But you spoke recently at a conference of civil libertarians here in Los Angeles. And you were warning them of what was to come in the way of a crackdown on porn.
Obviously, obscenity prosecutions are not a priority for the Bush administration at the present time. But if you take Ashcroft's tenure as attorney general and governor of the state of Missouri, and realize the terror that he brought to that state to anyone involved in the adult business, it's merely wishful thinking to think he's not going to do the same thing on a national level.
The Salon Interviews index -- links to all the interviews related to the Sept. 11 attacks and the events that have followed.
To stay on this topic for a moment, for the average person who may not subscribe to Hustler or enjoy watching pornographic videos, why should they be concerned that Ashcroft may use his power to threaten the adult entertainment industry?
Well, in the last century there was a guy who long before he started exterminating the Jews, the top of his agenda was censorship. But when he started burning books, he didn't start with the classics, he started with the so-called garbage and pornography that nobody wanted to read, and eventually it lead to Voltaire and Shakespeare. So, it's a Catch-22 that you get yourself in. I can understand why people may not find anything of interest in pornography. I'm sure if they don't, it's merely because they're strictly asexual, but whatever the reason is, I understand that they have that right, but at the same time, they must be willing to accept that we pay a price for everything. The price we pay to live in a free society is toleration. We have to tolerate things we don't necessarily like in order to be free. People have to tolerate the Larry Flynts of the world, and hey, I have to tolerate the Falwells of the world, or as I call them, the Falwellians of the world.
Do you think civil libertarians are doing enough right now to combat these threats to our freedoms?
There are a lot of people taking it seriously, but the only ones with the organization to do much about it is the ACLU, and they're dramatically under-funded. So when I speak before groups that have these concerns, I tell them they have to make their voices heard. The fact that they don't have a microphone or a newspaper or a TV camera is just not a good enough excuse. What we need is a good old-fashioned Boston Tea Party. If that had happened in Florida, if people had taken it to the streets, maybe five Republican judges wouldn't have picked a Republican to be our next president. Apathy is the biggest threat to democracy that there is.
Do you support the current campaign in Afghanistan, and would you support a wider campaign if that occurs?
Oh, absolutely. I think this is a war that needed to be fought. It's the first time since World War II that we've fought a war that we really needed to. We didn't really need to fight Korea or Vietnam. It's not very popular to mention what I'm getting ready to say, but those terrorists could've bombed Germany, France, England, Japan, Australia, dozens and dozens of countries, but they chose us. The big question is why? And I think we really need to take a long, hard look at our government's foreign policy and the image the Arab culture has of us. Now that doesn't justify what the terrorists did in New York. I'm not trying to cut 'em any slack. But any time that a people or a country takes an action against someone, it's going to create a response. So we really need to reevaluate some of the tactics we're using to peddle democracy around the world to some cultures that are not the least bit interested in it. These two young American girls that were over there in Afghanistan in jail for preaching Christianity, that's looney! And here they're getting a hero's welcome and are meeting with the president on their return. They have about as much business in Afghanistan as I do in a wheelchair.
Don't they have a right to proselytize for their religion?
I'm not saying they don't have a right. I find it offensive when it's our government peddling democracy to people who are not interested. That's proselytizing too. And when you've got one religion trying to peddle to another religion who're are really not interested in it anyway. I mean, come on, give me a break. For two millennia Catholicism has been trying to wring the neck of every other organized religion in the world. It hasn't succeeded yet, and it won't. If you could stomp them all out tomorrow, they'd just sprout up again.
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