"Janet Reno, during her confirmation hearings, said she would come down harder on porno, and lately she's talked about how violence on television has an effect on violence in the real world"

Penn Jillette references Janet Reno’s approach during her confirmation hearings, pointing to her stance on explicit material, specifically, pornography, and her subsequent focus on violence depicted on television. By stating Reno would "come down harder on porno", the text highlights a governmental inclination to regulate and potentially censor adult entertainment under the justification of moral or social safeguarding. There is an implicit tension between personal freedoms and state intervention in matters of individual consumption, suggesting a concern that such regulatory movement might threaten civil liberties under the argument of public good.

Jillette then draws attention to Reno’s comments about televised violence affecting real-world behavior. This assertion subscribes to a causal relationship between media content and societal actions. The underlying issue is about influence and accountability: policymakers like Reno argue that popular media has the power to shape cultural norms and individual behaviors, thus justifying intervention. By invoking both pornography and television violence, the text alludes to ongoing debates over the role of government in policing morality and media, as well as the scientific and philosophical debates over media effects theory, the notion that exposure to certain content results in measurable behavioral outcomes in consumers.

Implicit in Jillette’s observation is skepticism about the effectiveness or appropriateness of such regulatory drives. There is a subtextual critique regarding the reach of government authority into private life and cultural production, a concern frequently voiced by civil libertarians, artists, and defenders of free expression. The mention of both sexual and violent content encompasses broad and contentious First Amendment territory, pitting social guardianship versus individual rights. By linking the two, Jillette underscores a pattern where moral crusades over content, whether sexual or violent, risk creating a slippery slope that enables censorship under the guise of protecting society. Consequently, the text is not only a statement about Reno’s policies but a broader meditation on the recurring American struggle to balance liberty with the impulse to legislate virtue.