Wednesday, June 30, 2004

On kiddie porn and the Malboro Man

Something struck me: the USA, and, increasingly, the UK are deadset on banning public smoking. As we've heard countless times, passive smoke is a major health hazard, a public risk that no responsible citizen should promote.

But what of this recent Supreme Court ruling in defense of the "right" to enjoy and promulgate child pornography? The Internet is one of the, if not the, most public domain in the entire world. What you do online affects literally the entire world. Why, then, should the distribution and increased accessiblity of child pornography not be seen as an equally reckless public health risk?

Beacuse it doesn't hurt our precious adult bodies, that's why.

As long as something merely pollutes the pliable and more easily ignored minds of children, but leaves the bodies of adults unscathed, well, it's as right as rain. If it's unethical for the cigarette companies to "lure" youths into smoking with youth-oriented advertising, I say it's at least equally wrong to lure them in to pedophilia by legislatively protecting the thin veneer of respectability that modern pop-psychology has given to pedophilia (as an alternative form of love, dontchaknow).

You're going to tell me sex is less addicting than smoking? You're going to tell it's possible to create a smoking industry by sheer market influence, but it's harmless to allow the porn industry to proselytize our nation's youth?

Call in the Marlboro Man, it's time to kick some ass.

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