Carnal Reason

Via NavyTimes:

Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter.

“Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16. His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material” on military bases.

The new language would “close existing loopholes” in regulations to bring the military “into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law,” Broun said. “Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,” Broun said.

Broun said he wants to bring the Defense Department into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law “so that taxpayers will not be footing the costs of distributing pornography.” Exchange officials noted that tax dollars are not used to procure magazines in the system’s largely self-funded operations. But Broun’s spokesman John Kennedy contended that taxpayer dollars are involved — “used to pay military salaries, so taxpayer money is, in effect, being used to buy these materials,” he said.

An interesting argument. Taxes pay military salaries, so anything purchased with a military salary is ipso facto purchased with tax dollars. Interesting, but bereft of vision. If you must sin, sin boldly. The argument as stated only encompasses government salaries; that’s chump change. Follow me here. Anyone who pays taxes is a taxpayer, so anyone who pays taxes and purchases anything does so with taxpayer money. There, now Rep. Broun can be nanny to every taxpayer, and in all matters.

Rep. Broun’s novel legal theory is not the only gem in this article. Later we learn that Broun’s spokesman Kennedy said

Broun “is a medical doctor and ‘addictionologist’ who is familiar with the negative consequences associated with long-term exposure to pornography”

No doubt Rep. Broun is intimately familiar with the “negative consequences associated with long-term exposure to pornography”.

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: nanny state