Everyone gets it. Rick Santorum is a moral and upright citizen who doesn’t look kindly on gambling, non-procreative sex and birth control. But with the price of gas spiking, the violence in Syria and the chaos in Afghanistan, it’s probably not the best time for him to bring up his opinion on the national pornography “pandemic.” Santorum posted this statement on his website promising to crack down on obscenity as president, and it’s predictably drawn a wave of controversy:
“America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography. A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences. Addiction to pornography is now common for adults and even for some children. The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11. Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking. …
The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum administration.”
It’s not that Santorum’s position is out of step for a presidential candidate. Romney and Gingrich have both made similar pledges to enforce obscenity laws as president. The difference is, they haven’t turned it into a major part of their campaign platforms.
Romney and Gingrich also haven’t framed the obscenity issue as a “pandemic” and painted it in such stark moral terms. They made generic campaign promises. But for Santorum, this clearly means much more to him than just a vague vow to appease values voters. It may not hurt him in the primary race, though it could hit a nerve with libertarian-leaning Republicans who aren’t looking for morality lectures. And it’s one of his many statements that would boomerang on him in a general election.
The reality is that Santorum has nothing else but social issues to work with. He has no business background to speak of, he held no leadership positions during his tenure in the Senate, all he has is an extreme right-wing social dogma. He thinks that that will propel him into the enough of a delegate count to make him a viable alternative to Gingrich is is probably counting on his delegates at the convention to put him over the top. For a man who is supposedly steeped in so much religiosity he is playing a vainglorious game with the future of our nation. Someone needs to remind Santorum that vanity and pride are sins for a reason.
Interesting. LibertySpirit. Santorum is "extreme right wing"? Interesting. So let me get this straight, you and Alana both think social/moral issue should never, never, never be discussed – only lowering taxes and the Israel/Iran conflict? Santorum would likely never win the presidency, not beause he is so "extreme right wing" but because the general population has changed so much in the past two decades. Families are fading away, laziness, weed addiction and yes, porn addiction are rampant and we have Hollywood to thank for much of it, where in fact huge salariesare made, pushing pure junk on tv and movies, not to mention porn.
Santorum goes so long that one can begin to think that his statement that he doesn't want to impose his religious and moral beliefs on America is true … and then he makes a statement like that in this article. What a choice Santorum would be! Which do you prefer — fascist marxism trying to impose absolute government control on what you eat, drive, and are taught in school … or a new Inquisition?
Who's digging this up? n nIt's not Rick. It is listed well off of the main page of his web site, the last of about 20 issues. n nIt's Drudge! n nNo one else made a big deal about this except Drudge and now Commentary.
It's the economy, stupid. I'm an enemy of the "moral authority" of government and I advocate using deadly force against any government which advocates or intends using deadly force against me. To me, government is just a rent-a-cop — a utility like gas or electric — and I expect to buy what I want from the bxstxrds — and otherwise keep them the hxll out of my life.
Why is this junk on Santorum's webpage at all? You think the unemployed actually give a rat's axx for Santorum's views on pornography? Are you nuts?
Santorum would have favored prohibition. The last thing the U.S. and the Rs need is wing nut moral crusaders out of touch with the general electorate and high on their own sanctimony.
Americans do like their fun.
Santorum is holier than thou — just ask him. He'll go down in flames, I'll bet.
Don't know who I'll vote for but I find it interesting that none of the critics have denied Santorum's statements about the researched dangers of modern internet enabled pornography, e.g., changing brain structures, wide spread addiction, early exposure to hardcore, toxicity to relationships and it's correlation with misogyny (I've seen the research; it seems pretty solid to me) . In such absence of denial of his claims I presume ye critics would grant said claims. Therefore the danger appears in your minds to be from having access to such things constrained, or, since the laws are already on the books, you oppose them being enforced? Or is it really a fear of 'being forced morality down one's throat?' If the latter, do you really think there should be NO restraints on where pornography can be accessed? (any computer with internet access can, of course, within five seconds access graphic and video examples of topics that have never, NEVER, been accessed on a mass scale before and certainly never by children). Are we, as a society, so concerned about having our access constrained to massive quantities of never before seen topics of pornography that we will allow the most vulnerable in our population, our young, to have unfettered access to such things? (says the computer consultant who's unclogged "broken" family computers that were in reality cache stuffed with porn from 11 year olds – and don't kid yourself about "it's the parents responsibility" – any self respecting adolescent can get around adult restrictions if they want to – says the middle/high school teacher). Reminds me of the Bonobo ape thing a few years ago when they were held up as an example of the love and peace that comes from unconstrained sexuality; turned out, no, they were actually quite violent and the unconstrained sexuality went all the way down to babies. Is that what we want? I don't know if this will hurt S's chances or not and frankly, I don't really care. Like I said, I'm undecided at this point. But I admire his cajones in bringing up a topic so politically dangerous, yet extremely important. Why are people so upset about his conviction to, from his well researched beliefs, try to enforce laws already on the books that could help protect the vulnerable? I can't help at times seeing this, "don't take away my 'sacred' right to porn!" as similar to child sacrifice to Molech. although that would be slanderous to Molech believers; at least they were giving something up, indeed, the most important thing they had, their children. Can't we just give up a little of our "rights to porn?" I'd gladly give it up for our children. Why not the rest of you too? (and I have no fear of slippery slopes leading to a moral theocracy from "Saint Rick" or anyone else in power in this country. Can any of you honestly look at the "slope" of "theocratic control" in this country in the last 100 years and say it is going anywhere but in the direction of "anything goes?") Really, who is this about?
I suspect the Santorum supporters are so convinced the country will reject Obama, they think this is the time to reclaim the presidency but they're delusional. If the country has to choose between a right wing wing nut and a left wing Marxist Radical, it will stick with the "devil it knows" and Obama will win in a landslide.
Santorum is the Republican Party's own worst enemy. He plays into the liberal meme that Republicans are religious prudes who want to control your sex life. n nThe sooner Santorum goes away, the better the chance of beating Obama in November.
Agreed. I'd vote for Santorum before I'd vote for OhBummer — but if I get stuck with Santorum as President, I swear I'll work on driving him crazy the same way that I have done with OhBummer.
If Santorum is elected his first act as president will be to change baseball Americas national passtime into special needs softball. The middle east is on the verge of exploding and Santorum's main concerns are my daughters sexuality and keeping dirty movies away from my son and his friends. Since he is going to handle everything my wife and I used to handle. That leaves me more time to work and play golf and my wife more time to shop and hang out with her girlfriends. Thank you baby Jesus for sending Rick Santorum to save us from our personal responsibilities. I thought we as conservative republicans were trying to get the nanny state out of our lives. Didn't anybody tell Rick?
Santorum is a closet Democrat — and not any kind of freedom-loving Republican or libertarian.
My right to freedom does not originate in any constitution or government. Government is not the source of rights and has no right to violate rights. If Santorum insists that he will form a dictatorship of any kind, then he is scarcely better than OhBummer — and just a waste of space.
Saint Rick the Sanctimonious of Santorum shoots himself in the foot again, and once again, that foot was placed firmly in his mouth at the time of the shooting! He tells the Puerto Ricans to get over this Spanish language thing, and speak English, he demands that internet pornography be taken off the air, and who knows what irrelevant issue he will get fired up about next?