Okay Matt Walsh, I’ll Talk About Your Strongest Argument Against Internet Porn
Before we begin, I should note that I do have an article for The Liberty Hawk in the pipeline on the this subject, but I figured I’d give you guys something to hold you all over.
For those outside the know, Matt Walsh has been one of the biggest supporters of a downright prohibition of internet porn. I’ve stated a number of times the arguments of Walsh as well as his fellow culture warriors like Knowles and Abrams are all heavily flawed, but I’m a libertarian, the most hated ideology in America right now, so what do I know?
Michael Knowles recently argued the purpose of government is “justice,” a concept so vague one cannot hope to debunk it. Abrams is making constitutionalism based arguments while openly hating Thomas Jefferson — still waiting for him to go back to Iran.
Credit where it’s due, Walsh is the only one to offer substantive arguments for a ban on pornography. He considers the argument in his most recent column to be quite a knockdown that no one can defeat without resorting to strawmanning.
So, you know what, I’ll play his argument and we’ll dissect it together. After all, who would straw-man themselves?
Here’s what he has to say:
The defense of pornography, or at least of its remaining legal and mostly unregulated, seems to hinge on the fact that the content is produced and viewed by consenting adults. If viewers do not consent to viewing a sexual act, we all presumably agree that a crime has occurred.
Okay, that’s fair. Although Walsh says it’s “abuse,” while most of us call it more along the lines of sexual harassment. Mind you, that’s a distinction making seems pointless today, so I’ll allow Matt to carry on.
It would seem to strain the bounds of the most radical libertarianism to argue that a group of adults are within their rights to have an orgy on the subway, for example.
Subways are privately owned, as such any code of conduct is different from government regulation as you don’t have to go on a subway (although having an orgy and getting to your destination at the same time would seem quite difficult) while you do have to pay the government. We’ve explained this to you guys a number of different times in a number of different ways.
Porn is different, it’s argued, because you only view it if you seek it out.
Nobody uses that exact wording, but okay that’s a fair representation of our argument.
If viewers of porn were not consenting — if internet porn were of such a nature that millions of people were forced to encounter it against their will every year — then it would seem that the argument against prohibition or regulation begins to crumble. Well, I think it has already crumbled because indeed millions of people are exposed to it every year against their will and consent. Those defending the legality of porn seem to be ignoring this group of victims, and I think that is an insurmountable moral and logical flaw in their position.
Children are first exposed to porn at the age of 11, on average.
I have seen this number thrown at me a number of times, and never once can they point me to primary source. If anyone has it, please show it to me because when going through sources the most I can ever find is linking to a different article making this claim without any substance.
As we speak right now, there are no doubt millions of minors, some as young as five or six years old, watching adults have sex on the internet. This is an indisputable fact.
No it isn’t. And the fact that you refuse to link to any citation proves just that.
Does the fact not blow to smithereens the “consent” excuse offered by the other side? Our legal system rests on the assumption that minors cannot consent to engage in sexual acts. If an adult has sex with a child, the adult is guilty of rape no matter if the child verbally agreed or not. In our society, we understand that children lack the mental and emotional maturity to make an informed decision in this area. To deny that is to literally defend pedophilia.
Well, if children cannot consent to engage in a sexual act, does it not inevitably follow that they cannot consent to witness such an act?
No it doesn’t! Children also cannot open a bank account or engage in financial transactions, are they therefore abused if they see there parents using an ATM?
Yes, that’s a less extreme example, but if logic cannot be applied consistently than it should never be applied at all. If your argument is bad when applied to something minor or major, than it logically must be as bad when applied to something more in the middle — just in ways that are less measurable.
If they cannot consent as a second-party participant, neither can they consent as a third-party participant. Thus, every child who watches porn does so, by definition, without consent. Again: I don’t see how you can quibble with this argument without also quibbling with the logic for criminalizing pedophilic behavior.
Because you have yet to come up with how watching sex and preforming sex (or having sex preformed on you) are the same. At best, you’ve proven a child seeing pornography is always sexual harassment, which I may be able to get behind you on.
Considering the rest of the article is more repeating the same than it is actually arguing, I’m not going to bother to go into any more detail. To put it simply, for Matt to be correct you would have to take a huge leap in logic in order to by his premise. Once you realize that leap is unjustified, his argument falls apart quite fast.
