SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism

Over the past two weeks, a fascinating intellectual conflict has broken out on the Right over pornography, of all things. The debate was prompted by a letter from four Republican congresspeople to Attorney General William Barr, calling on Barr to “declare the prosecution of obscene pornography a criminal justice priority.”

This, on its face, should be unobjectionable. There is no fundamental First Amendment right to pornography — it is not merely an aspect of free speech, as the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled, and as Founding-era philosophy makes clear — and there are clear externalities to certain aspects of pornography. So, for example, it’s hard to imagine why any conservative, even a conservative with libertarian leanings, would oppose banning the dissemination of pornography to minors, or the ability of local communities to bar the posting of pornographic images in public spaces, or a legal crackdown on sex trafficking (I’m not aware of many libertarians, even socially liberal libertarians, who oppose any of these things).

But the issue of pornography quickly morphed into a more general argument about the role of government in American life, the right to do wrong, and the differences between federal and local government. Those arguments have purchase far beyond the rather contained area of pornography — an area where, again, you could easily make the case for regulation of aspects of pornography without violating libertarian and small government precepts, and without redefining the nature of American government. The arguments articulated for generalized pornography regulation, however, have consequences for issues as far-ranging as free speech and economic regulation.

SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism GettyImages-173150593.jpg?auto=format&fit=crop&ixlib=react-8.6

SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism GettyImages-173150593.jpg?auto=format&fit=crop&ixlib=react-8.6

More: https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-the-problem-with-common-good-conservatism

SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism

SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism

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