As investigators examined a child's body found in a Georgia landfill, they hoped they wouldn't find what they were looking for. But a birthmark and clothing told them that they had, indeed, found 7-year-old Somer Thompson, who disappeared Monday while walking home from school in her Orange Park, Fla., neighborhood.(emphasis added) That is astonishing. 90 people who have committed sexual crimes. How could you not feel under siege, morally speaking, in that neighborhood?
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[Clay County Sheriff Rick] Beseler said detectives are following up on leads today and trying to finish locating all of the more than 90 sex offenders who live in a three-mile radius around Somer's home.
While mowing the lawn the other day, I got to thinking about how far my personal morals--about pornography or "adult entertainment"--should influence the public policy I push. How open am I to being a Libertarian in political terms? I had watched some of Penn Jillette's "penn says" online videos and was wondering to what degree I could cooperate with him on public policy. (I had ventured to the site to watch Jillette's comments (profanity advisory) about a nasty confrontation with surely non-mean-spirited, tolerant, Liberal Tommy Smothers.) The report about Obama's laxening of Federal interest in laws (here) relating to marijuana use also got me to thinking about such things.
As I ruminated on the ramifications of Libertarian policies, I was thinking of comparisons with industrial pollution in a community or with other passive dangers to humans, but they all seem to fall short of the danger that messed up humans pose to humans. I suppose what constitutes moral pollution is more subjective than biological/environmental pollution. And though all people aren't affected the same way by their use of pornography or marijuana (or alcohol), laissez faire treatment of such vices would be a difficult argument to make to Diena Thompson today. How could she not be concerned about the impact--on appetites and psyches and families--of cultural messages and public policies reflecting the view that people are objects and self-gratification is harmless? Where are the appropriate moral and political boundaries?
I'm seriously interested in hearing different viewpoints on the matter . . .
3 comments:
I believe that we cannot just be Libertarian. We must stand for what is right. I believe that pornography should be outlawed. One does have to be careful not to go too far and outlaw everything one dislikes or is wrong. It is not the role of government to regulate all things. The proper sphere to deal with some is the church or family.
The question of whom to cooperate with is a major one. It is applied in for whom one votes and campaigns, so it is not just an abstract question.
Not sure the point you are making. Pornography and state laws allowing medical uses of marijuana led to the horrible slaying of a child?
That it is all part of a slippery slope?
That the link is they are all terrible and so tolerance of one will lead to all?
Not a clear post, I'm afraid. At least not to me.
Not sure there is a big point, Burr. Just communicating my feelings and thoughts. It'd be hard not to feel under siege if I lived within 0-3 miles of 90 sexual criminals. And it's difficult to treat as irrelevant vices (mainly pornography and lewd businesses) that fuel (or manifest) sexual deviancy.
And though I can't quite detect this in your comment, as I posted over at Tennesseefree.com, Liberals lose a lot of credibility when they contend that such vices are harmless.
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