Reason Magazine Defends Child Pornography

John Grisham's defense of child porn addicts triggered a well deserved scandal that should have been provoked by his execrable books. Grisham's comments are even worse than they seem at a glance since arguing that child porn is harmless is a defense of child porn. Grisham has more sympathy for his pedophile friend and only fiegned compassion of child victims that wouldn't even fool someone dumb enough to enjoy his books. Grisham condemned by all sane people but found defenders among extremists, the Koch funded Reason magazine published a defense of the pedophile sympathizing hack.

Reason writer Liz Brown begins  with a summary of Grisham's career and the scandal over his comments. She complains that a critic of Grisham "makes it a matter of who the "real victims" are, painting herself as the champion of sexually-exploited children and Grisham as singing sympathy for child abusers." She insists that "Grisham said nothing of the sort" in actuality he argued that viewing child pornography doesn't cause harm, an obvious defense of child pornography.

Brown continues by asking " it possible to advocate—as Grisham does—for rolling back mandatory minimums for both aging white dudes who look at teen porn and black teens who get caught with pot?" Its possible but insanely immoral; pot should be legal because smoking it doesn't harm while viewing child porn is one of the worst crimes possible against children. Anyone who support more lenient sentences for viewing child porn Elizabeth Brown - oh wait Elizabeth Noland Brown - supports pedophilia. Lessening sentences for viewing child porn would inflame production; a crime hindered by consequences for viewing child pornography. Liz acknowledges that Grisham "apologized for his comments" but she thinks "his original sentiments shouldn't require an apology" meaning that she agrees with a defense of child porn and believes its harmless.

Brown objects to the notion that "if you engage in pedophilia on the internet, you are a real pedophile" and argues that there's no way to engage in pedophilia because its a mental disorder; a very weak argument. Clearly Grisham's critic meant that if you look at a child pornography you are a pedophile and sexual predator. Any sane person would agree with that, Brown's attempt to weasel out of that with technicalities doesn't look good.

Liz believes that " that viewing child porn online is" not necessarily wrong. She mocks the concept of survivors of child porn "knowing that "images of you, of underage, naked you, are circulating the internet as you try to go about your life and there is nothing you can do." People who look at these images are contributing to the victim's pain, she admonishes." Anyone who denies (as Brown does) that child porn causes harm is defending child porn and dismissing the pain of child victims of rape.

Brown questions the idea that "the solution possibly to get tougher on people who had no contact with these children and nothing to do with producing these images? In what way does that make anyone safer?" Credible deterrents for viewing child pornography deters production of child pornography; a lack of credible deterrents means a broader market for child pornography and thus more production. She insists that the "solution to all of our social ills can't simply be to keep casting wider and deeper prison nets" to believe that people guilty of crimes against deserve prison is not the same as belief that prison is the solution to problems.

She spends a few paragraphs whining about alleged differences fo images of sixteen year olds and six year olds. All entirely irrelevant since Grisham's chum was arrested for images that included pictures of children under 12; Brown thinks someone like that shouldn't be in prison. Besides an image of a sixteen year old child porn victim is still likely an image of rape taken against a victim's will; which should be punishable by prison.

Brown rambles apocalyptically about the "carceral left" or "illiberal left." Her evidence? A bunch of whining about affirmative consent laws on campus,  much like the fashion police campus consent laws cannot be used to send anyone to prison. The entire concept of a "carceral left" lacks evidence entirely.

She bemoans " things like due process" yet her article does not cite a single example of an actual violation of due process, so that must be dismissed due to lack of evidence. Brown rails against "America's monstrous prison industrial complex" which doesn't exist at all. At "peak use" of "prison labor" in  "2002, fewer than 5,000 inmates were employed by private firms, amounting to one-quarter of one per cent of the carceral population." The reality is that prisons cost the economy money and are only profitable for companies who sell things prisoners need to prisons.

Brown describes the non-existent 'carceral left' as " making things worse for the very groups of people progressives claim to to be helping (in addition to, you know, everyone). As Freddie de Boer wrote recently, the burden of increased state power "will inevitably fall on the poor and the black, because that is who the white police state prosecutes with greater zeal than any other."  There is no evidence whatsoever that laws against people guilty of crimes against children produces racial disparity and she fails to cite any only an attempt at prophecy from an article that has nothing with child pornography. She endorses de Boer's description of the US as a 'prison state' a term refering to  dictatorships with a entire populations treated like prisoners; the PRC for example. To describe a democratic republic as a prison state for having prisons is maniacally imbecilic as watching a Mayberry rerun and concluding that the deputies prove the US is a 'police state.'

Liz doesn't understand how liberals can see the "drug war" as "intolerant, corrupt, and overreaching" and believe the justice system can be "totally capable of handling other issues fairly."
Is it really so hard to grasp the difference between victimless like drug use and crimes that cause harm like child pornography? People who contribute to harming children like child porn users belong in prison people guilty of nothing but ingesting substances do not belong in prison. To conflate the two is to argue that child porn users do not belong in prison; direct support for child pornography and people who view it.

Brown hasn't proven anything but support for child porn addicts and the child porn industry. She deliberately tried to downplay the harm caused by child pornography and expressed opposition to any legal consequences for taking pleasure from the pain of child rape victims. Reason magazine has published content little different in essence from NAMBLA newsletters. Progressivism is being menaced by an anti-carceral left; people who made the leap from supporting prison reform and opposing prison for non-violent drug users to opposing incarcerating people who belong in prison; under that line of thought the early release of the Steubenville rapist was gloriously progressive.