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Elizabeth Dole Calls for Library Net Filtering
A Big Gnu Thrush writes "This Wired article discusses Presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole's "technology platform," which includes a call to withhold funds from public libraries which don't filter Internet content. Finally someone with the guts to put a lid on these hothouses of porn. "
Thanks liz. I'm glad somebody thought of the children *cough cough*
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>I think you know very well what I meant. Kids shouldn't be watching sex acts online. That's not the way to learn about sex. Pleasejust address the point and leave the smart-aleck remarks behind.
I addressed the point, that it's not for you to tell me how to live my life. As long as I'm not hurting you or yours, my life is my business. Maybe you just didn't understand.
>I think you also know very well that education is a continual process. Telling a kid once not to go near something does not mean he's learned not to. For awhile you have to be there to reinforce the message, and no parent can do that 24-7. Society as a whole must bear a part of that.
Not even prison inmates are controlled 24-7. Do you ish to restrain your child even more than inmates at Attica? I don't. I want ot raise my children the way that I was raised. I was instructed as to what the rules were. I was expected to abide by them 90% of the time I did. When I didn't I faced the music.
Society wasn't my parent, my mother and father were.
>And I suppose that if a truck is bearing down on them while you happen to be walking along my sidewalk, you'll just let them get splattered.
I'm not going ot trade places with them, if that's what you mean. I'd yell "Hey Kid! Get outta the street!"
>Gosh, isn't it nice to know that you are not responsible. I hope you can sleep well at night.
I wouldn't sleep at all if I were to die trying to save the kids that were playing in traffic because their parents were incompetent
>Maybe my neighbor is "inept" at raising his kids and doesn't feed them. You'd just let them starve.
No, I'd call CYS and get the kids out of there.
> I'd take them in and feed them.
Then the next day, when they're hungry again? And the day after that? And so on?
LK
porn sites have a URL xxx://sleaze.com and make it eazier to filter. Let the sites rate and police themselves. Informational sites about breasts could be weeded out from titilating site. What we have now is akin to having a porn store in Walmart, right in the face of people who don't want to see it. That would never happen and so shouldn't this. We need a change, now.
I am unbelievably happy that a great American like Liz Dole (married to Grade-A war hero Bob Dole), has taken this step to protect out youth from bomb-making plans, satinism, wicca, and pornography.
Why, just the other day I saw a bunch of goth-bomb-throwing-commie punks fornicating (in ungodly, premarital couplings I might add) on a bed of Das Kapital and On the Origin of Species.
Only the saving power of our LORD, Jesus Christ, brought to earth via (dare I say it) his agent, Liz Dole, can save these children from the evil that is the library (Books? For Free? COMMIES!).
And the robot says: "In the begining was man. Man created all things. Man, with his infinite skill, created machines
Some (all?) public libraries carry recent issues of magazines. I reckon that these libraries are pretty picky about the kinds of magazines they carry, and they'd not think for a moment about carrying top-shelf magazines.
Maybe they'd see Internet filtering in the same kind of way - choosing what materiel they want to be available through their systems. Whilst some people are going to scream "free speech", these computers are library resources and the library is free to decide what they get used for.
The flip side of this is that libraries carry literature like Lady Chatterley's Lover. Would materiel like that be filtered by the proposed filtering software?
I think a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it.
I'm sure the "Antiporn" group mentioned, along with the multitudes of "think of the children!" groups would be agast if they actually spent time at a library reading the books. There is more stuff in your public library that could be "harmful to children" than most people realize. Shoot, if we're worried about harming the children's delicate sensiblities, we should keep them out of school entirely. After all, nothing good can come from letting people think on their own...
Just my $0.02
I read the internet for the articles.
While I'm not talking about your circumstance perticualarly (your childeren are very young, barly to the age of being able to make complete cause and effect conclusions) I bet if you let a school aged kid eat icecream all day they would be sick as a dog a few times and eventually learn the lesson. Now I'm not quite sure why they havn't learned about poison ivy yet. I mean it only took me one or two times, the pain is just not worth it. But if one sees fit to only explain to children concepts and not to let them find out the stupidity of it for themselves, the are goint to get nowhere. Children are naturally rebellious explaniations do nothing. Libraries have had a long term commitment to not censor. I mean they might not have a subscription to playboy or anything, but thats more a matter of legality as you really can't leave such items out in public. Do you take your kids to the movie rental place and let them pickout whatever they want. As you should watch your kids in regular society, libraries don't have to be the exception (I do believe school libraries should offer some filtering simply because parents have no means of control). You know what annoys me most.. I really wanted libby as pres. too.. now I'm gonna have to rethink that idea. :(
Wow, I love their porn cam... is that live?
