By
Joe Alicata
 |
| Mitt Romney, widely believed to have hairless palms. |
This may come to a surprise to some of you: but changes have
been occurring within the Republican Party in the United States. Namely, there has been a shift towards an increasingly
conservative ideological platform; and by conservative, I mean radically,
uncompromisingly conservative. If you don’t believe me, or just have not passed
a television or read a newspaper recently, consider the following: the
Republican platform committee, which determines policy objectives for the
party, added a new plank to their platform this year; namely, the “vigorous”
enforcement of anti-pornography laws.
The new language takes the place of the previous platform
position, which only explicitly opposed child pornography. The updated language
reads: “Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be
vigorously enforced.” The President of
Morality in Media, a faith based non- profit group, Patrick Trueman has said
that youth access to pornography amounted to “a major, major problem” and
continued on to say that viewing porn can cause males in their twenties to
develop “porn-induced sexual dysfunction.”
Trueman goes on to say “It’s the Viagra problem for guys in
their 20s. Young males are now spending 10 to 12 years looking at porn on the
Internet and masturbating to it, so when they are getting married, they are
dysfunctional sexually because their brain maps are changed. They enjoy what
they’ve been doing for 10-12 years. Normal sex is not something that gets them
excited.”
Now, there is some credit to this angry man’s statements. A
study published in Psychology Today in 2011 found that the premature loss of
libido can be caused by the continuous overstimulation of dopamine through the
viewing of internet porn; our pre-med readers will note that dopamine is the
neurotransmitter that activates the body’s reaction to sexual pleasure.
I am no scientist, and some of you may think I am an
outright clown, and that is your own opinion. But it seems to me, that if you
took any guy off the podium and offered them the choice between a laptop, and
the sexual partner of their choice, they would choose the latter more often
than not. Consider it studied.
Though, I believe that excessive porn watching is a problem.
But then again, excessive anything is a problem. Excessive eating leads to
weight gain, excessive drinking can lead to dependency and other issues,
excessive exercise without adequate rest can wreak havoc on the body; it goes
back to what every parent tells their children: everything in moderation. It
seems fairly obvious that someone who locks themselves in their room for 3
hours a day and masturbates excessively to the point that if they left their
bed they would pass out before they reached the door, is probably going to
develop, or is already suffering from some sort of problem.
Having the government come in and regulate pornography will
be about as successful as previous government attempts to intervene in the
vices of the American people. Start with prohibition and how well that worked
out, and then move along to the war on drugs; which as you all know has clearly
stopped widespread drug use…
Government regulations have their place, and effective
regulations can have positive effects on society.
Yet, what we have in this case is the party of hands off
government, the anti-regulators who stand there and tell you that the
government has no place in business, that government oversight and intervention
is disruptive, socialist and un-American; the same party that says government
has no place regulating your personal life or infringing on your liberty; the
party that tells you the government should not determine your choices, and
that the less government intervention there is in your daily life the better;
is now telling you that they want to take away your personal choice to watch
porn. Funny isn’t it? I don’t see them going after big oil, big tobacco or
firearms manufacturers; but then again I guess the porn lobby isn’t as
lucrative.
Perhaps the cherry on top of this awkward sundae is
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying in 2007: “I wanna make
sure that every new computer sold in this country after I am president has
installed on it a filter to block all pornography and that parents can click
that filter to make sure their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on
their computer”
News flash for our ol’ pal Mitt: we have software programs
that do that. Parents can choose to
go out and get a program to put on their computer to restrict their child’s
access to porn. That is their choice.
But apparently Romney and his party only care about choice and freedom when it
comes to things like big business and lobbying money. They care
about protecting your choice when protecting your choice keeps you sufficiently
distracted from their daily assault on the minds of the American people, and
their routine looting of the middle and lower class to pacify their corporate
owners.
So if you are a woman who wants adequate health care and
access to contraception and birth control, a middle class student who would
like to attend college without accruing an entire years salary in debt or more
before you even have the chance to start your career, or someone who enjoys
porn every once and a while, the message from the Republican Party has become
loud and clear: shove it.
Joe Alicata is a senior at the University at Albany, where
he is studying public policy, philosophy and political science. Currently he is Editor in Chief at the Albany Student Press. Additionally, Joe is the director of news for WCDB 90.9
FM, and host of “The Lowdown”. His interests include politics, philosophy,
cooking, cars, weight lifting, and the occasional sunlit walk on the beach.
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