Why Won’t The Cons Leave People Alone
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At every step religious far right cons refuse to leave people alone
A coalition of 13 conservative groups — including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America — took out full-page ads in some editions of USA Today earlier this month urging the Justice Department and FBI to investigate whether some of the pay-per-view movies widely available in hotels violate federal and state obscenity laws.
Yes, since the menace of international terrorism is over clearly the DOJ and FBI should investigate why Motel 6 is running Debbie Does Dallas! (and are they directing any of this ire to Fox News Channel’s regular softcore porn fare?)
33 Responses to “Why Won’t The Cons Leave People Alone”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Why is it so wrong for people to exercise their free speech rights and petition the government?
Frankly, I think these organizations should focus their energy on more important issues, but it’s pretty sad that you’re bemoaning Americans engaging in the political process.
OW, I check you to 9 decimal places in my contempt for these groups, but I think you’re looking at this action the wrong way. Forget creationism, forget abortion: is there anything you can think of that would cause Americans to rise up in righteous anger and boot these prim hypocrites from our political life faster than their attempt to take away our porn?
Prohibition spelled the death knell of the Christian temperance movement. The campaign against the Spice Channel will be the death knell of the James Dobson Bund.
“Why is it so wrong for people to exercise their free speech rights”
Now that’s funny. Keep it coming, cons! Can you get down to 25% approval?
If only those lonely business travelers would turn off the TV and get out of their rooms, I’m sure they’d find their way down to church!
And Jay, please stop being silly.
Nowhere does OW “bemoan Americans engaging in the political process.”
He clearly takes issue with their priorities, which you readily admit are out of whack.
Jay,
Why is it ok for the morality police to impose THEIR personal morality on me? I thought I had free choice-if they take it away that’s another erosion of another right…
Why is it ok for the morality police to impose THEIR personal morality on me? I thought I had free choice-if they take it away that’s another erosion of another right…
Tell you what. Get the left wing tree huggers who don’t want people building extensions on their homes or clearing up their backyards because they’ve decided some frog might be displaced or that they have a ‘wetland’ in their backyard, and I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with you on your ‘right’ to view porn movies at a hotel.
Its insane that you dont even see the difference Jay. While I’ll agree that the environmentalists can go a bit too far, miswriting endangered species law that prevents, as one episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit documented, a handicapped woman from building her house, but didnt stop Walmart from setting up shop, their argument at least in its most base form is fundamentally different. Do not do this, because it hurts something. How does that correlate to porno? Are you seriously about to tell me that I’m hurting anyone by watching Skinemax? (self abuse doesnt count) Its a private action that affects nobody, Nobody but the viewer, and the only sensible reason these groups would even make these obscenity accusations (which are on their face bogus, pornographers inherently have to be really damn careful where the legal line cause they know how hard the hammer can come down) is to gain notoriety, fame and attention when they deserve none, and to control peoples private lives just for the sake of making them feel more powerful than they should ever be. This isnt out of public concern, or even tree-hugging animal safety concern, and they certainly arent looking out for the purity of the souls of the peolpe who watch this stuff. These idiots arent looking out for dick!
…well okay they are but you get my point.
Yeah, really. I’m no tree hugger myself, but preserving nature is significantly more valuable than banning DD babes.
Yeah, really. I’m no tree hugger myself, but preserving nature is significantly more valuable than banning DD babes.
You’re wrong. There is nothing more important in this country other than the right to our life, than the right to our own property. Having some pencil neck have the government come down on me because some bureaucrat determines the puddle in my backyard is a wetland is far worse than some prima donna concerning themselves with what I watch in hotel room.
It’s telling that both you and Rex believe otherwise.
To reiterate, The Family Research Council and CWA are idiotic for bothering with something like this, especially asking the feds to step in.
At the same time, this is not something to get worked up over and I just wish people would make more hay out of the erosion of our property rights (through nonsense like wetlands and eminent domain) than getting excited because the JD might determinet that showing porn in a hotel violates obscenity laws.
Shorter Jay “Ultimately I agree with Oliver’s point that this is stupid, I just wish he had conservative priorities like me.”
Thanks for contributing, Jay.
Shorter Jay “Ultimately I agree with Oliver’s point that this is stupid, I just wish he had conservative priorities like me.”
That’s funny. I never considered property rights to be a conservative priority. I just thought it was a PRIORITY over whether or not you’re allowed to watch porn during a stay at the Sleep Inn.
I guess not.
Property rights by nature are a conservative issue, although obviously not as much as others.
Too bad the the pResident didn’t respect the property rights of the Mathes family when his cronies signed him on to help steal the land where the Ballpark in Arlington currently stands.
“I just thought it was a PRIORITY over whether or not you’re allowed to watch porn during a stay at the Sleep Inn.”
You are, in fact, wrong. My right to privately do whatever I please (that is not criminal or harmful to anyone else) is infinately more important than my right to property. Would you like to know why? Because, arguably, I am not my Computer, but I am what I do with it. Likewise I am not my hands, but I am how I use them. Existential perhaps, but my point is that they want to control not what I have, but how I am.
You say in a previous post that the only right that trumps property in your eyes is the right to live our own lives. That is the very thing that this issue is about. They want to threaten restriction to harmless materials to keep us from making private choices they disagree with.
Also, yes, environmentalists and the govt in general have done too much to screw with property rights (I recall a case of some people being forced out of their house through eminent domain to build a Mall, and another where the mall was never actually built, but the property bulldozed) but it is, in my opinion, and I think deep down in yours too, less important in a fundamental sense.
