The Anti-State Blog

on Lewrockwell.com: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/bryan2.html

This examines what we have done to the Iranians over the past 50 years by imagining what it would have been like here if they had treated us as we did them. It is a convincing condemnation of American imperialism.

” I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.

I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom.

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.

It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution … or have failed their purpose … or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden.

I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.

And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ “interests”, I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

– Barry Goldwater

One of the key problems with government regulation is that it always has unintended consequences. So while a vehicle tax-credit may help many struggling business owners, it may increase the number of Hummers and other luxury vehicles on the road. There are many other examples, but I thought I would discuss an example that is a bit off the beaten path. Warning: this article gets a bit explicit.

Japan has for a long time prohibited the display of vulvas or penises. So even in Japanese pornography, the genitals have to be blurred. The idea is that the genitals are obscene and by prohibiting their display society is protected. But  Japanese pornography has come up with other things to replace the titillation that the ‘obscene’ genitals would otherwise provide. For example, Japanese porn is dominated by ‘chikan‘ pornography, in which unsuspecting women are molested, groped, and raped (although I should note that in all cases this is simulated; all women are consenting actresses). In one particularly outre form of pornography, bukkake, a bunch of men stand around a woman and masturbate until they reach orgasm and they cover the woman with their semen.

If this all sounds sick to you, then I agree with you. Much of Japanese pornography denigrates women and encourages illegal and obscene behavior. This is unlike most American or European porn which deals mostly with one on one sex. One could argue that the Japanese culture is different from Western culture, and that is true. But the extreme forms of pornography found in Japan are not found in other Asian cultures; even in Thailand and Hong Kong, where pornography flourishes, the most common form of pornography is simply sex between one man and one woman. By prohibiting the display of genitals, Japan has unwittingly encouraged abnormal sex acts, because the consumers of porn want to be titillated and aroused and more bizarre behavior is necessary to do that if the genitals cannot be shown.

So by attempting to prevent obscenity, the Japanese censors have encouraged even more obscenity. Not a very effective or useful policy, if you ask me.

Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.

Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake.

[Note: Ogden Nash was an American poet who died in 1971 of Crohn’s disease]