Public Morality: Sex and Violence

You really can't help but click on an article with a title like The Ethics of Lust: Your Dildo May Be Illegal.  The article notes that sex toys are illegal in certain states.  And that in 2009, the Supreme Court of Alabama upheld such a law stating that “public morality can still serve as a legitimate rational basis for regulating commercial activity, which is not a private activity.”

I immediately thought of the Supreme Court decision striking down a California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors without parental consent because it is a violation of the manfacturer's free speech rights.

If public morality can serve as a rational basis for regulating commercial activity, aren't the people of a state as entitled to enact laws that represent their morals regarding violence or are "morals" only related to sex?  I realize that these are two different courts, but the two cases together reveal what a strange culture we have in America.

A Good Winter Pudding

-Health Magazine, 1904

Less Taxes [sic], More War!

There is something about a Republican delegate being robbed by a girl he picked up in a bar after advocating "less taxes, more war" as a government policy that makes the corners of the mouth reflexively turn up.

"I Guess He Wasn't Listening to the Speech About Family Values" gushed a headline in the Dallas Morning News's religion blog.

To be fair to Gabriel Schwartz, a lawyer from Denver, we don't know if he is a "values" voter or if he is a social conservative. So the story lacks the irony of, say, a Larry Craig. The delegate did, however, give this interview with Link TV. His "Bomb Iran" stance was so extreme that it made this reporter wonder if he wasn't a plant from The Daily Show.



After this performance, Schwartz told police he picked up a woman in the bar of a swanky Minneapolis hotel and brought her up to his room. She poured him a drink and when he woke she was gone, and so were up to $50,000 in jewelry, cash and other items.

P.S. The correct way to say that is "Fewer taxes, more war." (See the post on Worsplosion.) And grammar purists will note that since there is no signature in this posting that "p.s." isn't really appropriate either. I know. But I don't care.