Blame it on porn

Rebecca Hagelin has it all figured out: the abuse of prisoners at Abu Graib is the result of too much porn (and not enough attendance at church).

The logic escapes me. It is certainly true that Americans spend a lot more on porn now than they did, say, fifty years ago, but we also spend more on just about everything else. One could just as easily say that Abu Graib was the result of too much money spent on beer, or SUVs, or fast food.

Or guns.

For that matter, let's take a closer look at the premise behind Hagelin's position: Abu Graib is a reflection of a "culture gone stark raving mad" and urges a return to the Halcyon days before the 60's corrupted us.

Of course, even Hagelin acknowledges that the history of the country before the 60's is not unblemished. "The horrors of slavery come to mind." But what Hagelin doesn't mention is society's reaction to slavery as contrasted to society's reaction to Abu Graib. It took us almost 100 years and a civil war to settle the question of whether slavery was moral. (And, I note in passing, we're still arguing about the question of whether state-sponsored discrimination against minorities is moral.) How long did it take us to settle the question of whether women ought to be allowed to vote? Or whether blacks ought to be allowed to marry whites?

The response of today's American society to the atrocities at Abu Graib stands in stark contrast to the lengthy, painful, and often shameful history that has brought us to where we are. Today's response was immediate and unequivocal (with the exception of a few on the far right who maintain that "those terrorists" got what they deserve): what happened at Abu Graib was wrong. I'll take that over anything our past has to offer.

The problem with today's society, if indeed there is one, is that it is starting to focus too much on the Ten Commandments and not enough on the Ten Amendments. Abu Graib happened not because we gave up on church or God, it happened because we gave up on due process of law.