Amazon, Pedophilia, and Censorship – It isn’t a Dirty Word

Censorship – It isn’t a Dirty Word.

What is wrong with censorship? I’m all in favor of it. Censorship is not a dirty word. Liberals decry censorship as some kind of fascist plot to destroy personal freedoms and shut off political debate, and yes, censorship improperly used can do that. But there is a difference between unbridled individual expression and the right of a community to police itself through established and accepted moral norms. What is lacking in our debate about individual rights is the idea of civic or social responsibility. Freedoms do not exist in a vacuum. Freedoms imply a necessary responsibility to uphold the society which makes those freedoms possible. In other words, you are free but you are not free to destroy the very communities which grant you those freedoms. And the right of the community to police itself and remove criminal behaviors and influences is something equally as important as “doing whatever makes you feel good.”

A case in point is Amazon’s ridiculous defense of its right to sell a “how to” guide for pedophiles as defending the First Amendment. Pedophilia is a criminal act. Promoting such literature in the name of resisting censorship is such a perversion of the First Amendment as to make a mockery of the original intent of that freedom.

The First Amendment was never intended to protect lewd, obscene, or pornographic speech and writing, otherwise laws against blasphemy would have been immediately repealed. But the Founders saw no inconsistency between the First Amendment and restricted speech. The First Amendment was meant to protect political speech and differences of religious beliefs. The confusion by modern cultures of license with liberty has prevented the people of the United States from censoring pornography on the public airwaves and in libraries and in school systems. In concert with the rejection of fundamental moral values by our courts, our society has gone into such a moral decline that we even have to debate whether pedophilia is wrong or not.  When the people lose their freedom to decide for themselves as a community what is immoral, then their ability to rule themselves been replaced by the judiciary. Censorship of extremely violent and sexually explicit materials, including graphic depictions of rape and torture, would do much good in changing the tenor of the social whole.  But as the courts have removed that right from the people, then all hell has broken loose, and the call for “civility” in political debate seems like asking a robber politely to stop hitting you with a baseball bat while you are being mugged. Too little, too late.

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions would be very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy… The Constitution has erected no such tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruption of time and party, its members would become despots.  – Thomas Jefferson

Pedophilia – It is Only a “Sexual Orientation”

One of the most pernicious defenses of these pedophiles and pedophile advocates is that to discriminate against them is to discriminate against them because of their sexual orientation, a discrimination which is now prohibited by many states and the federal government. Yet this argument is predictable and follows the exact same line of argument made by the homosexual community:  “I did not choose to be this way. God made me this way. I cannot help that I am attracted to other  of my own sex…”   Now homosexuality is a sexual orientation. So is pedophilia, so is bestiality, so is necrophilia, so is fornication, rape, and adultery. The pedophile can legitimately say that he did not choose to be attracted to children and that he cannot help himself, therefore he too must be accepted and not discriminated against. Yet for the community not to be able to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable, moral and immoral, practices means that the community cannot defend itself against lawlessness and license.

The problem is that society can no longer distinguish between freedom and license, and the courts have adopted a view of human nature that has no purpose or design. For Christians, Jews, and Muslims, human nature is seen as liable to unrestrained selfishness that must be overcome through self-discipline. All have desires, but not all desires should be acted upon, and the ability to govern oneself and resist temptation is a sign of maturity and strength. By contrast, our culture has promoted unrestrained self indulgence as a virtue, and that any limitation society would place upon that self indulgence is  a restriction upon individual liberties and rights, rather than being a necessary restraint placed upon the individual for the welfare of the society as a whole.  But without this ability to govern ourselves as a society, we have lost the greater liberty of being our own rulers. Therefore, I call for a return to censorship of immorality as a necessary step in restoring the welfare of the nation to something we wish it to be. Censorship is not a dirty word; it is the right word for the right of a community to govern itself and resist the impulses of evil.

There is a great legal brief showing the history of the development of the understanding of the First Amendment, laws against blasphemy, and the attempt to restrict pornography as degrading to women in this PDF file here.