Originally posted by: CSMR
Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: TylerP
I don't see a problem with this. (the waging war on pornography part)
I am sure I am in the minority on this though.
Don't like pornography? Don't look at it. I swear, this is some kind of high brow concept here in the US...everybody is convinced that the appropriate thing to do with things they don't like is to try to ban them. Heaven forbid our nation engages in any activity that makes midwesterners feel icky
One can be concerned about other people. Porn is harmful to people and to society and it is better to restrict it.
I'm not sure I follow you there. You have an opinion about porn's effect on society...therefore you think we should implement laws based on your opinion. Normally, the "..." would indicate some sort of logical link between those two things, yet your post is seriously missing such a link. I have an opinion about a lot of things, yet I feel that very little of it needs to become law. Personally, I think Buddhism is great, and a lot of people would benefit from studying Buddhism. So do I think that should be mandatory? Of course not.
My point was that if you feel porn is harmful, stay away from it. Hell, urge your friends and family to stay away as well. But there is a serious limit to the amount of nanny-stating we need to engage in, and restricting porn is well past that line. I realize you think it would be good for society if we did, but that's exactly the point...
Perhaps you disagree with this, but I feel that the purpose of our system of government is to allow people to do whatever the hell they want as long as they don't go around pissing in anyone's Corn Flakes. To the extent they aren't doing that, whatever ELSE they might want to do is super. Right now, I personally am going to stay up late and drink some Jack Daniels. Neither of those activities is particularly good for me, but I'm not sure I'd appreciate some well meaning do-gooders busting into my apartment to stop me.
Our society does not exist to provide you with a mechanism to make everyone do everything you think would be good for them. This is the foreign concept I was talking about, a disturbing number of Americans seem to think that the whole purpose of government is to give them a way to mold the perfect society and make sure everyone is getting enough calcium and going to church on Sunday. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the founding fathers had in mind.