Silly lawyers! They wanted to stop the distribution of films of dogs tearing each other apart, people crushing animals to death, people burning cats alive. ha ha ha. Dahlia Lithwick is sooo funny to make them seem like vacant-eyed deer! Because they're trying to prevent unbelievable cruelty to ANIMALS!!! So it's always funny!!!!!

Can't wait for her treatment of the next abortion case! Maybe she'll have all the lawyers speak in baby talk! ("Boo hoo" said the lawyer, "Parshul birth aborshun make's my tummy hurt!").

Such a good writer!

You have a good point here.

So does Lithwick, who was trying to point out that we show video of animals being hurt or killed every night on cable TV. Hunting and fishing shows are legal, as are the Wild Kingdom derivatives showing animals attacking each other for food, territory or sexual dominance.

Lithwick's point is that recordings of illegal acts should be treated the same as recordings of legal ones?

That'd be up to her usual standard of legal reasoning, I'll give you that.

Lithwick's "point" was to report on what was happening at oral arguments of a supreme court case in as informative and entertaining a way as possible and to conclude by offering her own editorial take. Most of the "points" you ascribe to her were "points" made by actual, real life Supreme Court Justices who are bound by the Constitution, not their own personal visceral reaction to the material.

As far as making it illegal to show or possess or make video recordings of illegal acts, why don't we start prosecuting local news channels for showing security camera footage of armed robberies at liquor stores?

Regardless of the merits of the case, her portrayal of the lawyers seeking to prohibit these films was demeaning. I'm sure she would never dream of ridiculing other activists, but she seems to find it perfectly fine to do so in this case. I generally despise people who only show sensitivity to their pet causes while quick to demean others as the worst kind of hypocrites

* It's weird that there is no constitutional way to prevent the production and distribution of animal snuff and torture films. It truly is a fallen world. I'm sure Dahlia finds comfort in the fact that her meat fork does not touch her milk sink.

There is a constitutional way to prevent these films--- the films must be declared obscene.

The problem with the law under discussion is that it doesn't clarify cases that practically everyone agrees is obscene cruelty (i.e. crush videos), from those where there is a lot of disagreement (dogfighting, or as the justices asked, bullfighting). This means that defining obscenity would be up to the judges, and many on the SCOTUS are loathe to make such a distinction in the place of the legislature.