http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/xxx.jpg
Yes, personally I'm very offended by lycos' advertisment of porn sites? What corperate idiot decided to link to that meta-dog site in the first place? Anybody up for an email campain against lycos? (I used to accually respect lycos believe it or not)
Sorry I take that back.. lets not have an email campain.. apparently ftpsearch.com isn't owned or operated by lycos it simply redirects to ftpsearch.lycos.com and open up porn windows while its at it.. They are probably making good money doing this... does anyone know of the legality concerning such actions, as they are using lycos's content to make money for themselves?
Is there any serious problem with embedding standardized, descriptive information in digital media (web pages, images, digital video, HDTV, digital audio). All of these formats could easily carry "fields" which describe what the media contains (which would be useful aside from censorship) as well as "fields" appropriate for censorship use. You could imagine a quite objective (and possibly detailed) set of fields describing aspects of the content (eg: adult language, levels of nudity, etc.) which everyone would be expected to embed in the media. Media which doesn't include the info can be blocked. The info can be "audited" on a random basis or by anybody in the world who notices that it does not follow the guidelines.
For censorship, this provides an objective (and fine grained) description of the content and allows the consumers (or their parents/school) to decide where to draw the line. It also is trivial to implement using computers (except for analog media) and includes a nice auditing system where any person can notice if some media has been mis-labeled.
For other uses, this can be quite valuable. If I am doing a study on tree leaves, I can search the web for images which have a field describing the image subject as a tree leaf. If I want all audio clips of Linus Torvalds, I can search for exactly that by reading the headers of all the audio clips I find. Search engines would actually find what you want, and not only for text, but any media.
This seems like such an obvious solution. Is there any serious problem with this? Is anyone implementing anything like this?
These are two separate quotes you (I presume, they were both ACs who sounded the same) made in this thread. I'll discuss them together.
Tell me, where should a child learn about sex? Behind the barn with that kid Jimmy down the street who stole his dad's Playboy? I've read several of your comments, and I don't see any solutions, just aimless whining about problems. I'd rather teach my kid that there's nothing wrong with sex per se, and hope that they're somewhat "normal," in that they could be gay, straight, bi, or a nun/priest, so long as they weren't a rapist or into anything truly harmful.
Parents can't monitor their children 24-7. Society has a responsibility to pick up the slack.
It takes a village, huh? Bullshit. Childhood is a part of life, and life means living. Childhood is not a prison with safety-padded bars. You teach your child as much as you can, but you have to teach them to explore and to learn on their own.
I broke my arm as a child, doing something I shouldn't have. Had my parents warned me not to? Certainly. Did I do it anyway, first chance I got? Damn straight. My own son is the same way, he just broke his leg doing something just as stupid. And he's being punished for it - by being in a cast for six weeks, being in considerable pain, and having to explain very fully and explicitly what he was trying to do and why. Did I know he would try it? Yup. I hadn't planned on him breaking his leg of course, and I was as scared as any parent when he did it - but you know, I wouldn't change what I did regardless. I see classmates of my son who don't have the sense God gave a mongoose because their parents shield them from everything. By contrast my son is a stubborn, intelligent, willful boy who won't take anyone's word for it "just because;" he'll try it himself. That doesn't mean he'll run out in front of a truck because he won't listen when I tell him that would be a bad idea; he can work out for himself that he'd be killed.
I'd say it's better to teach my children to be brave, smart, curious, and careful. Explore where you can, but look before you leap. Don't take anyone's word for it that something's wrong - but don't dismiss things out of hand, either. It all boils down to one thing - Go anywhere, do anything, try any experience. After you've considered the possibilities and judged the risks.
If my child is playing in the street - he won't be, he's got more sense, without 24/7 monitoring - and you walk by, certainly I hope you'll tell him to get out of the street, and I hope you'll tell me about it. But don't tell me how I raise my son.
Parents should be the ones raising their children. Period. Don't "empower" me, don't monitor me or my children, and you can take your "morals" (a nice, kind word for self-rightous interference in matters that don't concern you) and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. And if you're not sure where that is, there are a lot of internet sites happy to show you a close-up view.
-- The meek shall inherit the Earth. In very small plots, about 6 feet by 3.
