4.2.12 WC: 191694 back to me in shock. “They don’t follow the Supreme Court in the United States,” he exclaimed. “Now that’s a subject worthy of study,” I replied. It is important to remember that in a democracy, even a democracy in which the Supreme Court plays so central a role, that in the end the people decide. This is especially true in an area, like obscenity, where “community values” help define the law. Such values are ever-shifting and subject to influence. While the Supreme Court has insisted that the government has the power to punish (and otherwise regulate) the showing and viewing of “obscene” films in adult-only theaters (and on cable and “on demand” television), the people have voted the other way with their feet (and their remotes). The law in action today bears little resemblance to Chief Justice Berger’s “categorical...disapprov[al] of [my] theory that obscene, pornographic films acquire constitutional immunity from state regulation simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only...” The law in action more closely resembles the approach I advocated in my first encounter with the law of obscenity back in 1969. I promised Judge Aldrich that if we lost in the Supreme Court, I would continue, as a lawyer, to continue to urge acceptance of the argument that the government has no business telling a consenting adult what he may or may not watch in a theater (or video or TV) from which children are excluded, so long as the “externalities” —that which appears in public view outside the theater—is not obscene. I have kept my promise, and despite the Supreme Court’s continued insistence—most recently in the violent video games case—that “obscenity” is not protected by the First Amendment, porn is widely available to consenting adults who choose to watch it without thrusting it upon unwilling viewers. That’s the law in action. Inevitably, the law, as articulated by the courts, will follow the law in action, lest it become irrelevantly anachronisti