You know, if the FRC and CWA want to take out an ad urging people not to watch naughty movies, I have no problem.
It’s only when they’re trying to make, well, a federal case out of it that I get annoyed.
Since you bring up property rights, Jay, shouldn’t it be the right of the hotel owners to decide what kinds of movies they’ll offer to guests?
Hey, I think property rights are more important that porn in hotel rooms. But I think lots of things are more important than that, like torture, our failed Iraq war, you name it. The fact that you brought up “the erosion of our property rights (through nonsense like wetlands” was dictated by your own arbitary, silly, conservative concerns, hence your silly, arbitary complaint. What’s next, ATF agents raiding your compound? Black UN helicopters contaminating your water supply with flouride? Who gives a shit?
Property rights shouldn’t be seen as a political issue lib or con. If that were the case, any land owner on this site would immediately hold conservative views…and I doubt that would happen.
It’s more accurate to classify it as a “me” issue. Until you own land yourself, you may not care about what others do to other property, but I bet you’ll start caring when someone exerts eminent domain and buys your house for under market value.
Now, I’ve owned a few properties, and land rights aren’t free and unfettered. There are zoning restrictions, usage restrictions, CC&Rs…there a many rules that dictate what you can and can’t do with your very own property. Look at gated communities and how paint nazis tell homeowners the exteriors of their homes must conform to their rules or they fined.
But I digress, I think this thread is about religious organizations wasting time controlling smut, which, of course, is a huge waste of time and money, but they’re free to do it. And they’re free to draw overwhelming contempt from guys like me who demand solid porn.
What’s wierd, is I would assume a hotel that’s wired would have a significant drop in porn money, as you can go right online and get it there.
And, I don’t know, when we start ranking one right against another, we sort of diminish them all.
“there a many rules that dictate what you can and can’t do with your very own property. Look at gated communities and how paint nazis tell homeowners the exteriors of their homes must conform to their rules or they fined.”
Well, not a “rule” exactly. More like a contract the property owner signed at the time of purchase.
But don’t let that get in the way of a good rant.
Porn in hotel rooms is a privacy issue as much as an obscenity issue and as new-breed conservative judges like Alito and company argue, privacy is not guaranteed in the Constitution. Thus, Church groups and other do-gooders feel empowered to use the awesome police power of the state to their petty ends. Somehow that passes for conservatism these days.
Its a rule you agree to nevertheless…not like you have a choice.
“Its a rule you agree to nevertheless…not like you have a choice.”
You could choose to live somewhere else.
C’mon. You pick a house you can afford, you enter into escrow. After your contingencies have passed and your money goes hard, they present you the CC&Rs which you won’t read anyway. My point really wasn’t about fairness about CC&Rs, it was more that even land ownership has restrictions, and that it doesn’t trump other rights.
Steve, if you don’t read the covenants, that’s YOUR problem, not the problem of privacy laws or property rights or the US government.
And if your lawyer didn’t present you with the rules before you entered into contract, you need to find a better lawyer.
I don’t see much merit in the FRC’s and CWA’s proposal. In the first place, it is legally strange: they are asking a federal agency to enforce local laws; normally such federal involvement would follow a local complaint about some entity from outside of the jurisdiction coming in and violating local ordinances.
Second, our obsenity laws have been completely bypassed by the internet. You can get anything from stuff milder than Playboy to things that would make even John Mark Karr puke, just with a few mouse-clicks (and, of course, a Visa card number!) The Supreme Court held a long time ago that the First Amendment does not protect obsenity, but never did come up with a realistic definition of obsenity, though they make several efforts. And where once the sheriff could close down the adult bookstore or the theater that was patronized by middle aged men in raincoats, there is simply no way to stop pornography (a word which will probably get this comment automatically dumped into the moderation queue) since Al Gore invented the internet.
See, I knew I could blame it on a liberal!
I’ve written a couple of times on my site about my difficulties with a basically libertarian orientation and the legalization of recreational drugs; my point of difficulty is that the harm that comes from drug abuse is so frequently not limited to the drug user, but is often visited on his children and society as well. Such collateral damage from pornography is a bit harder to see, and much harder to quantify.
By the way, Mr Willis, I found this particular article thanks to Gordo from Appletree. He’s a liberal, but not a whacked out leftist, and he’d be a good addition to your blogroll.
I’m with OW on this one. These quacks need to get a life. How arrogant of them to try and dictate what people want to watch in their own private rooms!
Long live porn!!!!!
Not sure how my salient point was misconstrued. I never said CC&Rs had anything to do with government, property rights or privacy laws. My point was, even though land ownership is a right, there are restrictions…pretty much a neutral statement.
My point was, even though land ownership is a right, there are restrictions…pretty much a neutral statement.
And mine was that your example isn’t a restriction imposed by an outside governing body, but one enforced by agreement among neighboring property owners.
Big difference.
Put it this way, Steve:
If my wife and I decide to have just one child, that’s an agreement.
If the government says I can have only one child, that’s a restriction.
To paraphrase Kang and Kodos:
“Pornography for some, miniature crucifixes for others!”
CC&R stands for “Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions”
But I get your point. Zoning laws are a better example of government restrictions, as are historical landmark designations, and ecological preservations.
But to get back on topic, I want outsiders out of my bedroom and hotel room, let ‘em make a buck watching people, well, you know.