The Richmond Times Dispatch, whose editorial page is consistently conservative and pro-Republican, breaks form this morning and mocks Frank Wolf.
Why is Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf paying people to look at porn?OK, it's not that bad: It's not like Wolf is paying people to do so out of his own pocket or anything. It's actually worse than that: He's paying people to do so out of your pocket.
Back in August, Farewell Frank wrote about "Frank Wolf and the Morality Police." The article explained how Wolf had earmarked $150,000 to pay two retired cops to surf the web for porn. It also noted:
...the program is run by an outfit known as Morality in Media, "a conservative religious group that has worked since 1962 to 'rid the world of pornography' and whose headquarters is, improbably, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan." Among other things, this group works to restrict the display of magazines like Cosmopolitan because there are references to - gasp! - SEX on their covers, Believe it or not, they're also on a crusade to prove that swearing or cursing can "break up a marriage," "lead to violence," "disrupt school order," and - worst of all, no doubt - "contribut[e] to an erosion of office etiquette." (so, that was the problem with my last job!)
Utterly bizarre, but apparently this is what Frank Wolf considers to be a top priority. Now, even the Republican Richmond Times Dispatch, owned by our old friends Media General, is calling out Wolf for his porn program:
...it seems even more wasteful than a lot of congressional earmarks. Why pay people to look at Internet porn when millions are so eager to do so for free?
[Full disclosure: Since August, I have been working for Judy Feder as her netroots coordinator. My opposition to Frank Wolf, and my desire to replace him with Feder, began a long time before that.]
The Virginia Republican Party is being dominated and dogged by an element of members that are unable and incompetent in intelligently dealing with the increasing complexities of a changing world and consequently a changing Virginia. Psychology tells us that, unfortunately, many human beings, when presented with new and complex problems (illegal immigration, multi-culturalism, new religions, etc.), are only able to deal with them in a reactionary way -- outwardly expressing phobias (anxiety, avoidance, irrationality, obsession, and terror). And every election we witness these weaknesses in the Republicans with their fear-baiting to scare the voters to their side.
...
Today's Republicans have no ideas or plans on how to do the work to analyze complicated issues and coming up with real plans for addressing them. May I remind you of these recent Republican "solutions": instituting abuser fees rather than sensible increases in taxes; proposing to kick out all illegal immigrants, which is neither feasible or fiscally possible for many localities; insisting on same sex marriage; wanting to declare Christianity as the religion of the US; and on and on. Get the picture?
Soccerdem forgot that, of all things, Republicans cannot deal with sex....God forbide we even say the word. Definition of a phobia -- a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it. This is how Republicans deal with sex!!! Get out of my bedroom!!
Yeah, Frank, it's 1938 again and the Nazis are at the gate...coming through a series of tubes, no doubt. Ha.
The funny: This is too easy and will go straight to the gutter, so I'll leave out the details.
The scary: Seems like the only thing they could do right now is to record the "who done it" information. A big database of porn sites and purveyors of porn. I'll bet a lot of porn surfers would love to get their hands on that database. Actually, since this is a tax payer funded effort, a FOIA request sould do it. Hmmmm.... Ok, joking aside, what possible good could come from a government funded domestic tracking program? Once Frank gets his hands on this massive database of porn, what comes next? The only direction to go is to push laws that infringe upon both the Constitution (freedom of speech) and upon adult citizen's freedom to behave as they choose, and then use this database to start busting down doors and making arrests.
Plain and simple, Wolf's effort is a government funded collection of data, outside of current law enforcement channels, with the clear intent to use this data against United States citizens should these morality police ever get any of their laws passed. That is scary.
* Repeal of Abortion Restriction on Military Facilities (H.R. 5122) - sought to lift the current ban on privately funded abortions at U.S. military facilities overseas. Wolf opposed.
* Marriage Protection Amendment (H.J.Res. 88) - would have amended the United States Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Wolf supported.
* Pledge Protection Act (H.R. 2389) - strips federal court jurisdiction from cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance. Wolf supported.
* Embryonic Stem Cell Research Act (H.R. 810) - sought to overturn Bush administration ban on funding embryonic stem cell research. Wolf opposed.
* Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (S. 403) - prohibits transporting minors across state lines to jurisdictions that do not require parental notification before minors obtain an abortion. Wolf supported.
* Public Expression of Religion Act (H.R. 2679) - prohibits the award of legal fees in establishment of religion cases. Wolf supported.
* Sponsorship of Marriage Protection Amendment see (H.J.Res. 88) above. Wolf co-sponsored this attempt to amend the Constitution.
Further, beside the loss of lucrative income and the chance to do an honest day's work in the public weal, I was out $100.00 for a new raincoat (proper attire for that work)and $85 for binoculars for close-up detail viewing. Further, I now have to get rid of 25 rolls of quarters I thought I would need to feed viewing machines (later I found out it was internet viewing only).
So before you get your ire up, think of MY loss (gainful employment at a job one could get to love, plus the above), and don't worry so much about the taxpayers.
On the web page cited below, the author is really worried about pornography, and cites statistics like this:
* 34 percent of female readers of Today's Christian Woman's online newsletter admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn in a recent poll. [sic]http://www.blazinggrace.org/po...* In March of 2002 Rick Warren's (author of the Purpose Driven life) Pastors.com website conducted a survey on porn use of 1351 pastors: 54% of the pastors had viewed Internet pornography within the last year, and 30% of these had visited within the last 30 days.
Maybe instead of calling porn an addiction we could just call it a natural gland-driven impulse with no connection to religion. Gee, there's a thought.