As Adelphia goes, so goes America? Pat Buchanan on $10 billion 'carnal cornucopia' poisoning nation

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Monday, February 14, 2005 | Pat Buchanan

[JohnHuang2]

In his second inaugural, George W. Bush used the words liberty and freedom 42 times. And, indeed, if America is about anything, she is about freedom. But freedom from what, and for what?

What brings the old question to mind is the decision by Adelphia Communications, the cable operator that has long refused to carry pornography, to offer triple-X rated programming for the first time in a major media market: Southern California.

What is triple-X-rated programming?

Sallie Hofmeister of the Los Angeles Times explains: "Single-X-rated movies feature nudity, long-range or medium-range camera shots, simulated sex and sex between women." Her depiction of double-X- and triple-X-rated programming is best left to the imagination.

In short, this is the sort of squalid, grungy stuff that, not long ago, would have had the men who produced and distributed it sent to prison for years, after being denounced from the bench as perverts.

Why did Adelphia change its policy? Well, it seems that John Rigas, the 80-year-old founder who, on moral grounds, refused to carry "soft-porn," is on his way, along with his son, to a minimum-security facility for looting his company. Family values at work. And as Adelphia has filed for Chapter 11 and is on the block, its present managers wanted to make it as attractive a property as possible.

Spokeswoman Erica Stull, in what might well stand as the motto of modern capitalism, gave Adelphia's reason for reversing its policy: "People want it, so we are going to provide it." Erica gets it.

Adelphia's fall from grace would be a matter of little interest were it not for the trend it exposed, which Hofmeister details.

"Adelphia joins a marketplace already teeming with ways to procure hard-core sexual content," she writes. "The Internet has become a carnal cornucopia, with graphic images, videos and cartoons ... EchoStar Communications Corp., the nation's second-ranked satellite TV provider, has offered triple-X programming for several years on its Dish Network. Satellite leader DirecTV Group Inc., owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., peddles fare that falls just shy of triple-X."

Fifty percent of all hotel movies purchased are "adult."

"It's scary how much money is made on porn," proclaims Tim Connelly, editor and publisher of Adult Video News, the journal of the porn trade – although Connelly does not seem all that scared.

"I think they made a really smart business decision," Connelly told another reporter. "So, today Adelphia, tomorrow Wal-Mart."

Connelly estimates that when strip clubs, magazines, the Internet, television and DVDs are factored in, porn has become a $10 billion industry. "That's more than Hollywood makes at the box office," says Connelly. "And it just grows and grows and grows. It's mainstream now."

Yes, it is. And if Connelly is right, pornography grossed 30 times as much as "The Passion of the Christ," and 200 million citizens spend on average $50 a year each to keep the industry booming.

One need not have lived through Legion of Decency days, when its condemnation could kill a movie, to realize that America is still "defining deviancy down," in the late Sen. Pat Moynihan's phrase. We are in a worldwide race to the bottom, and America is winning.

Our popular culture – free and diverse, or polluted and poisonous, depending on your views and values – is a consequence of convergent forces. First, a Supreme Court, led by such worthies as William Douglas, brought pornography under the protection of the First Amendment.

At the same time, Christianity, as definer of standards of morality, was being displaced by the new religion that came out of the cultural revolution of the '60s, secular humanism. This belief system holds that all voluntary sexual acts between consenting adults are moral.

Then, the mighty engine of American capitalism, which, per Stull, is about "People want it, so we are going to provide it," went to work to meet the new market's demand. That demand comes from an affluent Weimar America whose children have been taught in their schools, and by their song-singers and films, that sex is good, hang-ups are bad and chastity is stupid.

November's landslide repudiation of gay marriage is regarded as a triumph by moral-values voters in Red State America. But history will likely record it as a defensive victory of one of the last citadels of traditional Christian morality, which eventually fell.

In "Witness," Whittaker Chambers writes of how, in a hospital, as he spoke with a priest friend about whether the West might be saved, he was brought up short by the priest's question: "What make you think the West is worth saving?"

As the West advances from aborting its unborn to assisting the suicide of its sick, from euthanasia of its elderly to mercy-killing its disabled young in Europe, from its Christian roots to its post-Christian decadence, decline and death from a lack of births, the priest's question is being asked – and not only in the madrassas of the East.

[OldFriend]

Anything written or uttered by PJB requires a BARF ALERT

[ny demimonde]

what is pat's story?

[buridan]

Your revulsion is noted, but a little specificity would be helpful.

[maestro]

This has NOTHING yo do with the British State Religion of Darwinist Evolution or Reincarnation 'clubs'.

Move on.......

(Support British T.V. and its Colonies)

/sarcasm

[TaxRelief]

if Connelly is right, pornography grossed 30 times as much as "The Passion of the Christ,"

That's easy. Pornography is dangerously addictive; Mel Gibson's movie is a one-time watch.

Is it not an accounting faux pas to compare the income from one movie against the gross take of an entire industry?

[Truthsearcher]

Exactly, the appropriate comparison would be the entire religious themed industry, everything from music to books and movies. Heck, you could argue all the money donated to churches to keep them running is part of the "religious industry".

[Truthsearcher]

Basically, Pat Buchanan and his America hating rightist are not that different from the America hating lefties.

They all hate America because America is not what they think it ought to be.

