Abuse and Self-Abuse

Mickey Kaus endorses this reasoning from bigot and WorldNutDaily commentator Robert Knight:

We have been flooded with porn imagery on mainstream television and in magazine ads. Where did those soldiers get the idea to engage in sadomasochistic activity and to videotape it in voyeuristic fashion? Easy. It's found on thousands of Internet porn sites and in the pages of "gay" publications, where S&M events are advertised alongside ads for Subarus, liquor and drugs to treat HIV and hepatitis.

Says Kaus, "Doesn't Mr. Knight have a point?"

Well, except for the one on the top of his hood, No.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that convicted wife beater Charles Graner Jr., divorced mother-to-be Lynndie England, married men Davis and Frederick, et al. aren't regular consumers of Out and The Advocate or regulars at Mr. Leather competitions. Just a hunch.

Let me also propose an alternative inspiration for the soldiers' cruelty: Finding they couldn't access internet porn sites without credit cards, the members of the 327th M.P. Company found their way to Slate, where they read a glowing endorsement of a politician known for physically humiliating subordinate men and groping and belittling women. The endorser wrote that the candidate's defects include "enjoy[ment in] toying with and humiliating others," and that "[w]ith women, there's a sexual component" to the abuse. Yet the endorser said that the candidate's "flaws are the very things that might actually help him perform better in office." Wanting to be successful and respected, like the endorser's hero, they believed that abusing and humiliating the less powerful would win them similar acclaim and respect.

It's just as plausible.

Of course, if the endorser in question is a huge-ass porn addict, Kaus could be vindicated.