Threat under the surface.

Child pornography unbound 

British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote that there is nothing more pathetic than a ruling class on the run. The recent court ruling legalizing child pornography in British Columbia reaffirms that there is nothing more dangerous, either.

While media and public reaction has largely characterized the decision as the legal miscue of an individual judge, it is, in fact, a wholesale indictment of this country's elites. Indeed, the B.C. Supreme Court judgment granting child porn collector John Sharpe freedom to possess images of children engaged in sexual acts with adults was simply the latest step in Canada's long flight from moral sanity. It will not be the last.

On the contrary, the abject refusal of federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan to use legitimate constitutional power and overrule the judicial edict means we have simply crossed a fresh threshold of horror.

A snapshot of what lies ahead is detailed in an RCMP intelligence report showing B.C. was already being flooded with Asian and European child pornography even before the Sharpe ruling. A single individual was caught with 17,000 graphic images of pre-teens being exploited for sex.

Good luck to the Crown prosecutors who must try to proceed with that case--and dozens of others--when possession of child porn has been declared a constitutional right, at least on the west coast. Yet that is merely the surface dimension of the threat.

The real, underlying menace is the further diminishment of the vocabulary of "no" among our political, social, judicial and intellectual leaders. As a class, they have now abandoned all pretense of being able to say "go no farther" in the face of demands for freedom to indulge in every imaginable depravity.

The result of their abdication is that the Sharpe decision, aided by McLellan's failure to respond with swift political action, becomes the opportunity to promote "meaningful debate" not only about child porn but also about the grotesque euphemism intergenerational love"--otherwise known as pedophilia.

Leaders of a sane society would, of course, prohibit any such "debate" from being allowed to start. They would simply declare the subject unbroachable away from the dark, fetid corners where drooling child-sex fantasists huddle. Such is the dangerous sickness of our absconding ruling class that they lack even the moral strength to draw such a natural and necessary line.

Anyone with ears to hear can hear the propaganda machinery clicking on and beginning to rumble to rapidly fill this vacuum. Between the lines of certain media reports, in the underlying themes of talk shows, in carefully couched letters to the editor, the engines of equivocation, the implements of indoctrination, are already churning out their evil fog.

Beneath the fleeting roar of outraged public opinion, the pro-porn, pro-pedophile propagandists purr that Sharpe's case is about basic freedom of expression, not the exploitation of children. They work to erase the reality of him as a pathetic onanist gratifying himself with images of children's innocence being violated, and recreate him as an intelligent, cultured, courageous maverick who fought an oppressive law and won.

This cunning, hyper-cynical strategy does not require that ordinary Canadians actually accept the lies perpetrated. No. It is sufficient that the discussion move out of the grotty pages of low-circulation homosexual newspapers or magazines, away from pro-pedophile publications of dubious legality, and acquire the aura of fashionable daring from the mainstream media.

As that shift occurs, the progressive elite will either stampede in pursuit of the cause--or find themselves buffaloed by their complete incapacity to articulate moral reasons why it is unspeakably wrong.

The outcome is not even a gamble. It is no less than a historical imperative. Exactly the same strategy has been employed, with unrelenting success, over the past 50 years to force debate, then tolerance, then acceptance, then entrenchment of divorce, contraception, abortion, sex education, pornography, homosexuality....The list could run to pages.

In each case, our ruling class has turned tail and run rather than defend the social order against debauched definitions of freedom. They long ago passed the point of just appearing pathetic. The road they are leading us blindly down constitutes a clear and present danger to our social survival. God only knows when and how it will end.

Peter Stockland, editorial writer for the Calgary Hearld, writes in Catholic Insight every other issue.