Santorum Pledges Pornography Blackout Using Lawsuits & SOPA-style ISP Filtering

Here's the real backstory.

You have Santorum mixed up with Romney. Santorum really believes all this stuff, he isn't just saying it to get elected. He is about as puritanical in his beliefs as you can get. While I respect him for being so open and being who he is, I frankly find it frightening that he is winning primaries.

Look at the careers of Sarah Palin, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Rob Reich, et cetera et cetera ad absurdum. Once a politician discovers some capacity to generate an audience, they go on raising money ($ for consultant buddies), selling books (royalties), speaking (speaker fees) . . . . No one expects these people to ever affect anything. But they can reliably, bankably, generate attention. Maybe they start out trying to influence opinion, but over time the audience retention imperative drives that to the background.

That's one reason why this sort is so reliably brain-dead. Saying something their audience doesn't expect to hear subjects said audience to the pain of unguided thought; do this too often and that audience withers, because they're tuning in for validation of opinion, not formation of new opinion.

A general campaign introduces Santorum to zero marginal conversative audience and takes up valuable time. If he won the nomination, his first move would be to demand a recount.

[EDIT: Yes, I meant Jon Stewart. I regard him and Limbaugh as a species of politician -- they make their living motivating political activity of a particular bent. They didn't build their audiences via electoral politics, but once built their audience relationship / maintenance dynamics are very similar to the others named.]

If Santorum manages to win the general election, ritual suicide will become a serious option.

The point is, from a game-theoretical standpoint, there is no benefit to Santorum in backing down from his rhetoric at this juncture. He's in an especially lucrative position because Romney is so perfectly ill-positioned to win over the base Santorum has carved out for himself. (In the eyes of the evangelical, white, working-class base, Romney is every bit the "snob" that Obama is).

The porn industry isn't unified and has virtually no lobbying power, when (depending on the reports you read) it brings in 1/3 of the revenue of the movie industry, without ever getting a box office receipt.

When you're talking about ending an industry, not only in the US but trying to ban the global industry, you're not only going to align them against you very quickly, but I bet they would be willing to spend a lot of money to smear campaign you into the ground. Oh and look, they have exceptionally hot women that (depending on the studies) approx. 40-50% of them have worked as prostitutes.

Basically, Rick Santorum would be facing an industry with the money and the means to line you up for a massive scandal that would completely destroy a "conservative family man" image.

Draconian comes in all flavors. We aren't waiting for the Santorum bus to drive up. It's already here.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/15/feds-grant-permit-t...

Really? Two beautiful animals will be killed because of a belief in the supernatural. If this is not the peak of absurdity I don't know what is.

Here's a statement from the article:

  The eagle "flies higher then any other creature. It sees many things. It's closer to the Creator,"

That is the most ironic attack on religion I have ever seen considering that the big bang was a huge violation of conservation of energy. (Science currently has no explanation for it. It may someday, but right now it's completely unknown.)

Religion actually affirms conservation of energy by saying the energy came from outside the system, and that the nature of this outside system is unknown.

The main difference is that Religion hold that the nature of this outside system will never be known, and Science holds that we may someday know it, but currently do not.

I have no problem with religion, but please don't mix it with governance. Don't try to force everyone to live by the rules of your religion (or an arbitrary interpretation of your Holy Book). Especially not in their private lives. "Separation of religion and state" and "freedom of religion" used to be big issues, at least in Europe... These days, I don't know anymore.

Those who govern us have the power to do great good or great evil. It is my contention that a deep belief in anything supernatural should automatically disqualify someone from political office at almost any level. I did say "deep belief". The main reason I think that this is important is that those who are religious extremists are so invested in their belief system that they come to office with an agenda. And this agenda is not based on a reality, no matter how many people think otherwise.

I did say "religious extremists". My parents would describe themselves as believers. They'll never hurt anyone with or for their beliefs. They simply grew up at a time when that's what you did and that's what you believed. They just happened to be born somewhere where the local "team" believed in Christianity, they would have believed just as strongly in any other religion had they been born somewhere else.

