California lawmakers are mulling over tripleing taxes on the Adult entertainment industry in the state.

Yikes!!! Better get those DVDs in my wishlist before that happens   .

No chance at all.  It's not much different than various other sin/luxury taxes we have, say on tobacco and alcohol.  You can still get the stuff, it'll just cost more.

Quoting gardibolt:

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Tobacco and alcohol don't have freedom of speech and freedom of the press issues, while porn does.  It should be overturned pretty quickly.

Explain that to the cigarette and liquor manufacturers who are not allowed to advertise on television.

I'm as big a fan of civil liberties as the next guy, but, like it or not, levying taxes isn't unconstitutional.  I mean what's the argument?  It costs more so poor people are being disenfranchised and can't get their porn?  Good luck with that one.

I'm still missing how their freedom to speak is being inhibited.  Nobody is saying they can't continue to produce porn and nobody is saying the the average citizen is no longer free to consume porn.  They're saying that if you want it, it'll cost more.  Just like beer does.  There's no rule that says they have to tax all forms of entertainment equally.

I'm on board with the fact that its annoying and I'm glad I don't live in California.  I just don't believe there's a legal leg to stand on for overturning a higher tax based on freedom of speech arguments.  I guess I'm not seeing this as some sort of attempt to squelch an industry, but rather an attempt to generate revenue from a constituency least likely to put up an effective political fight.  In that sense, its not a lot different from beer and cigarettes.  The general population isn't very sympathetic that your Marlboro's cost more.

EDIT

Just actually read the article and its interesting to note that the adult industy is arguing that higher taxes will actually hurt the overall California economy.  You would think if they perceived that it was a freedom of speech issue, that's the first thing they'd whip out.

Quoting ya_shin:

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Quoting 8ballMax:

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Yikes!!! Better get those DVDs in my wishlist before that happens   .

To avoid the tax, woldn't they have to be in your Owned list...?

Good point .

Actually, I do have a small collection (about 50 titles) of "Adult Entertainment" but I've never gotten around to adding them to Profiler. Most of them probably aren't even in the DB and I just don't have the time to profile them.

Quoting AESP_pres:

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Honestly, I think that the US or in this case the California states have more important thing to do than trying to censor the adult industry again.

Greece once banned all electronic games (in todays world that would have included pretty much every cell phone, computer, some TV's etc).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_electronic_game_ban

Quoting Voltaire53:

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Quoting 8ballMax:

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Actually, I do have a small collection (about 50 titles) of "Adult Entertainment" but I've never gotten around to adding them to Profiler. Most of them probably aren't even in the DB and I just don't have the time to profile them.

Same here; I have profiled them but they're in a separate database because I point people like my Mum to my online list for birthdays and Christmas and, since I want them to be able to see which regular 18/R rated titles I have and want, I'd rather the actual adult ones weren't on view.

Being an a old fart bachelor, my family, including my mom, pretty much know what I've got in that department . My younger brother, even though he's happily married with children, has borrowed a couple of them...probably as teaching aids . I just can't seem to find the time to profile them.