Utah Should Sue the Internet
By Prudence Beecher
Special to YNOT
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – When a man like Utah State Senator Todd Weiler bravely takes a stand against a global scourge like pornography, inspiring his colleagues to join him in declaring smut to be the public health crisis pandemic we all know it to be, you’d think people would be more appreciative.
Instead, the internet largely mocks this courageous truth-teller, chiding him as an alarmist or suggesting he doesn’t understand how the First Amendment works when he says something like “[S]omeone may have the First Amendment right, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to view pornography, but what about my First Amendment right to not view it?”
Yes, internet, what about Weiler’s First Amendment right not to view pornography? What makes you think he controls what he watches on his own mobile devices, computers or television? Have you never heard of the NSA? (In case you haven’t, that stands for “Naughty Socialist Agenda.” I’m pretty sure Bernie Sanders is the chairman.)
I’ll tell you what Weiler should do: To get justice for himself and on behalf of his great state, he should sue the internet.
The internet is not only clearly violating Weiler’s right to not see things, it’s also defaming him, libeling him and if there are parts of the internet that can speak, I’m sure it’s slandering him, as well.
The internet does this sort of thing to people all the time, especially people who aren’t “tolerant” enough of the sort of perverted, Godless heathens who watch pornography and force Weiler to do the same when he’s at McDonald’s or the library.
The brave senator, not one to sit still for someone trying to ram harmful material down his throat when he’s trying to better himself by consuming a healthy Double Quarter Pounder with cheese, reportedly confronted the big-shoed burger clown himself.
“I said to McDonald’s, ‘You’re a family restaurant and you market to children. Why would you want to be a purveyor of pornography?’” Weiler told Washington Watch, a radio program you know is going to offer unbiased truth about the perils of pornography because it’s run by the Family Research Council.
Naturally, Weiler wasn’t about to let all those bespectacled liberal harpies ruining our nation’s public libraries off the hook, either.
“You know, the librarians will put their hands over their hearts and talk about the First Amendment — and yet if these libraries and these McDonald’s were giving cigarettes to our children, we’d all be up in arms, we’d be picketing them,” Weiler said. “But somehow it’s okay if they deliver pornography to them.”
He’s right, you know; there’s absolutely no difference between directly handing out cigarettes to children and refusing to block third-party access to a wide range of material and information within a publicly funded place that exists in order to offer third-party access to a wide range of material and information to the public.
As for McDonald’s offering unfettered WiFi access, I think we can all agree this is not in keeping with their kid-friendly menu and well-considered nourishment like fried potato slices, greasy meat-pucks and mechanically constructed chunks of chicken-like meat nuggets, all of which parents can trust to make their children grow up to be big and strong — or to be big, at any rate.
The more I think about this, the more it’s clear to me Weiler v. Internet should be expanded to become Weiler v. Internet, McDonald’s, Public Libraries, WiFi Equipment Manufacturers, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Secular Humanists and the LGBT Community.
All of these entities and people are guilty of doing severe harm to Weiler and other Americans and they must be held to account. I’m sure they’re all guilty of criminal violations, as well, but I have little confidence there’s a prosecutor in this country with the temerity to take on the entire Coalition of Corruption listed above. Civil attorneys, on the other hand, will sue anybody and anything you want, so long as your check clears.
Prudence Beecher is a devout Christian, mother of seven, needlework expert and anti-pornography activist from Anniston, Ala. She is also the author of several excellent e-books, including God’s Law Tolerates NO Amendments and the Biblical self-help guide Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Leviticus, but Were Afraid to Ask.