I read the justice departments number one priority during the Bush administration was the prosecution of porn they deamed obscene.

Their belief being porn is exploitive and demeaning towards women.  

If this is true, then shouldn't war be illegal ???

I mean isn't war demeaning towards men, women and children????  

I mean Children don't exactly consent to war...do they???

I find this a little hard to believe.  I think their highest priority was national security (we won't get into an argument on the ramifications of the 'Patriot Act', but the intent of it was to protect the country).  Although that might fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security instead of DOJ.  If you read some of Ashcroft's goals on the DOJ Strategic Plan, it does not mention pornography anywhere...
http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/strategicplan.pdf

If you are going to post something like this, wouldn't it be prudent to list your source?

So, GWB was in the Whitehouse for 8 years and this info is just coming out now?
I don't think so. The porn industry is so big they would have screamed bloody murder and we would have heard about it long before now..

Royobi is correct in some respects. Where his version differs from mine is that Bush campaigned in his first term on cleaning up the adult industry. I can remember many of my adult webmaster friends quaking in their boots when he was elected as we had no idea what he was actually going to do when he got into office. As it turns out he did tighten up many of the laws, thanks to the Bush admin adult webmasters have to deal with the 18 U.S.C. Section 2257 Compliance Notice act. The adult industry did fight many of the changes that were proposed and got many consessions, etc when it became obvious to any sensible human being that they would be impossible to enforce.

Bush didn't campaing on porn was demeaning to women in general, he did it to appeal to his broader bass of conservatives who do think that porn is wrong, corrupts people and in turn: society. Most of the performers in the industry are honest people trying to make a decent living in a world that is still seen as seedy by many. Porn is not demeaning to women in my opinion, the myths that these women have no choice but to do porn and are told what to do is for the most part simply not true. Maybe the acts that they choose to particapate in are by societies standards demeaning but that doesn't make it wrong for them to do it and for someone to put it on film with their consent. Making a porn flick is not as easy as many seem to think, both from a legal and logistic standpoint.

As for the comparisions between war and porn, porn actors have a choice, citizens in invaded countries don't, the comparision is flawed in my opinion.

Jenne

I did not contend that there were no cases of porn being addressed, but to state it was the number one priority is outlandish.  To a certain degree, I don't disagree with enforcement of existing laws in regard to minors.  All industries are regulated to some degree and why should the adult industry be any different?  I do agree that things went overboard as far as enforcement was concerned, but do not thing it should be unregulated either.

Jene-My intent was not really to argue an equilateral comparison between war and porn, but rather to say war is what's  exploitative and demeaning towards people, not porn, for the ones who always seem to condemn the one,  always seem to endorse the other...

I tried to find the article, but couldn't, but apparently there was a scandal within the justice department where the bush administration fired judges because they thought for themselves...something about a roberto gonzales guy firing a justice from nevada because he would not go along with there obscenity agenda...secret memos and the like

I think the industry should be regulated as well, just like all industry. I even think the age to enter the industry should be raised to 20, that way there would be less ambiguity between legal and illegal images, but they should also raise the age to join the militay to 20 to be consistent  

One thing I found interesting, is over the last eight years america is one of three countries in the world with the worst record of violating it's citizens civil liberties. the other two contries on the list, were russia and china  

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Bush didn't campaing on porn was demeaning to women in general, he did it to appeal to his broader bass of conservatives who do think that porn is wrong, corrupts people and in turn: society. Most of the performers in the industry are honest people trying to make a decent living in a world that is still seen as seedy by many. Porn is not demeaning to women in my opinion, the myths that these women have no choice but to do porn and are told what to do is for the most part simply not true.

apparently, republicans tell poor people to pick themselves up by their boot straps, after stealing their boots  

The duty of a judge is to apply the law in a case, not to 'think for themselves'.  The law is supposed to be blind and impartial, not twisted to cater to the underprivileged or the wealthy either.  A judge who goes with his conscience instead of the law will find himself overruled if the case goes to a higher level.

Once again, you are throwing out a bunch of innuendo without anything to back it up.  If America truly was the civil rights violator you make them out to be, then Code Pink would have found themselves in so much trouble they never would have had time for protesting.