Policies on adult material vary from one library system to another, but in general there is a distinction drawn between adult and obscene. For example, most major libraries do carry Playboy because, whatever one may think of the photographic content, the magazine does have articles and editorial content and does not meet the common legal definition of obscenity (appealing only to a prurient interest) in most parts of the US.
An important concept in all obscenity laws is the notion of community standards for acceptability. What is considered obscene in one community may be considered perfectly acceptable elsewhere. This is where Ms. Dole's plan deviates from prior legal practice, by setting a national standard. Libraries often use their own community's standard for "obscene" to decide what is and is not in their collection.
Incidentally, my wife happens to be a strong free-speech advocate (as am I). In her selection of what A-V titles to carry, she makes a point of keeping a broad-spectrum collection, especially in the areas of politics and religion. She has in the collection hundreds of videotapes which she personally finds objectionable from religious grounds, but which she believes others have a right to see if they wish to do so.
Other librarians in the area run the gamut from free-speech advocates to those who would censor even literary classics. There is a Library Bill of Rights (put out by the American Library Association, I think) that lists among its tenets the right of any patron to access any material, and the right to privacy of that material from government review. This does not mean that children can view bestiality at the library, but it does mean that your local sheriff cannot get the "goods" on you and harass or arrest you just for reading about illegal drugs.
In many areas, librarians are on the front lines in the battle to preserve free speech.
Please check out the Thomas Register (where many bills can be viewed). Check specifically H.R. 1501 and the specific Amendment (Title XIV) that:
...and this is retroactive, which means that the libraries must refund the discounts received during this past calendar year I believe.
So if anyone in your library finds information on breats feeding, breast cancer, Dick Simon Trucking, or whatever else, your library will be poor. That's how I view it.
Please write your congress persons. Check out Vote Smart for a place to start for contact information.
Also check out the American Libraries Association (ALA). They have a Legislative Issues page which says that a Senate committee even already approved the bill.
Let's stop this madness and educate the lawmakers that any limits to information should be evaluated by the local communities and NOT be federally mandated, especially on such misinformation.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
The problem is, as you state, who is it that gets to draw the line?
My opinion on this is that for adults, no one should draw the line, there should be no restrictions AT ALL concerning what adults may read, hear, view, etc.
And as far as children go, the ones who should draw the line are the parents, not the government, not their church, not their next door neighbors.
The solution to the problem of how to deal with any kind of information availablity is the requirement of personal responsibility. If some adult, for example wants to read, whatever, information about making bombs, for example, so be it. If they choose to make them and use them, they should then be held responsible for the results, period, end of story, no babysitting, no mollycoddling, just appropriate punishment. In the case of children, if a parent chooses to allow the child access to such information, again, so be it. If the child then applies that knowledge, then the parents should be held responsible for the results of those actions, or if the child is past the age of about 10-12 or so, then the responsiblity should be applied to parent AND child.
The problems that are so harped upon in this country are not caused by guns, or bombs, or porn, or drugs, or whatever the flavor of the week is this time. The problems in this country are caused by the attitude that "It's not my fault, someone (or something) else made me do it!".
If we really want these problems to go away (to the degree that is possible to do so), we need to quit wasting our time and money trying to control the behaviour of people, and apply it to enforcing the requirement of personal responsibility, through education, and appropriate repercussions. Any other attitude is only going to make the problem worse.
Nunc Tutus Exitus Computarus.
Actually, the best filtering is to ensure there is NO expectation of privacy; If a librarian (coordinator/whatnow) is walking around and there is no way for a browsing user to "hide" the contents of the screen, there should be little difficulty. Additionally, for all users, how's about recording sites visited through the library system's firewall? Like a libary card would help them record what kind of material you are reading (assuming anybody is interested) a children's account would be associated with their parent's card, so the parent would get notification of material the children have accessed (if you're really paranoid).
Filtering should NOT be necessary- since, once you start filtering, where do you stop? China, for instance, finds political discourse offensive.
The First Amendment is not so much a right to speak as a right to hear other voices. While *I* would not be happy if my children read some of the material on the web (heck, there's stuff out there *I* don't even want to see, but it's sometimes helpful to trip over it on occasion as a booster for immunities) I would like to know where my son (and, someday, my daughter) have been reading, since it'll give me an idea of what I'm missing as a parent.
Perhaps the search for "easy, simple" solutions is wrong. Who ever said parenthood is easy?
