Friday, June 22, 2007
Opinion

06/24/07 LEFT/RIGHT: Iran vs. Porn

Iran vs. Porn By Eric Von Haessler Well, this oughta wake up the Left. Iran’s parliament recently passed a bill that legalizes the death penalty for porn stars and those who produce and distri...

Actors perform on the set of a pornographic movie in Los Angeles. CREDIT: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images

Iran vs. Porn
By Eric Von Haessler

Well, this oughta wake up the Left. Iran’s parliament recently passed a bill that legalizes the death penalty for porn stars and those who produce and distribute the movies, magazines and Web cam clips they appear in.

The legislation doesn’t say a lot about what will happen to the customers who peruse these items, but one can imagine.

A life sentence behind bars for looking at pictures of naked people doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. What says Hollywood about the reasonable nature of Iranian leadership now? Will this be the straw that breaks the camel-size back of ignorance displayed by hard-line liberals about those with whom they would have
us negotiate and coexist? Probably not, but who knows? Maybe.

While it’s easy enough for the Left to explain away all the hot rhetoric spewing from the mouths of Ahmadinejad and his cohorts (the hoped-for annihilation of Israel, the West as the Great Satan, the need for nuclear weapons) as nothing more than an understandable reaction to American aggression, it’s gonna be a bit more difficult to blame this one on America. U.S. imperialism may spawn its share of global madness, but it’s hard to see how it would drive Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard to start killing Iran’s own porn stars. So why are they doing it?

Here’s one idea: They’re crazy! Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy and can’t understand why everyone else doesn’t think and act exactly as they do. They usually don’t hold the reins of power, so, usually, crazy people can be easily dealt with in institutions that specialize in such things. But wherever they come to power, crazy people use their office to terrorize all those who don’t think and act exactly like them.

Let’s get one thing straight—only weirdos and really boring folks don’t look at pictures of naked people from time to time. Show me a man who doesn’t engage in such behavior and I’ll show you a man with a deep, dark problem, a man who shouldn’t be trusted. Women are a little different, but not much. Only crazy people deny man’s need for onanistic relief, and to deny that is to deny reality.

Unfortunately, these are not the kind of arguments that will ever be mustered by the administration to justify their hard stance against the government of Iran. It’s not likely the neo-cons will ever begin to make arguments based on any sort of reality, let alone such a twisted thing as pornography. But it would be nice to hear the prez break it down to the public in one of those exasperated, blurted utterances he’s become so famous for. Something like, “Look, people—they’re killing their porn stars. What do you think they’re going to do to us when they get a chance?” Now that’s a call to arms.

Let’s fight ’em on terms we can all understand and rally around. They’re coming for our porn. If we don’t stop ’em now, we may one day be forced to give up our porn in order to avoid a threatened nuclear holocaust. If ever a preemptive strike was warranted, it is now.

It is time to stand up and confront the Islamic Republic of Iran. I turned a blind eye when they threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. I looked the other way as they began supplying the weaponry that blows our troops to kingdom come in Iraq. But this—this is too much. They’ll get my porn when they pry it from my cold, dead thingamajiggy. SP

More of Eric Von Haessler’s comments can be found at www.myspace.com/madpundit.