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January 24, 2007
Legal Sex Acts
Our legislators’ screwy plan to legislate morality
This first part of the legislative session is when lawmakers spend very little time reading each other’s bills, and a whole lot of time strutting in front of the camera about their own. None has come roaring out of the gate so proudly as that Dickson stallion, State Senator Doug Jackson. You couldn’t have missed his press avalanche; I hear it buried two cars out on Highway 48. But by far the most talked-about piece was the one that would ban late-night cable television advertisements for videos that purport to show girls having “gone wild.”
Another legislator who is no stranger to the journalist’s quizzical stare is state House member Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville. Representative Campfield is proposing a new tax on pornography, the proceeds of which would enable a reduction or elimination of the state sales tax on food.
Let’s take stock of this unusual situation, where a Republican is trying to erect a new tax while a Democrat wants Big Government to dominate bedroom activities and gag free speech. Then again, Democratic Sen. Rosalind Kurita had the support of many to the left of Harold Ford during last year’s U.S. Senate primary, yet she’s the one whose vote gave the Republican majority in the state Senate its long-awaited Speaker position. Surely the lone GOP U.S. Senate freshman, Bob Corker, can attest to Tennessee’s upside-down politics, so that’s not really the big deal.
The problem with this proposed legislation from Campfield and Jackson is that all of it attempts to regulate a moral current. Such is a noble intent, but let’s leave the business of societal steering to professionals. Do some have a problem staying morally upright? Let them hasten to the church, synagogue, mosque, tree, or whatever shrine has the biggest offering plate and/or best cup of coffee. Do not put the part-time citizen legislator up to the task of navigating this turbulent channel.
I’m claiming no originality to this, just echoing what many have said earlier and better, but: cable is a subscription service. If you subscribe, you are accepting all content unless you, the customer, are able to convince the provider not to transmit it. On top of that, the cable subscriber is responsible for what minors do and do not view in the home. It’s that simple. Your young child probably should not be watching what is airing at the channel and time “Girls” ads are placed anyway, but that’s your call — not the sheriff’s. By the way, Jackson is just fine with lowering the voting age so that 17-year-old kids can acquire carnal knowledge of our democratic process.
Pornography, though, on the scale of things that are and are not taxed in this state, was worth at least considering as a swap for the unconscionable tax on Cheeze Pufs. However, with advances in digital video and delivery systems, there’s less of a guarantee that offsetting revenues could be realized. Besides, people buy a lot more food than pornography. Come to think of it, there’s no way such a plan would work, even with a broad interpretation that includes escort services and exotic dancing.
We’ll just have to be careful if both Sen. Jackson’s and Rep. Campfield’s measures somehow happen go all the way. If fewer people buy the porn that would have had to pull out of late-night cable, there’ll be a reduction in essential funds. Never mind that virtually no one pays sales tax for online purchases. Sin taxes only work as long as people keep sinning — more importantly, sinning in the right market. Oh, and another thing: free speech is declared in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Let’s figure out if there’s a more dependable way to get rid of the food sales tax; and let’s keep low-class smut advertising off our sets by using the remote control.
Update on Open Government
The weekend’s big news (I can only hope you consider it big) is that both houses of the General Assembly have agreed to make floor and committee votes available to the public online and in a searchable format. One leader flinched, and both had to surrender. We the people of Tennessee won big, as long as we now use the information to inform ourselves.
[Cross-posted in The Pulse.]
Pulsations | By joe lance | 08:21 PM