You are quick to paint with a broad brush.  I won't go into Republican vs. Democrat, because it really comes down to what one's political view is.  I'm what you would call a conservative libertarian.  I believe that as a society, we should not give them boots, but should give them the proper material and education to make their boots.  If they choose not to make them, then that is their own problem.  Of course, the liberal approach is to give them shoeboxes painted brown and tell them that those are boots.  If you wish to discuss politics further, please post it in the proper forum.

(That would be the debating room....)

Acording to the ACLU Venezula has a better civil rights record than the u.s. over the last eight years there are a lot of sites on the net, that some find compelling, comparing the bush adminsitration to the nazi's  

Actually i came across something inteeresting that explains why those who condemn porn endorse war. Apparently, "the wealthy need all the cannon fodder for there armies they can get" yikes! I guess porn is kind of seen as wasting the seed upon the ground. they need them chillens  

Yeah...right...  Venezuela, that bastion of order and civil rights...

I wouldn't take the ACLU any more serious than any other political organization.  They certainly are not unbiased.

Regarding Venezuela, when was the last time the US had issues described in the following article?

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/31/venezuela-repeal-measures-aimed-critics

It's cool there are republicans in this room. I've been wondering, as republicans, do you think George W. Bush made it into, and graduated from, Yale on his own???

The following says most of what needs to be said:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072799.htm

Unlike Bush, Kerry, Gore, and McCain, Obama has not released his grades.  Perhaps there is a reason for this?  (It is important to note that academics was the primary guiding determining factor to see who would become President of the Harvard Law Review, but in Obama's case it was not....)

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB122108881386721289.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html

It is important to note that Obama did not receive ANY offers of a clerkship for either a Supreme Court justice or an Appellate Court justice (most past presidents clerked for Supreme Court justices....).

Jene-My intent was not really to argue an equilateral comparison between war and porn, but rather to say war is what's  exploitative and demeaning towards people, not porn, for the ones who always seem to condemn the one,  always seem to endorse the other...

Anyone can make an argument for war or porn or most anything else as being exploitative and demeaning, but that doesn't mean that anything as a whole or in all instances is such. As far as I'm concerned, your basis for your statement and opinion, are way too generalized to have any kind of intelligent debate because you don't sound like you really have a clear understanding or have thoroughly done much research on either subject to understand the full scope of how either subject can impact people on a positive and negative level.

I tried to find the article, but couldn't, but apparently there was a scandal within the justice department where the bush administration fired judges because they thought for themselves...something about a roberto gonzales guy firing a justice from nevada because he would not go along with there obscenity agenda...secret memos and the like

Each and every presidential administration is operating within the confines of their power and their duties to hire or fire any or all US Federal judge or attorney it deems to, and they all do so. For some reason, in recent history, starting with the GOP and press making a big hooha over the mass firings of US attorneys and judges during the Clinton administration, the public at large has forgotten that the US Attorneys' Office is the Administration's Law Office and the boss can fire anyone he wishes, that boss being the President. That's called the real world...if my boss doesn't like the job I'm doing, or doesn't feel that I represent the interests of our health organization or my patients in the way that they want or expect, they have every right to fire me.

I think the industry should be regulated as well, just like all industry. I even think the age to enter the industry should be raised to 20, that way there would be less ambiguity between legal and illegal images, but they should also raise the age to join the militay to 20 to be consistent.

Really? Does that mean that you also don't think that anyone under the age of 20 should be tried for a crime as an adult until 20? Can we change the legal age to drink to 20?

I know I am not a very intelligent or informed, sorry.
Yes I suppose war has positive benefits, it results in big and better and faster stuff, it gives people an opportunity for glory, it gives people an opportunity to make friends, it controls overpopulation, it brings people together, it fills people with a sense of pride, it gives people focus, it makes people feel superior to one another

I think most importantly though is without hate there can be no love, for the wise one knows what comes first, the chicken not the egg, for the one is frajile and the other not, for it seems, it be law, humans must hate the other to love one another  

so, in other words without hate there is no love

come to think of it, i don't know what you mean by "positive or negative level" it all seems positive to me-war that is-not porn