Politics is the effort to sell easy, simple solutions- but there are none. Human nature implies a huge "gray zone", though there are some things that we must accept as minimums just to work together.
Laws are needed to constrain behavior- they should not be constraining thought.
Seriously, though, if the display tubes in the library are large (heck, just put monitor repeaters where others in the library can see, with enough defocussing to make text unreadable) and in a central place where people usually walk through (not some dingy back room) the community will correct itself. If you're determined to cruis porn, well, why shouldn't your neighbors know? The Library is a _public_ place! Let's keep it that way- leave it an open channel for information in print and otherwise...
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
Yes sir, nothing like the smell of banned websites. Let's just put them up there with the banned books. My question is who filters the filters? Why are we letting someone else decide what is and is not appropiate for our viewing pleasure? I am not advocating porn all around, but let's get real here. Any kid who has spent any time on a computer can get around any filter. Problem is most public libraries still confrom to the old lab usage. Let's keep the computers locked in a seperate room. How about putting the computers in the main part of the library? No one and I mean no one looks at porn where someone can see them. Computer usage should be a privilege, screw around and you will have the privilege removed, and that fact will be recorded on your library card. This is assuming we can hook up the computer to a card reader.
Yes, it's not an oxymoron. I happen to be both without any cognitive dissonance. There are two key things to realize here. One is that, as John Stuart Mill says, there should only be laws restricting things that a societal consensus believes to be harmful to others. The other is that as Christians our first priority should be changing the hearts and minds of others (i.e. building consenus), not making laws. For instance, on the abortion issue, our priorities should be (a) trying to build a national consensus that abortion really does kill an unborn human and that it's not right and (b) offering as much support to unwed mothers as we can, be it prenatal care, adoption services, whatever.
So what does this mean for censorship? I don't believe in censorship of any sort for adults. Well, ok, we should censor subliminal messages -- if you want to try and manipulate me, I want to know about it -- and you should be liable afterwards in a court of law for any slander or libel you commit. But I do believe there are some things we should censor/forbid for children, especially young children. Pornography and drugs come to mind. Children simply do not have the wisdom to make informed decisions for themselves on tricky issues such as these. Pornography and drugs -- alchohol, cigarettes, and illegal varieties -- are extremely dangerous for young minds because the pleasure is immediate, but the dangers are far from obvious. I want as much of a chance as possible to educate my children on the dangers before they even have a chance to be exposed. Even so, friends, school-mates, and society in general will probably see to it that they'll both have seen porno and been offered drugs by the time they're 15 or 16. But hopefully by then I'll have had enough time to educate them on the dangers so that they know what to do. If not, then I'll be in big trouble when they move out on their own :^(
But I certainly don't want to have my kids exposed to porno because some wacko is downloading it in a public area of my local library. Moreover, while I will try to be there to do the educating and censoring myself, I'd like to believe that public institutions such as libraries and schools would, if not help me out, at least not work against me. My suggestion to libraries would be to have a public computer area where porno was not allowed and a private, uncensored area. And as far as implementing the no-porno area, I would discourage the use of filtering software -- which as many others have stated filters out useful information such as breast cancer research -- and encourage a policy of revoking/suspending a patron's access should they attempt to view material determined by a librarian to be pornographic while they are in the no-porno area.
GNU and Linux -- Oh no, Mr. Bill!
If you're worried about your kid viewing pornography, tell him about the consequences of unsafe sex, objectizing women, and remind him of any moral code that your family might adhere to on the matter. If you're worried about violence, teach gun safety. And teach the consequences of violence. Make it personal. Introduce him to some victims. Show him what it looks like when a person's face gets shot off. I guarantee you that will have a lasting impression.
Keeping people in darkness doesn't help them. They'll go behind your back and then they'll just be getting a one-sided view of things. By forbidding it, you make it even more likely that they'll take an interest in it -- kids are like that. But by letting them explore -- kids' minds are built to explore and learn -- and by not making a big deal about it, they're more likely to come to their own decision about it, which if you've raised them well, will probably coincide with your own. I had access to pornography and violent media when I was a kid. I looked at some of it. It wasn't a big deal. I didn't turn into a sex maniac, I can see the value in waiting until marriage before sex, I'm not a violent psychotic, etc. But who knows what would've happened if I lived in a domineering family that tried to dictate my thoughts and beliefs? I might easily have rebelled in quite the opposite manner.
