Pornography is sexually explicit material (verbal or pictorial) that is primarily designed to produce sexual arousal in viewers. This definition is better: it deals with the problem of anatomy textbooks and the like. Indeed, this definition is one that is frequently employed (or presupposed) in discussions of pornography and censorship.
Full Answer
The first amendment protects freedom of speech and expression of the people of the United State. This is said to protect pornography which can be termed as a form of speech or expression.
Censorship takes place when people impose their view on others. Based on the law, pornography refers to anything that is obscene. However, this definition can be ambiguous due to the variation in personal measures of obscene.
Suppose that feminists who object to pornography are defining “pornography” as sexually explicit material that subordinates women. So pornography, for them, is that subset of sexually explicit material that in fact harms women.
Pornography is any material (either pictures or words) that is sexually explicit. This definition of pornography may pick out different types of material in different contexts, since what is viewed as sexually explicit can vary from culture to culture and over time.
“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it” (Mill 1975: 18). For Mill, the individual person is in the best position to judge what is in his or her own best interests; and, even if individuals may sometimes make bad choices, it is better in general that they be left free to make these mistakes. For no one's opinion about the good life is infallible; and, in any case, a life lived ‘from the inside’, in accordance with values that the individual endorses, is more likely to be a fulfilling one than a life where the individual is forced against their will to live as others as believe best.
So the principle permits paternalistic intervention in the case of those who are not competent to make an informed decision about what is in their best interests for themselves, and so who “must be protected against their own actions as well as external injury”: for example, young children or those adults whose decision-making abilities are temporarily or permanently impaired.
Mill's central claim is that society is justified in interfering with the freedom of mentally competent adults to say and do what they wish only when their conduct will cause harm to others. This has come to be known as the ‘liberty principle’ or ‘harm principle’; and it forms the cornerstone of the traditional liberal defence of individual liberty. It protects the freedom of all mentally competent individuals to live and shape their own lives in accordance with their own preferences and beliefs, so long as they do not harm others in the process.
In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.
The only principle for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. (Mill 1975: 15)
Let us take the First Amendment of the Constitution for example, and explicitly the section stating that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….”
When we consider the rights granted by our great Constitution, in addition to the words inscribed therein, we must also address the legislative actions and judicial decisions, which further elaborate and add precision to the boundaries of those rights.
Many of these efforts have attempted to ban critical race theory, the educational framework that examines how policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
For example, though Critical Race Theory has been taught primarily in higher education, and specifically in graduate courses in legal studies, charges of “imposing” CRT on young unsuspecting “children” so those white students will come to hate themselves for being white has been labeled by conservative legislators and parents alike. This is a ruse, a justification for limiting all school-based discussions and historical investigations on issues of race and other issues.
But the Republican party generally, with all its paradox, irony, and fraudulence in advertising in so many ways too numerous to cover fully, has proven itself dangerous to young people and other living things.