karen fletcher wrote stories, and while they included minors, they were 100% fiction. that’s why i don’t get how the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section was involved in the prosecution. isn’t that sort of like involving the DEA in a case involving a movie about drugs where no one making the movie used drugs?
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
This is pure bullshit!!! I am still amazed, and we have a fucking constituion? what happened to freedom of speech?
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
It does sound very odd! I cant either quite get why they went after her, there are so many more bigger and uglier fish to get! All she had was some stories. Maybe the fact that she earned money from it had a part of in why they went after her. Maybe that makes it easier to prosecute?
Does the location of where she lived make any difference?
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
What rubs me the wrong way about this is that they backed down and tried to not lose face when they found out she wouldnt be able to mentally handle a trial or going to prison…
Excuse me, but either they presue this with all the force no matter her mental abilities to handle a trial or they drop it completely…
The fact here is that this case should never have been started in the first place.
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
perhaps not that surprising that they went after her - she had no money to defend herself, so it was a sure win, and her stories were quite offensive - and i don’t say that kind of thing often. i gather she wrote at least one story about a toddler, and by the miller test, that would be offensive pretty much anywhere. nevertheless, somewhere between freedom of speech and the fact no human beings were involved - being a story…
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
She actually earned very little from her stories. I think it was something like 100 bucks a month. Perhaps I see things a bit different, and while I see people that scream freedom of speech, she did push the envelope. I think most everyone here wouldn’t have wrote stories about the things that she did.
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
We all know that freedom of speech has it’s limits and there are consequences for what we say, even if we are allowed to say it.
All stories are about context. The odd thing is that her stories could have been just as sexually taboo and considered acceptable if they were only written in a different context. Human beings are strange in this aspect.
On Youtube you can see a man touching another mans penis and it’s ok to post, and view, as long as the context is considered educational and not lascivious.
I’ve never read Karen Fletchers’s material, and would never want to, but I’m a firm believer that there is no crime in thought. However I believe it’s illegal to plan a crime. go figure
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
i not only wouldn’t write stories like that, i also wouldn’t read them and won’t review a site that offers stories like them.
the thing is that freedom of speech isn’t about much unless you test it by seeing if you still believe in it when it’s something you hate or very much disagree with. i don’t know - from what news i have read, i would be very offended by her stories, but on the other hand, i don’t have to read them (thank goodness!)
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
“I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
~Voltaire
[QUOTE=basschick;18891]i not only wouldn’t write stories like that, i also wouldn’t read them and won’t review a site that offers stories like them.
the thing is that freedom of speech isn’t about much unless you test it by seeing if you still believe in it when it’s something you hate or very much disagree with. i don’t know - from what news i have read, i would be very offended by her stories, but on the other hand, i don’t have to read them (thank goodness!)[/QUOTE]
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
While what she did was quite fucked up, I dont see why she should’ve been prosecuted for it. The makers of grand theft auto (the video game) let people kill hundreds of cops in a game, why aren’t they being arrested for conspiracy for murder or something?
Re: karen fletcher obscenity prosecution - i don’t get it
Free speech, as several have already said, isn’t “free speech if it isn’t offensive.” As soon as we start limiting speech in ANY way, it’s a very slippery slope. Like Patti, the stories I heard about what the woman had on her site is enough to make almost anyone’s stomach turn. But… that is the cost of freedom. We give others the right to say offensive things. When we start determining what is “too offensive”, then all the sudden, we run the risk of somebody deciding that speech we consider OK as being offensive as well.
So those of us who truly value free expression have to be willing to defend the right to express even the most offensive speech or expression.
It’s a position that one can only take if one truly understands the ramifications of having limitations on speech.
And… of course, what I’m saying assumes that we, in the US, do have free speech, which we don’t… say the wrong thing about terrorism, or the president, or whatever… and the men in suits take you away and throw you in Guantanamo, never to be heard from again… but we have to defend the freedoms that we do still have.