At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government the new document was loosing upon the country. History records the Founding Father’s reply as “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Although the country’s framers undoubtedly intended and hoped the American people would “keep it,” today’s government hardly resembles the one cobbled together by those early European immigrants; this government meddles in the lives of individuals and businesses, imposes (inequitable) taxes, alternately robs the rich to feed the poor and vice versa, insinuates itself into foreign affairs, and elevates a few privileged citizens to the status of demigod while concurrently oppressing the very masses it was formed to protect—and it does all of this while proclaiming it is pursuing what the framers saw as its most sacred mission: protecting all Americans from threats, both foreign and domestic.
History repeatedly has demonstrated that, as bad as foreign threats may be, domestic ones often are worse. It is not difficult to subdue some foreign country and its people. Those people have no face, no life, no substance to which Americans can relate directly. Chase the British from America—no problem. Give Mexico a serious ass-whuppin’—piece of cake. Pound the Germans and their allies into the dust—a walk in the park. Bomb the Japanese into oblivion—they deserved it. Freeze the Soviets into capitulation—mere destiny. Teach the Vietnamese, the Koreans, and the entire Middle East a lesson in humility—uh, OK, we’re still working on that.
At home, though, Americans seem to fight the same wars endlessly…and they’re always against ourselves. That’s OK. The American political system was established to encourage dissension. Originally, the system was intended to ensure honesty by giving the voters a choice between competing ideologies. However, it seems to have devolved into something far less admirable, more mean-spirited, and immeasurably untruthful. Evolving media—especially the Internet—have affected the political process in ways the Founding Fathers never could have imagined. Unfortunately, instead of giving the electorate more information, it infuses the issues with vitriol and rampant misinformation, thereby confounding the process.
Surprisingly, that process remains effective. The pendulum continues to swing, occasionally surging to one extreme or the other (such as, until recently, when theocratic Republicans ran roughshod over both the legislative and executive branches), but mostly limiting its arc to somewhere around the middle. The Constitution (if, in fact, we can “keep it,” too) is elegant in its ability to guarantee that sort of equilibrium.
President George W. Bush and his good ol’ boy network now face their worst nightmare: two lame-duck years with a largely hostile Congress and an electorate that declared, “Enough already! Do something that has some semblance of integrity and leave our civil rights alone, would ya? By the way…we’re starvin’ out here while your cronies get richer by the second.”
What voters did not say in November—and this matters for the adult industry—is they want government to resist legislating morality. Almost invariably, Democrats who replaced Republicans co-opted their opponents’ “protect children and families” stance. The shift in power inside the Beltway primarily was based on the war in Iraq and domestic economic issues, not on any desire to snub Christian morality.
The Democrats have a hard road ahead of them if they want to keep their majority—and snag the presidency—in 2008. Regardless how much they may yearn to impeach the current commander-in-thief, they’ll need to address the issues voters want tackled: health care, immigration, lobby reform, wages, taxes, education, and security. Like it or not, part of what makes Mr. and Mrs. Middle America feel secure is knowing their families have a choice about viewing pornography.
The adult industry may be able to relax a little now, but it would be unwise for it to assume Congress will ignore it. After all, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales—the man who insists “enemy combatants” held at Gitmo aren’t entitled to protections guaranteed by the Geneva Convention—is as adamantly anti-porn as he apparently is ill-educated about human rights. In addition, Bush still has “executive powers” that allow him to act more like a monarch than a public servant. Both men consider adult entertainment evil, and their theocratic supporters will redouble their efforts to reclaim voters in November 2008.
To address that, the adult industry’s pendulum needs to swing toward the middle, too, or it risks making the same mistake Republicans made in 2004: celebrating an unintentional mandate from voters.
