LIFE IS A SERIES OF CHOICES

There are good and bad choices, made constantly; right and wrong ones; helpful and destructive ones, as well. We must make choices on whatever data we have at the time. That data is often not enough to make an educated choice, in which case, we must guess. Our life and the consequence of that choice to others, is as predictable as the flip of a coin or a roll of the dice.

Choices have Categorical (influenced by issues of morality in certain duties and rights) and Consequentialist (morality is in the consequences of an act)...in other words, most acts do not affect a single person but that effect covers many with its reverberations.

What, then, happens when we refuse to make a choice. Sometimes an issue just fades away, but don't count on it as few things aren't followed up. Forgetting to drink responsibly, then driving drunk so that someone is killed by you in an 'accident' and the consequences are far reaching, changing the future of many lives. If that person (as is most likely) has family, children, parents, dependents and responsibilities to many, the resulting destruction of that act is felt by all those whose lives are altered, remaining lifetimes for many of those people. Few effects from bad choices have only a short-term consequence.

War makes many orphans. What happens to them in their growing up may turn a generation of youth, as in Iraq, into haters seeking vengeance and having no trust for adults or certain groups...especially Americans, the enemy during and after the war. When people leave their choices to trust God, they've totally thrown their control away and left all those connected to them swinging in the wind.

What most people miss is that laws pose an involuntary choice of action. Many people who naturally fight that imposition, missing the whole point of the law, are looking for independence. That is not how maturity and independence are gained. The generation of the 60s and 70s, adolescents who sat in their basements tuned out on marijuana never did the developmental work needed for a normal adolescent. Now these people may have important positions, families, and we wonder why such poor life choices are being made in such a public way.

Healthy coping mechanisms should be taught in grade school and through college. The way to think through choices should be a part of that. Morality considerations should be a foundation. I do not mean morality as the Bible writes it but, rather as our current life style and set of laws dictates morality which is not limit to sexual morality. Instead, I mean morality as our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution define it.

2003 CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LAW UPHELD BY SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court upheld a 2003 child pornography law. The article stated, among many other details that should be read in entirety, was:

"In 2002, with Justice Scalia in dissent, the court struck down a law that made it a crime to create, distribute or possess “virtual” child pornography that uses computer-generated images or young-looking adults rather than real children.

The 2003 law was a reasonable legislative remedy to whatever defects existed in the invalidated law, Justice Scalia wrote, although he alluded dryly to the law’s “unlikely title,” the Prosecutorial Remedies and other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act, which can be rendered by a politically attractive acronym, the Protect Act."

Though I have never considered myself in favor of most of the overly strict rulings that smack of governmental paternalism, I totally agree that nothing about child pornography should be covered by 'free speech'. There is no reason whatsoever for child pornography (which only salaciously feeds the pedophiles among us) to be circulated on the Internet or anywhere else.

Interpreting what is child pornography within the privacy of one's home as a parent takes a picture of a baby on a rug, a mother naked in the tub with her 15 month old son, or many of the other family pictures shot for memories, can be difficult when the morality police start coming out in droves. However, digital photography has made having pictures processed by strangers no longer a necessity so that it creates a better climate for family photographers and an easier climate for the industry that is making millions peddling child pornography if they can get away with circulating it on the Internet.

It would seem there is no other description for such photographic circulation than 'child abuse' and titillating pedophiles.