logic not apply to depictions of an act that is unequivocally illegal as well?

But wait, says the advocating devil in my mind, how would such a law apply to depictions primarily used for journalistic or educational purposes?  Aren't there valid and legitimate reasons to be able to access and distribute such material, if only to attempt to stop it or study it?

Then, I respond to myself, what is the distinction between depictions of cruelty used to titillate and excite versus those used to educate and inform?  Who would make that distinction?  Should the distinction even be made?  What if the videos were made in a country (as in the defendant's case here) where the acts themselves are not illegal?  And who am I to judge what someone else finds erotic as immoral and depraved?  My sex life would likely be condemned by a fair number of people, but it generally falls within protected norms.  I certainly would hate to set a precedent for allowing the courts and legislatures to determine what is acceptable private conduct or viewing material.

But crushed kittens!  Dog fights!

What do you think?