Intriguing thought. How do you determine what is harmful enough to justify restrictions on liberty without the benefit of hindsight? I’ve got my opinions on the harmfulness of porn, but the science on the subject seems to go both ways. Also, why do you think culture always adapts to make a new innovation less harmful? I would think culture could often become more accepting or tolerant of harm rather than protecting against it. Why do you think responsibility is more likely to form in the presence of protective Gov’t impulses than the absence?
Do you think good judgment requires a certified scientist? Not at all! Scientists are men with a certain set of wisdoms and tools to apply. They don't always apply them well -- witness the global warming "consensus".
Good judgment comes from learning, most learning comes from learning from mistakes, it seems. There's a higher quality of learning that takes much more effort that comes from learning from successes.
What successful man or woman counts porn as his or her success?
So many porn stars end up with workplace afflictions. Some enjoy monetary "success" and fame, sure. But what kind of success is that? It's like the success of the bling-laden drug dealer in the ghetto, or like a mafia don's. Infamy, not fame.
Judgment comes from learning morality -- the world is run according to rules spiritual and physical. But even just measuring by the physical, porn comes out a negative.
It is by freedom that full human development occurs -- and that is both individual and group freedoms, individual and social development. But growth comes only when the individual and the society internalize -- take into their being -- the models of behavior that are long-term successful, that encourage growth in other human strivings.
Porn does not enable growth, it hobbles the being, it hobbles the culture.
Governments do not have impulses -- they are made of people, the people, us. We, the People. That's a "We" in that -- not "me, me me". We act individually and those individual actions are summed, we also act in unison.
The better we act individually, the less we may need to act under the charter of a group, but even in the most sophisticated of cultures, where humans are fully responsible trustworthy and honest there still will be laws and regulations of social behavior.