LET ME BE THE JUDGE OF MY OWN GOOD

If the War on Pornography is as successful as the War on Drugs, we
can look forward to the DVD "Booty & the Beast" being sold on street
corners instead of out-of-the-way sex shops.

Prohibition doesn't work. Unfortunately, that never stops us from trying.

On July 29, Denver's FBI field office, along with the 56 others
around the nation, received a message calling for recruits interested
in working with a new anti-obscenity squad.

The initiative, as reported in The Washington Post, was "one of the
top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI director
Robert Mueller.

Applicants for a new elite porn squad were cautioned, however, that
they'll need some moral fortitude to deal with material that tends to
be offensive to local juries.

You know what's more offensive than pornography? Blue-nosed
bureaucrat crusaders limiting personal freedoms.

Unquestionably, pornography has no redeeming qualities. And
certainly, there's nothing inherently heroic or patriotic about
protecting it. But when government gets in the business of deciding
what sorts of activities consensual adults engage in, we should take notice.

For social conservatives, the new War on Porn is a welcome
development. Not only is smut on the radar again, but it's alleviated
some of their skepticism about Attorney General Gonzales. The Family
Research Council even declared that it has "a growing sense of
confidence in our new attorney general."

When I spoke to Focus on the Family spokeswoman Carrie Gordon Earll,
I asked her if they agreed.

"We concur with the message being conveyed by those other groups,
yes," she explained. "This is exactly what federal government does.
They have a responsibility to prosecute and it's positive: It shows
the Justice Department is going to actively and aggressively
prosecute obscenity."

Prosecute whom? Earll agrees there is a distinction between obscenity
and pornography: "Community standards, the way things are depicted
and the absence of artistic merit, as the Supreme Court ruling says,
all play a role."

Perhaps we could use Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's 1964 "I
know it when I see it" definition of pornography? Though Earll does
admit "it is a tad subjective."

And by "subjective," does she really mean Focus on the Family would
like to see a ban on all pornography?

"Obviously legally we are bound to abide by court ruling," Earll
explains. "But our general message is that pornography is bad for
families, sexually addictive, it objectifies women and children and
commercializes the holy union between a man and woman."

It's a good message. But what about personal freedoms? The freedom to
sully the holy union? The freedom to be a shut-in or a pervert?

"If anything, the danger is that this type of material is marketed to
everyone. ... The pendulum right now is so far towards the personal
freedom side, that laws are not being prosecuted."

Should activities harmful to society be enough of a reason to ban or
prosecute? If so, we'd have to ban tequila, potato chips and Ben
Affleck movies.

More important, how reasonable is it to allocate resources to
fighting adult porn when we have terrorists, child pornographers and
assorted other villains out to clearly harm society?

"It's very important," answers Earll. "The disintegration of our
culture can come from an al-Qaeda, but it can also come from
pornographers destroying your children through the Internet."

Wow. I never thought of it that way.

"All we're doing is saying we want to have a voice for the higher
good," Earll says.

The "higher good" is a tricky notion. For environmentalists, for
instance, the higher good entails me driving a toy car that plugs
into my wall socket. For others, the higher good can mean banning
people from smoking a cigar on their own property.

And while I may even agree that some of those things are for the
higher good, I'd much rather decide that for myself.