In the case the lefties, America was always bad, in the case of the likes of Buchanan, America was once good, but is now corrupted and bad. In either case, they really don't much care for the country and the people currently living here.
Thus the constant prediction of doom and gloom for this country from both of these sides. The real reason is because they want bad things to happen, so they can be proven "right" about how bad this country is.

[Ichneumon]

This has NOTHING yo do with the British State Religion of Darwinist Evolution /sarcasm

Oh, give it a rest... News flash: Most people's lives don't revolve around "Darwinist Evolution" as much as yours does. Even biologists realize that lots of things in life have nothing to do with evolution, but to a lot of you anti-evolution crusaders, it seems that *everything* can be blamed on the "evil" of teaching evolution. Sheesh.

And no matter how often you repeat your mantra, evolutionary biology is not a "religion". (But I'm always amused that the worst thing that some people can think of to say about evolutionary biology is to call it "religion" -- ironic, isn't it?)

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/St.Pachomius/Liturgical/didache.html

Above URL is the Didache which should have been included in the New Testament.

[MadIvan]

I think he is being overly pessimistic. It has been fashionable since the time of the Ancient Greeks to say society is in the toilet and about to pull the lever to flush. I have great faith, however, that Red State America is going to lead the way. Let's face it, the Blue States are stagnant, depopulating and losing influence. Along with leadership will come their values.

Regards, Ivan

[xzins]

Evilution

:>)

[Tax-chick]

Good morning ...yes, as post 7 says, the source is comparing one apple with the entire citrus-fruit industry, including that bizarre-tasting " 'orange' juice" that's really cheap at the Bi-Lo. Not exactly an honest procedure.

You're also right that pornography is habit-forming, because it produces epinephrine in men's brains and gives them a physical charge. (A medically-educated FReeper gave us a lecture on the scientific meaning of "addiction" recently, so I hesitate to use that word :-). On the other hand, viewing action films can produce adrenaline, another chemical "high," so maybe it's a wash vis-a-vis "The Passion." My mom said that was an action film.

[BlazingArizona]

That demand comes from an affluent Weimar America whose children have been taught in their schools, and by their song-singers and films, that sex is good, hang-ups are bad and chastity is stupid.

"Weimar America" - and Pat Buchanan would love to be its new Fuhrer, to join with the Taliban against Ze Choose.

[Doohickey]

And it's more than a little ironic that cheapening the Holocaust with constant Nazi references is a favorite tactic of the left.

[TaxRelief]

Do you have a link to that discussion about "habit-forming" v. addiction? Sounds interesting.

[Tax-chick]

I'm pretty sure it in the commentary on this article:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1337172/posts

I'll FReepmail you later about the parsley. We're still cleaning up from Blue & Gold Banquet.

[TaxRelief]

I see no less passion and religion on the part of Evo's than Creo's.

Biologists are certainly more realistic, but Evo's--common folks who believe in evolution but have little or no science background-- take it all on faith, and passionately, too.

Why look at the passion within the few short words in your own post:

"anti-evolution crusaders"
"Sheesh."
"repeat your mantra"
" Most people's lives don't revolve around...as yours does"

Whether or not evolution is a sound theory, it is absolutely accurate to refer to the obsessive support of evolution, by layman, as a "religion". (And likewise for the support of homosexuality, gambling, vegetarianism, "animal rights", or global alarmism, etc.)

Enthusiastic support is fine; but if a man wants to make a case for evolution, does it make sense to deny that there are some cult-like followers of the Theory of Evolution ?

[SuziQ]

If I'm not mistaken, anyone can block any channel from availability on their home systems. I know it can be done with cable programming because we blocked MTV on ours. I'm not sure about satellite programming, but I'm sure it must be possible. In other words, if you don't want it coming in to your house, you have every right to block it!

[Ichneumon]

I see no less passion and religion on the part of Evo's than Creo's.

Passion, yes. "Religion", no -- unless you want to stretch the meaning of the word "religion" so far as to be practically meaningless.

Biologists are certainly more realistic, but Evo's--common folks who believe in evolution but have little or no science background-- take it all on faith, and passionately, too.

I'm sorry, but trusting in the results of the self-correcting, constantly re-verifying system of science is hardly the same as "taking it all on faith", in the sense you mean it. It's nowhere near the same thing as accepting some religious claim in a book or from a holy man without -- or in many cases, in opposition to -- independent supporting evidence.

Confidence in the consensus results of mainstream science is no more "taking it all on faith" than is believing that Hawaii actually exists even though you've never actually personally been there. Or does believing in Hawaii also count as a "religion" to you?

Why look at the passion within the few short words in your own post:

Passion does not equal religion. If it did, football and NASCAR would be religions.

Whether or not evolution is a sound theory, it is absolutely accurate to refer to the obsessive support of evolution, by layman, as a "religion".

Again, this is complete nonsense and a gross misunderstanding of both "religion" and "faith".

(And likewise for the support of homosexuality, gambling, vegetarianism, "animal rights", or global alarmism, etc.)

Are you implying that the foundations of evolutionary biology are equivalent to those other items you list?

Enthusiastic support is fine; but if a man wants to make a case for evolution, does it make sense to deny that there are some cult-like followers of the Theory of Evolution ?

I've seen that *accusation* a lot, but no, I've never actually seen or met any "cult-like followers". Is that another term you're attempting to redefine to include evolutionists and NASCAR fans?