The most discussed issue in the conservative blogosphere over the past couple of weeks, outside of the impeachment controversy, has been pornography — specifically, the extent to which the federal government should regulate it. This is a topic that animated conservatives in the 1980s, at the height of the culture wars, but it has been largely dormant until, on December 6, four Republican congressmen sent a letter to U.S. attorney general William Barr imploring the Department of Justice to enforce existing federal obscenity restrictions.
This letter prompted many social conservatives to pick up where they left off in the 1980s, condemning pornography as a social evil. But it also prompted some libertarian-leaning commenters to argue that porn regulation amounts to a right-wing puritanism that vitiates individual freedom and expands government. This is a conversation that should be happening not only on the right but also across ideological lines. Indeed, the American Left should be pressed to reconcile its demands for oversight of sexual boundaries with its indifference to the commodification of violent pornography.
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