Making an eXXXample: Staunton porn shop sparks crackdown
In his 1776 manifesto, The Wealth of Nations, economist Adam Smith promoted a marketplace unregulated by government, largely based on the belief that when consumers are free to buy things they want from merchants, the relationship is mutually beneficial because "We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love."
Over 230 years later, government, in the form of a prosecutor in Staunton, is cracking down on a merchant who sells a product the Commonwealth's Attorney finds "cheap, animalistic, and wrong." However, this time, a different sort of "self-love" is at issue.
A new adult video store has set off a powder keg of outrage that has divided the town, and resulted in the indictment of the store's owner on eight felony obscenity counts that could net a total of 80 years in prison.
Is pornography protected under the First Amendment? The law doesn't say, but soon 12 Valley residents could decide the future of a billion-dollar industry.
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