A typical example of religious exremism is the extension of religious judgement onto the gay community. I'm not gay but have absolutely no problem with that community at all. Why? Because if I had a problem with that I'd have to have a problem with my kids having brown hair or long fingers. Why? Because it is a genetic mutation (not a pejorative, just fact) just like being born with blue eyes. Virtually nobody decides to be gay, they are born that way. They could have been born with green eyes just as well. Yet, the religious extremists will judge these people harshly and reject the evolutionary basis of the phenotypes they dislike. They'll pick something with no evidence of any kind against something that has mountains (literally) of evidence all around us. One of my favorite demonstrations of evolution is that my kids don't all look that same: mutation at work.

The Santorum doctrine is deeply rooted on religious beliefs. He is a religious extremist. Virtually nothing comes out of his mouth that does not have a foundation on his faith. That's why I think he is a dangerous man and sincerely hope he does not win the nomination.

This latest attack on porn is just an extension of that. I don't like porn. I think its demeaning and portrays an image of women that is simply grotesque. Few things change your mind more than having a daughter, of course. Having said that, I can't be on the side of restricting anyone's right to create or consume porn. That's their business and neither I nor government has any place in what they do with their private lives. Like it or not.

I do think it is OK to have community-based rules. I don't want the stuff on TV for my kids to see. They can't comprehend it and are not mentally prepared to deal with it. I'm not saying that the Federal Government ought to set these standards. It could be a States issue. That said, I'd rather keep government entirely out of it. The market can decide these kinds of things very efficiently. For example, if porn was available without any kind of access restrictions on my satellite service, I would cancel it. So would others. Very soon, if that satellite company wanted my business they'd implement a sensible way for me to decide what I want my family to be exposed to. That's the way it should work. I don't want Santorum or anyone to tell us what we can and cannot do based on his deep-rooted belief in the supernatural.

My courtroom example exposes an aspect of this country that is troublesome: If you don't profess belief in the same supernatural stories the religious majority pushes you can and are excluded from political life. I wonder how many Senators, Representatives and, in general, politicians are atheists who begrudgingly place their hand on the bible when they are sworn-in because, well, they have to.

Think about it. Views and stances like Santorums are no different than those of the extremist religion-based governments in the middle east we hear about every day. We don't want that here. If that means accepting others' freedom to make and use porn, so be it.

That seems to be entirely beside Santorum's point. His particular brand of politics is largely against any kind of sexual freedom. Gay rights, abortion, even contraception is something they would like the government to legislate against. To them, porn is not bad because kids might see it; porn is bad, full stop.

How do you figure? If you've got a house with an internet connection, there's a pretty high chance the kid in the house will be able to figure out a way to access pornography unless the parents lock down the ever-increasing list of devices from which this could be accessed. I'm not saying it's something that the government should involve themselves with ... but I also don't know that diligent-parenting can ever be an effective solution to say that porn isn't easily accessible to minors.

As for pandering, with Santorum I'm not certain it's the case. Many of the things he supports politically appear to be part of his core beliefs.

You can be extremely conservative in regards to individual freedom without having all the completely counter-conservative opinions of the evangelical enforcement agency.

Not trolling just a semantic that bothers me.

PS The internet would be different in court in the same way that I don't get sued for leaving my newspaper on the restaurant table for someone else after I am done with it, where if I leave a copy of a movie on the internet for others I potential get extradited. Only half joking. It would be the same insane confuse the jury trials we have now.

http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_11821265

Leftists want the government to leave people's private lives alone and stick their fingers in everyone else's business lives.

Conservatives want the opposite.

Get out of my business, and get into my bedroom!

Santorum is just the most recent incarnation of the moral majority that want to dictate how you should act in your private life. Part of the same group that screams about the government intruding on gun rights, religious rights, etc. A hypocrite.

While, I am hopeful he won't get the votes to event be considered for the GOP nominee, I do hope someone like Larry Flynt will crawl out and destroy yet another moralist.

What happens between consenting adults in their private lives has nothing to do the government.

A long time optimist (and citizen of) that people in the US will do the right thing, I am glad that I have an exit opportunity to saner parts of the world.

The fact that Santorum and his brand of politics has traction , on some level, scares me.

"To black out foreign sites, Santorum would likely need legislative action requiring Internet service providers to use “a mandatory filter set up by the government or by the service providers,” said Volokh."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_Songs

Also, your solution doesn't solve the "problem" of watching porn, which is most of the problem prudes have with porn.

Not that he has a real chance at the nomination, but there you go. Most people don't actually want a small government. They want a government which fixes the problems that they perceive in society (whether that be porn, guns, abortion or health care).