“The problem isn't that enforcement won't be perfect. The problem is that enforcement could never realistically catch even 0.1% of violations without serious abridgements of the Bill of Rights.”
What abridgements? The BOR doesn’t protect pornography.
“If a law cannot be enforced well enough that reasonable punishments will significantly deter the prohibited activity, that implies pretty strongly that it is a bad law.”
Wait a minute, there. You just said that reasonable punishments will not be forthcoming because the wrongdoers won’t be caught. You can’t make both those arguments at the same time.
Besides, it is not always the case that a widespread willingness to break a law indicates that it is a bad law. It might, or it might indicate widespread moral depravity.
“Well, since picking up strangers at a bar is perfectly legal (and IMHO is worse), the question would be why a less-damaging activity should be treated more harshly than a more-damaging one.”
It is not worse, because prostitution is worse than fornication. Besides, the profusion of pornography is far more damaging to the nation’s moral fiber than private fornication.
“The contribution of one viewer to the industry pales in comparison to the contribution of an individual to the morals of a woman whom he takes on a one-night stand.”
That’s not the way the moral calculus factors out. Each viewer of pornography bears a 100 percent share of the blame.
“That is, to some extent, true but I would maintain that attacking symptoms of societal problems is still often ineffective and at times counterproductive.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s ineffective. A moral society will still take a stand, even if they die on that hill.
“Even if one is successful at completely eliminating a particular symptom, another is almost guaranteed to emerge; in many cases, the new one may be worse than the old one.”
Yes, Satan is a busy fellow. That doesn’t mean we should cede any of these fights to him. Nobody ever won anything through preemptive surrender.
“Trying to curtail all forms of sexual release is generally neither effective nor helpful. If porn is eliminated, men will release their sexual energies in some other way; I see no reason to expect that to be an improvement.”
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Whether it is an improvement or not would depend on how those men are bent. Perhaps, sufficiently deprived, they would sublimate their sexual energies by wiping Islam from the face of the earth. Or maybe they’d go down to South America and clean out the commies and drug cartels.
Or, heck, maybe they’d go to our own big cities and clean out the commies and drug cartels.
Why on earth would they attack people who competely agree with their, and your, view of the matter?