On Friday I wrote about a group of Republican lawmakers who are calling on the DOJ to fight the proliferation of hardcore pornography by enforcing existing obscenity laws. I support this effort and would like to see it taken even further. Ultimately, I believe that internet porn should be illegal. That probably can’t happen without the Supreme Court’s involvement, but we could at least heavily regulate it and take significant steps to protect children from being exposed to it. Writing at First Things a few weeks ago, Terry Schilling outlined a number of ways that porn could be regulated within the current legal framework. All of his suggestions seem reasonable to me.
But my call for the government to get involved in the fight against porn has prompted a heavy (and entirely predictable) backlash from all corners of the political landscape. I have hundreds of messages, emails, and Twitter notifications from people who believe it is not only wrong to try and control the spread of porn, but somehow tyrannical and oppressive. What concerns me the most is that a great many of the valiant porn defenders are self-professed “conservatives.” A mere 30 years ago, every conservative in the country would have at least taken seriously an argument for regulating or forbidding the most depraved and explicit kinds of pornography, especially if it was as accessible to children then as it is now. Today, though, this standard conservative position causes conservatives themselves to recoil in shock and horror. This is how thoroughly the Left has won the culture.
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