Posted on 05/14/2014 10:36:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Thirty years ago Congress passed protective measures regarding pornography. On May 21, 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Child Protection Act, which was supposed to protect persons younger than 18 from exploitation by pornographers. (Other measures were designed to keep those under 18 from accessing pornography.) Two months later President Reagan signed into law the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, designed to keep persons below age 21 from purchasing alcoholic beverages.
Now, visualize this scene: Herbie, 13, walks into his local tavern and asks for a vodka martini—shaken, not stirred. Tex the barkeep asks, “Are you at least 21 years old?” Herbie says, “Sure.” Tex serves him. As he sips, Herbie pulls out his iPhone and watches a pornographic scene. I suspect most of you know what’s wrong with that picture: In all 50 states Herbie would not get his martini. Tex or anyone else would card him, demanding a driver’s license or other official proof that Herbie is at least 21. But the porn? No one would interfere.
The poet Ogden Nash (1902-1971) wrote, “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.” Today, I’d add another line with a different rhyme scheme: “Porn’s even faster but it leaves you forlorn.” I won’t go into detail here, but relatively few porn sites electronically card users. Some require use of a credit card to access much of their content, but even they are like bars at which persons of any age can get drunk.
And yet, pornography is a huge problem not only among adults but among children and teenagers as well. If you’re sending your very well-mannered children to college and the dorm Wi-Fi has no filtering mechanism, they are likely to be exposed early and often to hard-core porn—and some become addicted. Even if it does have a filter, your son and perhaps your daughter will probably see porn at some point.
Why the difference between alcohol and pornography, both products that sideswipe many teens? Thirty years ago President Reagan at the signing ceremony said he would appoint a commission to investigate pornography, and he did. Attorney General Ed Meese headed it up, citizens including James Dobson served on it—and the press ridiculed its serious conclusions. The U.S. Supreme Court also failed to take pornography seriously enough to change the almost-anything-goes attitude it had pioneered during the 1960s.
Now, as the group Enough Is Enough reports, porn makes up more than one-third of the internet industry and earns its purveyors more than $3,000 per second. Porn sites get more visitors each month than Twitter, Netflix, and Amazon combined. Most teens view pornography online, and one survey of 16- to 20-year-olds found nearly one out of four young men and one out of 10 young women admitting they tried to kick the habit but could not. Many young men expect dates and wives to perform as do actresses in the 11,000 porn films shot each year.
Need other dire stats? Witherspoon Institute conference research (proceedings published as “The Social Costs of Pornography”) showed that two-thirds of 18-to-34-year-old men visit porn sites regularly. (My hunch is that many of them go to church less often in part because they marry less often, and they marry less often in part because they access pornography more often.) Many men find it harder to relate to real women. Most divorces involve one partner compulsively using pornography.
Does this evidence mean legislators should act? Here’s the problem: A push to restrict pornography can play into the hands of those who hate Christian truth-telling. Now that influential atheists and secularists hope to restrict evangelistic efforts, our legal protection is the First Amendment proclamation of freedom for religion, speech, and the press—but since pornographers also rely on that amendment (as mistakenly interpreted), limits on it will rain on the innocent as well as the guilty.
A hard truth: Christians are a minority in America, and minorities should oppose increases in majoritarian power. A hard question: If we now should be quiescent on one issue to lessen the likelihood of a spillover to another, what hope do we have for constructive change? Not much, except what Christians have learned throughout the ages: Our hope is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He changes hearts and viewing patterns.
I saw it when I was in grammer school over 65 years ago on 8 mm film.
Mods pulled his comment but it was copied in this comment, interesting that comments were pulled, taking away the evidence, and now the posters can try to weasel out of what they really said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3155937/posts?page=55#55
bump
I think no amie, is French for no friend...
As I recall, some (conservatives) were opposed to the xxx addresses, because they thought it would make it even easier to find porn sites. I don’t know if I agree with that, because porn is very easy to find right now.
In a way it’s sad. People may have a legitimate concern about some aspect of sex, but try searching for information without being inundated with hard core porn. For example, I don’t see anything wrong with sex toys or lingerie, but turn off safe search, search those terms, and you’ll likely be exposed to porn.
I don’t actually like to give examples here, because what I think is permissible in marriage is completely irrelevant to other marriages. I don’t want to create a stumbling block for my brothers and sisters, and if they think something is morally wrong, they definitely shouldn’t do it. However, I do think it’s unfortunate that one can’t have a legitimate interest in some aspect of blessed, married sex, without also being exposed to a lot of sexual sin activities on the web.
Excellent information! Thank you. BTW, I think time and faith can help overcome a porn addiction, but like all addicts, porn addicts should always tread very lightly lest they fall back into their addiction. I know Christian alcoholics that have similar issues with alcohol, but the good news is it gets easier for them the longer they abstain from alcohol.
“Porn lovers cannot think rationally and lie.”
I think you meant they (porn addicts) can’t think rationally about porn, because they lose that capacity as part of the addiction. Denial, for example, is one of the personality traits of addiction.
