{"id":7072,"date":"2012-03-16T04:04:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T04:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7072"},"modified":"2012-03-16T04:04:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T04:04:59","slug":"big-government-rick-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/big-government-rick-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Government Rick (Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/a>Here\u2019s <\/a>Josh Barro writing for Forbes<\/em> with details of some Santorum plans for wasteful and intrusive government:<\/p>\n

The Daily Caller flags a little-discussed position paper<\/a> on Rick Santorum\u2019s campaign website\u2014his pledge to aggressively prosecute those who produce and distribute pornography. Santorum avers that \u201cAmerica is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography.\u201d He pledges to use the resources of the Department of Justice to fight that \u201cpandemic,\u201d by bringing obscenity prosecutions against pornographers.<\/p>\n

I would note that this is very different from what the Bush Administration did. The Bush DOJ did establish an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in 2005, but this body focused on bringing prosecutions against small-time producers who made porn with extreme content. (Even so, it faced significant pushback from U.S. Attorneys, some of whom viewed such prosecutions as a distraction and a misuse of resources.) Many social conservative groups were disappointed with the task force, contending that more mainstream hardcore porn violates obscenity laws, and they urged the Bush Administration to bring obscenity cases against major producers.<\/p>\n

Santorum promises that he would do exactly this. His statement references going after pornography that is distributed not just on the Internet, but also \u201con cable\/satellite TV, on hotel\/motel TV.\u201d Perhaps I am not staying in the most interesting hotels, but my impression is that porn distributed through such channels is almost definitionally not extreme. Santorum\u2019s statement also touts his work on this issue with \u201cgroups including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association\u201d\u2014many of which were among the groups calling on the Bush Administration to prosecute mainstream porn producers in 2007. And he says he \u201cproudly support[s] the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition,\u201d which advocates the use of obscenity laws against mainstream porn. <\/p>\n

Some of Santorum\u2019s defenders have taken the tack of separating his personal views from his policy views. Santorum thinks contraception is \u201cnot OK\u201d and he has announced his intention to use the bully pulpit to discuss \u201cthe dangers of contraception.\u201d But he doesn\u2019t think contraception should be illegal, and he voted for Title X contraception subsidies (though he said in a recent debate that he opposes Title X, despite voting for it.) On pornography, though, Santorum\u2019s views can\u2019t be written off as purely personal\u2014he has stated a clear intent to use the levers of government to stop adults from making and watching porn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, of course to fritter away taxpayer money (and prosecutorial resources) while doing so.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s obscene. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s Josh Barro writing for Forbes with details of some Santorum plans for wasteful and intrusive government: The Daily Caller flags a little-discussed position paper on Rick Santorum\u2019s campaign website\u2014his pledge to aggressively prosecute those who produce and distribute pornography. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[740,825,542,743,776],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7077,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072\/revisions\/7077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}