Criminalization of Culture

The merging of the criminal world culture with the non-criminal world culture over the past several decades in America continues, and this reflection on a recent appointment to the US Justice Department, from the Catholic Thing is revealing.

An excerpt.

“Truth isn’t always stranger than fiction. Sometimes, the facts just run obscenely ahead of one’s darkest fantasies.

“Consider the new administration’s recent nomination to deputy attorney general, the second-highest law enforcement post in the land. Obama’s choice is a lawyer from all the best schools, a prestigious Washington firm, and previously of the Clinton Justice Department. The catch? He has made a particular legal specialty – one wants to say a fetish – of defending pornographers, including at least one child pornographer.

“Even the worst pessimists could not have made this nomination up. As anyone even half following the court cases of the past decade will know, there are few enough laws on the books any more to protect children from smut and sexual predators. And thanks to this nominee’s past work in cases that you can read about online elsewhere, there are now even fewer.

“Nor was his work on behalf of the smut industry a one-time gig. If the questions are “how often” and “how much,” as the priests like to ask, then the answer can only be “plenty.” Former clients include Penthouse, Playboy, and the largest distributor of hardcore pornography videos. If there’s a pornographer anywhere who is not deserving of every First Amendment protection, we wouldn’t know it from this nominee’s record.

“This is the legal mind that’s about to help oversee the most important department in the nation charged with enforcing the laws – including existing laws against obscenity, which are legion albeit under-enforced?”