His latest crusade? In a statement on his website, he promises "vigorous enforcement" of laws that “prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier.”
“The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws.”
Regardless of how you feel about pornography, keep in mind that this is exactly how the Left behaves..stretching laws and engaging in selective prosecution in order to impose its morality on the general public.
What Santorum would have to do to put this into place is quite interesting.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the private possession of most kinds of porn is not illegal, there's no particular protection for distribution.
What a President Santorum would have to do, first of all, is shut down a $14 billion plus industry completely. To put this in perspective, that's bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined.
That would include blocking domestic websites, shutting down rental channels, studios and outlets that retail DVDs. Aside from the dislocation taking a $14 billion industry down and putting thousands of people out of work would cause in an already shaky economy, it's a fact that a number of very large corporations have a significant amount of money invested in these companies, and they're not going to let these valuable assets be destroyed without a long, bitter and expensive court fight.
And that also doesn't account for the fact that Rick Santorum's standards on what's obscene likely differ quite a bit from the mainstream. That's another recipe for court fights galore, especially when the selective prosecutions start.
To add to the irony, foreign websites and marketers would be unaffected...unless President Santorum either goes to congress to get legislation for blanket filters for foreign sites or simply decides to impose by executive order if the votes aren't there. Sounds like another president we're familiar with, doesn't it? And just where does the line get drawn according to Mr. Santorum? Just porn, is it going to include sex toys as well? Is he planning on reviving the sodomy laws too? In his statement Santorm pledges to appoint an Attorney General that would carry out his wishes to the letter.
Don't misunderstand me. I can empathize with the feelings people have about what talk show host Laura Ingraham calls 'the pornification of the culture'. But frankly if people wish to watch what I'll call mainstream porn (the naked bodies of consenting adults assuming various poses or engaging in various kinds of sexual activities) they have a perfect right to, and the cure someone like Rick Santorum proposes is far worse than the disease. People, at some point, need to take a certain responsibility for what they read, see, or allow into their homes.
This is simply Big Nanny Government from the Right side of the spectrum, and it tastes just as foul as it does coming from the other side.
I can only imagine what the Obama Campaign would do with this if Santorum actually got the nomination. If you absolutely hate Mitt Romney and are firmly in Santorum's camp for whatever reason, I'm sure nothing I say would convince you, but it would be an absolute disaster for him to be the GOP candidate.
If he's the nominee and runs against Obama, I'll vote for him, holding my nose while I do it. I'd vote for Daffy Duck instead of the current occupant of the White House. But mark my words....a Santorum - Obama match up is going to look a lot like the map after election day in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater.
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