Well, anyone who claims porn is harmless is just plain wrong, because I’ve witnessed people myself who have been harmed by it. A friend of mine was addicted to the stuff, and it was a significant part of why his wife divorced him. Someone posted that porn addiction is often wrongly claimed in divorce proceedings. I can’t attest to that, but I do know of at least one example where porn addiction was relevant to the divorce. It happens.
It’s difficult to post most of anything in absolute terms without subsequently being proven wrong.
Not proven wrong; just false accusations made and name calling and mudslinging. It’s SOP around here lately especially on these kinds of threads about morals.
Well, I did mean that, but also if a person has part of their mind blocked off due to addiction or extreme attachment to some kind of vice, the lack of rational thinking doesn’t just stay in that compartment. Moral blindness affects a person’s whole consciousness.
That is exactly why someone who is immoral in their “personal” life will be immoral in their public life. So politicians or anyone in some kind of public position who is immoral in their personal life is not trustworthy as a public servant.
I don’t mean they have to be a living saint, but following basic moral standards is vital. Using pornography is immoral as it is little different from using prostitutes, but in a sense, even worse, as there is not another real live person invovled, just the eyes, the hand and the sex organ.
Plus the women in the porn business suffer terribly, so there is that side too.
I think there are differing degrees of addiction and/or moral blindness but I agree that people who are immoral in their private lives are more likely to be immoral in their public lives, too. Character does matter.
There’s another aspect to this discussion that always surprises me. It seems too many people hold political opinions on moral matters that they don’t even challenge from time to time. I usually try to at least consider differing viewpoints.
Libertarians strike me as especially rigid in their thinking. A libertarian would likely say government has no business regulating porn, pot, or much of anything else at all. That’s incredibly naive in my opinion, because some things have in impact on society that extends beyond the individual.
If we lived in a society where porn was very pervasive (some might argue we are already there), it would likely have all sorts of negative impacts, like divorce, the spread of disease, etc. I just don’t see how someone can turn a blind eye to that. So to me, it’s about how much government is necessary, because governments are created for very real and good reasons. Too many libertarians come across as complete social anarchists to me.
Social anarchists/utopians is exactly what they are. Basically hardcore leftists who want guns and no taxes.
Of course all kinds of people pop up and say “but but I’m a small “l” libertarian, I don’t agree with everything the Libertarian Party says” and get all huffy. But when asked specifically “well, which exact platforms of the LP do you not agree with - legal dope, legal prostitution, totally open borders to all and sundry, all homo rights from A to Z, abortion without any restriction, every kind of porn w/out restriction, other?”
They do not reply.
Actually some prominent Libertarians have said child pornography should be legal. They really try to keep some of that stuff hidden.
So.......
Hi, Citizen replied to a post of mine in which they ignored what I wrote and then asserted an opinion onto me that I did not make. Then they argued a point that I could care less about. Typically, that makes a person a “troll.”
Then you come along and it gets even weirder. Thanks?
I just read through the exchange.
His comments were relevant, you just don’t agree with them. So in your little world, a “troll” is someone who disagrees with you.
Duly noted.
And then it’s “weird” that I make a comment on the exchange. Does that also make me a “troll” in your little world?
Actually, I saw his comment copied in another reply, and it did not say what you have tried to portray him saying.
“In post #14, you wrote that porn addiction was a phrase concocted by feminists. That certainly implies you don’t think porn addiction exists”
I wrote that it was a phrase concocted by feminists because they tend to ignore basic, natural, male behavior and treat it as an anomaly or in some way abhorrent behavior.
I do not believe that you will find that I wrote that an “addiction” occurring in certain individuals does, or can not, exist. Can you?
You seem to find it difficult to differentiate between flippant remarks in an internet forum and protestations of conviction laid down for serious debate.
I called you a troll because you match the role: you ignore the comment in total then “counter” argue on a topic that is not only irrelevant to what I wrote, but also attempts to pervert what I wrote.
“Well mannered children in college. 17 and up. Porn doesn’t harm them. That’s what he said.”
No, that’s not what he said. That’s what YOU want people to believe that he said, but he never said that in his post.
“I’m someone’s child too, at age 64. The context he used it in was “young people”.”
No, he was asking someone specifically about if they were worried about their college aged children seeing pornography. That was the context, referring to someone’s offspring.
“Porn lovers cannot think rationally and lie. That’s the way it’s always been on these threads. Plus they all get very angry and aggressive.”
I don’t know, the only one I have seen trying to stir up conflict and lying about other posters is you, and you don’t seem to be a porn lover.
Boogieman - I appreciate it. I see now that someone has taken a portion of what I wrote and maybe expanded their own opinion atop it somewhere down the line.
That confusion is why it may have happened that someone thinks that I made declarative statements about the existence of a pornography addiction.
For the record, I did not write:
“Well mannered children in college. 17 and up. Porn doesn’t harm them. That’s what he said.”
“I’m someone’s child too, at age 64. The context he used it in was “young people”.”
“Porn lovers cannot think rationally and lie. That’s the way it’s always been on these threads. Plus they all get very angry and aggressive.”
Sorry, Boogieman, I just realized that I think I stumbled inbetween a post referring to something that you guys were already talking about and thought that what you wrote referred to something that had gotten laid on me. I was just confused.
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