Well, I agree with that. I just think problem of pornography needs government coercion to solve because of how many people are addicted to it against their will. I'd like to know a better alternative if you have one.
Going to stop you there. Here's the problem: for me, every law, down to laws concerning parking tickets, are examples of "legislating morality." All of them. What you actually have a problem with is with me advocating for the law to legislate my morality. You have no problem with the law legislating your morality.
This is an article that deals with this fallacious line of reasoning.
Well, the average American citizen commits three felonies per day according to our current legal system, whose laws are mostly written by unaccountable bureaucrats, what's constitutional is decided by an oligarchy called "the Supreme Court," and the government spies on us through our consumer technology.
Do you think the guy who wants to get rid of all of that and just have local governments prohibit the distribution of illicit material if the majority of the people vote on it is advocating for a police state?
I don't have an opinion on blasphemy laws. They aren't really my priority anyways. Blasphemy is a symptom, not the disease. That said, something like the Hays Code wouldn't bother me.
I will have to disagree. That men are sinful does not mean the state needs to be limited to an absurd degree. If the people in power are governed by a strong sense of responsibility,
noblesse oblige, then they will, within reason, act to the benefit of the common good.
Your reasoning would have us abolish government because the entire purpose of government is to act for the common good. If there is a widespread moral failing, then unless you can demonstrate that correcting such a failing with coercion would lead to worst results than not doing anything about said failing, you cannot justify permissiveness. These laws against vice cannot be swept away with such sweeping statements like "don't legislate morality!" They must be taken on a case-by-case basis.
I don't really buy into the argument "virtue must be freely chosen." That was made by Frank Meyer, the father of fusionism. I used to be a fusionist until I realized several problems with his philosophy.
First, the fusionist argument fails to make the distinction between requiring good actions and forbidding evil ones. I agree with Meyer that forcing adults to do what is good in the hope that genuinely virtuous character will result from this is usually counterproductive, though children who cannot fully use their reason can be coerced in such a way by their parents. But restricting someone to a single option is different from taking an option off the table. Suppose you were a drug addict and I hid your crack cocaine so that it was harder for you to find it. Would I be making it easier or harder for you to be virtuous? So the mantra "virtue must be freely chosen" cannot by itself be used to justify eliminating laws against vice.
Second, the fusionist argument fails to make the distinction between virtues which are best acquired through a struggle against the temptation to act viciously, and those which are not. To obtain the virtue of courage, it may be a good idea to put yourself into situations where you are tempted to act cowardly. But to obtain the virtue of chastity, it's obviously not a good idea put yourself into situations where you are constantly sexually tempted. Hence it would be silly to pretend that a society in which drugs and pornography are easily available is more likely to be a society in which sobriety and chastity are freely chosen. It is quite obvious that such virtues will be
less common in such a society. Now, you might not have a problem with such a consequence, but a social conservative (whether they be a traditionalist Catholic like myself or a fusionist) would have a problem with such n outcome. So the mantra "virtue must be freely chosen" cannot by itself be used to shame people who want to promote a more virtuous society through political means.
Third, the fusionist argument fails to make the distinction between actions that are inherently evil and actions that only become evil in specific circumstances. Suppose it is always wrong deliberately to get high to the point where reason is seriously impaired. If so, then it follows that it is wrong to drink to excess, and also wrong to use crack cocaine. But it is very easy for most people to drink without drinking to excess – that is, to the point where reason is seriously impaired – and without becoming addicted, while it is hardly easy to use crack cocaine in a way that doesn’t involve a serious impairment of reason or risk of addiction. Hence the act of using alcohol cannot plausibly be said to be always or inherently wrong, while the act of using crack cocaine plausibly could be. In that case, though, while Meyer’s “virtue must be freely chosen” mantra would give us a good reason to oppose alcohol prohibition, it would
not give us a good reason to oppose prohibiting crack cocaine.