Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Since launching this blog a little while back, my mornings have slowly begun settling into a routine. I get up, see the wife off to work, grab a coffee, a Clif bar and my phone and begin scrolling through my news apps, looking for something to make fun of. Some days are tougher than others. Some days the people who need making fun of practically beg for it. Thank you, GOP Delegate from North Carolina, Mary Frances Forrester.
On Monday morning this week, Forrester proposed a truly insane amendment to a subcommittee of the GOP platform committee, which passed with little debate. The amendment, if fully adopted would place in the GOP platform the assertion that pornography is a public health crisis.
“The internet must not become a safe haven for predators. Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions. We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children’s safety and well-being. We applaud the social networking sites that bar sex offenders from participation. We urge energetic prosecution of child pornography which closely linked to human trafficking,” reads the amendment as reported by CNN.
There is so much going on in that paragraph, it’s just awesome. The literal insanity of the word-for-word verbiage aside, and to be addressed shortly, the meta-message I’m getting is that, based at least on order of mention and ink given to it, human trafficking and child pornography are bad, but not as bad as the existence of pornography in general. Otherwise, the paragraph would have put the last sentence first, then the first sentence and then that’s it: “We urge energetic prosecution of child pornography which (is) closely linked to human trafficking. The internet must not become a safe haven for predators.”
Of course, had that been all there was to this proposed platform plank, you wouldn’t be reading about it here as I’d have no argument with it, and there certainly isn’t anything to poke fun at in it. So, again, Thank you Ms. Forrester for sentences two and three of your paragraph. Particularly two.
“Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions.”
Pornography has harmful effects? On whom? Kids? So does bourbon. Neither is for kids. And, only the latter actually destroys lives, but only if a person lets it. Neither is a “public health crisis,” by any stretch of the imagination. As goofy as that second sentence is, the following makes less sense. What public menace? Am I missing something here? Has the proliferation of amateur porn sites put real porn stars out of work and now they’re going around robbing people to support themselves? No? Then how the hell do you make out pornography to be a “public menace” or any risk at all to “children ‘s safety and well-being?”
This, again, is an example of how out of touch the old guard GOP is. The demographic group that gives a southernmost third of a northbound rat about pornography could be described as the ancient and incredibly religious – a group that will soon be leaving the Republican Party, and their mortal coils and won’t be replaced.
It is also an example of a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the State, one that has bedeviled both parties for generations. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the rightful place of the State to protect a person from him or herself. Period. Whether it comes to alcohol, or drugs, or gambling or whatever “vice” they may have that harms the person or property of no one but themselves, it is always strictly their business and no one else’s.
That this plank was even conceived of, let alone written and then voted upon is too further evidence of the GOP’s obsession with sex what it considers “sexual morality.” Again, if the state has no business telling me what guns I may or may not own, or what drugs a may or may not consume – and it doesn’t – then the state has no business telling anyone what they can do with their own genitalia so long as it, again and as always, doesn’t harm the person or property of another.
The Internet has, more than any other factor, hastened the demise of ink and paper printing. It has also begun replacing physical video formats like DVD with streaming services. So yes, while that means that today, people don’t have to go that skeevy party store on the edge of town, or the big adult “bookstore” off the freeway to get their porn, one still does have to go looking for it on the Internet. Turns out, if one doesn’t actively and intentionally navigate to a porn site, their browser won’t go to one; same with gambling websites, online shopping websites or this blog. Especially this blog.
Calling something that a person has to actively seek out because they want to, and causes no physical or fiscal harm to anyone against their will a “public health crisis” is just asinine. The term really ought to be reserved for things like viruses, bacterium, disease-causing fungi and other things that pose a direct threat to humans against their will and/or without their knowledge. Pornography doesn’t meet that threshold. Not even close.
Leave a Reply