 Welcome to How to Defeat a Conservative, Part 5 by William J. Eisenman, PhD. What is clear is that the, that obscenity is nothing more than a matter of opinion. Trying to control opinions is a matter of mind control, brainwashing. The Roman Catholic Church once converted by the sword and torture, wanting others to live by their opinions. This was censorship. One becomes a censor because of complex emotional reasons. President Nixon's commission on obscenity put it this way. Much of the problem regarding materials which depict explicit sexual activity stems from the inability or reluctance of people in our society to be open and direct in dealing with sexual matters. This reluctance and inability most times is simply neurotic inhibitions at work in the personality. And that was my thoughts there, not quoting from the commission. It is repression, and repression leads to ignorance and avoidance. If the thing can't be avoided, it must be controlled. The sexually repressed person worships ritualism and regulation and feels quite comfortable with people telling them what is right and wrong. These people are followers, not leaders. Unconsciously, the sexually repressed person believes that all sex is the same. The censor offers platitudes when dealing with deep emotional issues. Although they believe they are offering us deep feelings and insights. These people might only extol the virtues of sex only in marriage. Sexually repressed people are all around us. Yes, even in our sexually enlightened era, they are all around us. They are legislators, governors, presidents of the United States. Some reside on the United States Supreme Court. These people do not believe the results of President Nixon's commission on obscenity that concluded accurate appropriate sex information provided openly and directly through legitimate channels and from reliable sources in healthy contexts can compete successfully with potentially distorted, warped, inaccurate and clandestine illegitimate sources. Ending the quote. Excuse me, another quote goes on. And that the attitudes and orientation toward sex produced by open communication of appropriate sex information through legitimate sources will be normal and healthy. Providing a solid foundation for basic institutions of our society. And that ends the quote. In Miller versus California 1973, Justice Berger wrote. To require a state to structure obscenity proceedings around the evidence of a national community standards would be an exercise in futility. Ending the quote. Exactly. That is how the First Amendment was designed. Obscenity laws, like civil rights laws, must be national laws and must not be subject to neurotic whims of state and local despots. The United States Supreme Court was wrong when it assumed that there was a connection between antisocial behavior and obscene material. First it must be noted that antisocial doesn't always mean criminal. A freedom fighter in Nazi Germany would have been considered antisocial by the Nazis. Galileo was considered antisocial by the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus was considered crazy and antisocial. Seditious are founding fathers. And those who fought in the American Revolutionary War were viewed by England as being antisocial. In fact, they were terrorists. Some of us believe that obscene material is bad, while others say it's not serious stuff. To some, it just is. At times, pornography and obscenity can be learning tools. Many times we learn by way of opposites. We know good because we know evil. We know light because we know dark. But the fact is obscenity goes beyond mere intellectuality. It's a core issue. Obscenity deals with fundamental issues of sex and emotions. We must be aware that our thinking concerning obscenity and pornography is determined by our emotional structures. If we are healthy and have an emotionally satisfying sex life, we will accept and not fear obscenity and pornography. Liking them, of course, is another matter. If we are emotionally unhealthy and can't achieve an emotionally satisfying sex life, then obscenity will bother us and we may seek to censor or outlaw it. When we censor, we cut ourselves off from knowledge. We distort history and our societal database of medical knowledge, politics, and the right ways to conduct business. The mind that would censor lives in a modern dark age. This type of mind thwarts progress and societal evolution. Censors limit the free gathering of information and they are dangerous. A cursory glance at history reveals that conservatism and censorship are close relatives. When conservatives are in power, progress becomes only a platitude. The conservative manifesto is the same today as it was a hundred years ago. Conservatives were short-sighted social pets then and they still are today. If conservatives don't like something or feel threatened by it, they might seek to censor it. Censorship is a conservatives weapon of choice. Censor was an ancient Roman magistrate who imposed taxes and regulated public morals. The word censorship is derived from his name. Censor was one man but he determined Rome's morals. Many modern-day conservatives would like to be like censor and determine what we Americans can read, see, or hear. For decades now, a slim majority of justices on the United States Supreme Court have acted as censors for all Americans. The Food and Drug Administration also would like to be like censor and tell us that we don't need to take vitamins and minerals to be healthy. Some international laws seek to act like censor and harmonize nutritional laws, allowing prescription-only low-potency vitamins at high prices. In the political arena, our government denies us access to so-called secret documents and information. We can't know what the FBI, CIA, and NSA are up to in our name. Municipal censors don't want us to read sex books, see x-rated movies or videos, or see sex and violence on television. In all of this, where is the vaunted freedom that conservatives are forever touting? Conservatives believe in communal despotism. There is no self-determination. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution was drafted because the founding fathers knew one man could not speak for all. According to the First Amendment, censorship is illegal in America. In America, contrary to what five Supreme Court justices once declared, we Americans had the right to read dirty books, watch x-rated videos and movies, and see sex and violence on television. We have the right in all states to purchase high-potency vitamins and listen to lectures by alternative doctors and nutritionists. We also have the right to monitor our government and know what it's up to. So implied in all of this is the fact that x-rated theaters shall exist and that there shall be companies producing high-potency vitamins and that there will be checks on government. This is true democracy. The views of censor and the United States Supreme Court are autocratic. Most people call for censorship because of fear. They fear the unknown. They fear their neighbors. They fear knowledge. They fear the competition among ideas and they fear strong emotion. They fear freedom and growth. The censor honors conformity, not growth and change. The censor fears the future and distrusts his urges and ours. Governments fear the free-thinking individual because of his insatiable need to know. Those who think for themselves threaten the peace of mind of would-be censors. Those who censor fear those who question tradition and dogma. All issues of free speech begin here. To be continued. The end.