The failure of imposed morality.

Here's something interesting I stumbled upon on Drudge today: "How the GOP gave up on pr0nz"

From the 1960s through the turn of the century, pornography played a dominant role in the American political argument—its morality and legality, its restrictions and regulations, its implications and unintended consequences. It was treated as a matter of urgency not just by the religious right, which decried the hypersexualizing of society, but by the radical left, which denounced the objectifying of women. Liberal feminists and conservative evangelicals found themselves unexpectedly allied in vilifying the adult entertainment industry. After decades of intensifying conflict, Ronald Reagan convened a Presidential Commission on Pornography in 1985; two years later, Reagan held a press conference to announce his administration's plan to combat illegal obscenity—and issue a warning to the porn professionals: "Your industry's days are numbered."

And now of course the pr0nz sites have the most traffic of anything in the internet. Top Five traffic sites are all filthy pictures and filthy movies. Kids, adults, everybody looks. Now we joke about Rule 34: if there's a character or an idea, then there's porn of it. But Rule 34 has gone from being a joke to being an actual rule. If you can think of it, there really is pr0nz of it. (I'm not going to give examples, sorry.)

Something else has become apparent, porn is bad. It is bad for the people who view it, and extremely bad for the people who make it. Plenty of high-profile suicides and mental disintegrations in the pr0nz "industry" make that painfully obvious.

The article makes it clear that the author thinks an opportunistic politician could find plenty of grist for their fame-mill in safety issues alone, and lots of "For The Chilllldren!!!" activity. But nobody does.
 

What happened? The pervasiveness of porn is a reminder that politics historically hasn't been much of a bulwark against the most primitive human desires—money, power, sex and, in this instance, a combination of the three. But it's also a window into the mentality on the right, which has surrendered the fight on many social issues as America has moved left. Even with Trump in the White House and five conservatives on the Supreme Court, there is no reversing the cultural tides that have swept away the Moral Majority's footprint on supporting traditional marriage and prayer in public schools. The difference is that some on the right still pay lip service to those lost causes. When it comes to porn—more accessible, more acceptable and less scrutinized than at any time during its history—they don't even bother anymore.

What happened, from my perspective, was would-be totalitarians realized they couldn't get any traction with the issue and gave up. The fact that porn may be harmful to everyone doesn't matter to them, what they want is a hot-button to push that will get them votes. But now, porn is ubiquitous. The most freaky hardcore imaginable is no farther away than your smartphone. Everybody has seen anything they want, and probably a bunch of stuff they didn't want. (Important safety tip kids, you can't un-see shit.) People are not shocked by it anymore. Nobody is screaming "there oughta be a law!!!".

So there are no votes there. No money. No leverage they can use to get power.

This leads to an interesting situation. There's nobody telling the populace not to watch the porn anymore. Churches have given up. Even the freaky Feminazis have given up, which is really saying something. If those nut-jobs give up on an issue, it is gone, baby. There is no more candy in that pinata.

From here on, until some new excuse is found, people will be free to view as much porn as they want. That it is harmful, if it is, will become apparent to everyone in due time. But it will still be there, waiting. So, it will be up to the -individual- to exercise restraint. Just like they have to exercise restraint with candy, booze and bacon.

Freedom, my friends. Sometimes it looks funny.

But the culture of self-restraint that grows from this freedom will be far more powerful and effective than the oppressive regulation imposed from above by our social betters.

The Phantom