should sex dolls that look like kids be banned?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

No, and neither should artistic depictions of children in sexual situations - with reasonable obscenity laws in place, of course.

No matter how appalling or distasteful, the government has no place to regulate art or inanimate sex toys.  The First Amendment still applies, even to things we don't like.

And, if it prevents a pedophile from going after a real child, I honestly don't see the reason to ban them.

I mean, the First Amendment seems pretty obviously to have been referring to political speech, not what one wanked to.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Yeah, presumably the First Amendment allows for actual real life CP to be banned, so I'm not sure it's relevant here.

Anyway, I think if it leads to paedos being more likely to move on to real kids, it should be banned.

Yeah, I think a utilitarian approach is probably best here. If... well, I don’t know how we’d research it without putting people in harm’s way, but if the evidence showed that it could contain the pedo population, it has its uses. Otherwise, discard and ban. And regardless, not the type of thing that should be made available on-demand to the general public.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

No, and neither should artistic depictions of children in sexual situations - with reasonable obscenity laws in place, of course.

No matter how appalling or distasteful, the government has no place to regulate art or inanimate sex toys.  The First Amendment still applies, even to things we don't like.

And, if it prevents a pedophile from going after a real child, I honestly don't see the reason to ban them.

I mean, the First Amendment seems pretty obviously to have been referring to political speech, not what one wanked to.

It just says speech

And it’s okay to punish people for shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater because...?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

No, and neither should artistic depictions of children in sexual situations - with reasonable obscenity laws in place, of course.

No matter how appalling or distasteful, the government has no place to regulate art or inanimate sex toys.  The First Amendment still applies, even to things we don't like.

And, if it prevents a pedophile from going after a real child, I honestly don't see the reason to ban them.

I mean, the First Amendment seems pretty obviously to have been referring to political speech, not what one wanked to.

It just says speech

And it’s okay to punish people for shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater because...?

It's only punishable if there is no fire and it creates a panic. Freedom of speech is not limited to political speech.

Far be it from me to argue the Constitution with a lawyer, but if we imagine why someone would author such an amendment in the environment of the founding and shortly thereafter, it seems rather obvious that the goal was to secure the ability to trade political ideas freely. Beyond that, my comment was not related to "what is", or perhaps even "what should be", but "what was". Pulling some literalist argument seems to miss the point. I understand if your political goals are to maximize liberty and thus to willfully interpret things a certain way; my goals are not.