ruin snowdrift: Someone Please Notify Me When The ...

Someone Please Notify Me When The Santorum Traveling Carnival Show Is Over

?? ~ by OneMoreOption

Rick Santorum?s campaign released this position paper on Santorum?s campaign website.? It is undated and unsigned, but it speaks in the first person, using ?I,? so I?ll infer Santorum approved it.?? The web page can be found here:? http://www.ricksantorum.com/enforcing-laws-against-illegal-pornography

The paper?s comments are in red.? My thoughts are in blue:

Enforcing laws against illegal pornography

America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography.? A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences. Addiction to pornography is now common for adults and even for some children.

A pandemic?? What measurable harm does?Santorum?cite???Santorum does not cite one peer-reviewed study as a point of authority.? If this was a high school English essay, it would fail for making only claims, but citing no points of authority.? A ?wealth of research??? How about naming one respected research study or paper?? Profound damage to the brain?? Like what?? This is such snake oil salesmanship.? Negative consequences?? Such as??? Porn ?addiction? is common?? How about giving some data?? Even if adults are ?addicted? to sexual imagery, is this a problem?? We don?t suggest men who want sex regularly have a sexual ?addiction? problem.? A regular, consistent, and healthy appetite for sexual stimulation is not an addiction.? It?s a disservice to people who genuinely have addiction problems to characterize a regular?appetite for sexual imagery as an addiction.

The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11.?Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women.? It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.

What?s the average ?first exposure? children have to violent actions where people or cartoons maim or kill each other?? Is there any reputable study that suggests a child is measurably harmed from viewing hard-core (or soft-core, or intermediate to middleweight-core) sexual imagery?? To answer this rhetorical question:? No, there is not.? It?s all speculation from fearmongers like Santorum.??Is pornography?toxic to marriages and relationships?? No, it is not commonly harmful to marriages where ?pornography? is not presumed to be a negative thing.? Many more marriages would probably dissolve if men did not have regular sexual imagery?to address their more frequent (on average) sexual drives.? Men can safely masturbate in the privacy of their homes, not damaging their relationship commitments, and reducing their number of partners and the transfer rates and prevalence of STDs.? Porn doesn?t contribute to violence against women any more than ?Law & Order? or the next summer action movie or horror flick.? It is a far healthier thing to allow people to consider their curiosities through viewing fictional content than for them to try everything in real life.? Watching ?Harry Potter? doesn?t contribute to the prevalence of wizardry.

Every family must now be concerned about the harm from pornography. As a parent, I am concerned about the widespread distribution of illegal obscene pornography and its profound effects on our culture. ? For many decades, the American public has actively petitioned the United States Congress for laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core adult pornography.

Who is Santorum going to set up on the ?Porn-Core Rating Committee????Which of his buddies will get that fortunate appointment where they sit in a dark room together, or separately in the privacy of their cubicle and computer monitor, to evaluate the literally millions of new sexual imagery videos and photographs created by Hollywood, the international porn industry, the fashion industry, and amateur photographers and videographers?? What a fuckin? joke.? Pun intended.? The ?American Public,? at least a majority of them, has?not petitioned Congress for laws prohibiting hard-core porn ? at least not for the last few decades.??Men in general?have not had a free hand to sign the petition ? at least not since the advent of the home PC and a fast internet connection.? If the American Public really wanted this to happen, such a movement would have already virally set Facebook ablaze.? Conservatives are so weird on sexual issues sometimes.? It?s like that ?One Million Moms? group ? who by the way, still have only about 45,600 members ? the few trying to control the actions, preferences, and liberties of the many.

Congress has responded.? Current federal ?obscenity? laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier. Rick Santorum believes that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced.? ?If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.???

Yawn.? First, this is not true ? Congress has not banned the distribution of hard-core porn or any other (insert your favorite porn adjective here) porn.? Second, it?s mindless saber rattling.? Third, if Santorum had?more intelligence, he?d know this is bad politics and misguided social policy ? pandering to an?under-educated social minority ? to the detriment of a diverse majority.

The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration.?

?Scourge of pornography??? Is that like the ?scourge of teen pregnancy? or the ?scourge of diminishing church attendance??? If Obama?s cool with both healthy families and healthy pornography ? that sounds like a more even-keel, mature, and informed position.

I proudly support the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition that has tirelessly fought to get federal obscenity laws enforced.? That coalition is composed of 120 national, state, and local groups, including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Cornerstone Family Council of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a host of other groups.? Together we will prevail.

I hope not, because that would be silly nonsense.? It would be like trying to re-institute alcohol prohibition.? It is such a silly aspiration as to be almost not?be worth discussion ? except that a?guy?running for the Republican Presidential candidacy thinks discussing the policy will garner him some more votes.

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For regular readers and writers:?? Thank you to old and new subscribers.? You know I don?t spend much time on this forum??getting down in the mud to wrestle with buffoons & charlatans.? But Santorum is running for President of the United States and people need to point out when he?s being self-serving and stupid.

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