If I want to teach my kid something, I'll present my view and the opposing view. If I just present one side of things, then he'll get the impression I'm trying to snow him. Kids aren't stupid.
On the other hand, present one point of view enough and you may get a nicely brainwashed kid. I've seen it happen. Personally, raising a kid to be a little copy of me without any free will or capacity for independent or critical thought isn't the reason why I'd raise a kid. But lots of people seem to be into that.
As someone else said, I find it ironic that it's the strongest backers of this kind of thing are conservatives; you'd think that they'd be as far away as possible from the government controlling information sources. But of course, those conservatives who back this sort of thing are the type of people who want to blame society's ills on convenient abstractions like "pornography" or "the movie industry", etc. (can we say "Columbine"?) without taking any personal responsibility for raising their own children. Usually while reviling "liberals" for doing the same thing (blaming others rather than themselves for social issues). It's that kind of thing that gives the Republican party a bad name, which is shameful, since I know plenty of reasonable conservatives who aren't bent on controlling other people's beliefs.
Those people act on fear. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering. :) They fear that kids will mindlessly emulate anything they see. They fear that they can't control their children. The only thing it proves is that their value system or their parenting is so weak that it can't stand the light of day, all opposing viewpoints must be hidden for it to prevail.
Finally, let me just say that anyone who thinks that pornography turns people immoral is, IMHO, pretty whacked. Whatever morals or lack thereof one might have are likely already present. It's like blaming school killings on wearing trechcoats. If I put on a trenchcoat, it doesn't make me a killer.
Whilst some people are going to scream "free speech", these computers are library resources and the library is free to decide what they get used for.
Sorry, try again. Libraries that are funded/run by US governments are beholden to the constitution; Federal ones by the first ammendment, and state/local ones by the first ammendment via the fourteenth. The whole point of a constitutional democracy is to have the government not be free to do whatever it likes. If you're into that sort of thing, then hop on over to Australia, where their consitution doesn't protect civil rights.
The original rationale behind allowing libraries to ban objectionable books was that the amount of money available for purchasing books is scarce. Because a library cannot own all books, there is some leeway granted in determining which books are to be carried.
Bandwith, however, is not scarce under the current scheme of non-hourly rates. As such, there is no independent and clear government purpose in regulating which speech can be heard and such filters are therefore unconstitutional. This is independent of the fact that dumbing down adult speech to protect minors is not exactly constitutional either.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
In a democracy, you let whoever gets the most votes run the show, no matter what their beliefs are.
You can't say "Christianity is a minority belief, so Christians shouldn't be in office" any more than you can say "The country is predominantly white, so only whites should run for office". If you find someone's beliefs objectionable then just don't vote for them :-) but they have as much right to campaign on a platform built on those beliefs as you would to campaign on a platform built on yours.
It isn't the porn filtering that bothers me, it's the federally-imposed filtering of a public information source. The companies who write filtering software have proven time and time again that they don't just filter porn - they filter educational information about birth control and human sexuality, discussion sites that they don't like the tone of, and even sites which are anti-filtering software. It's that last one that really bugs me - it doesn't bother me a whole lot if my local community filters porn in the library, but don't take away my access to sites just because they threaten Net Nanny's profits.
Also, that was a really cheap shot about homeless people. Don't you think they have more important things to worry about than surfing for porn? All the homeless people I've run into in a library were there because it was warm and indoors, not because it was a porn-haven. We might as well say: "people that post to Slashdot must have nothing else to do, so they are probably all researching porn at work (or school) right now".
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Which minority is that then? The minority that like using library computers to view pr0n? :-)
If this legislation were to go through, I think it'd impact the life of the average nerd very little. It's the principle of the thing that a lot of Slashdotters find distasteful.
All censorship is bad. I'd challenge anyone to argue with that point, but since I probalby won't revisit this page, there's really no reason.
- big-brother-will-take-care-of-us lamers actually thought about your stance on the issue?
Have any of you we-have-to-protect-our-children-from-naked-people
What's the harm in actually teaching our children what's bad, and what they probably should stay away from, instead of trying to put a clamshell over them and hope that nothing ever gets through? You know what, something eventually will, and they won't be prepared. The argument is complicated further, since children have the same rights that any of us do, and can make their own decisions (that should upset some people). If a child wants to do one thing or the other, and is responsible about it, then there's no problem. The goverment has no right toay what a child can or can't do, and any parent had better take their responsability (not right) to supervise a child very seriously. As a parent it's your job to prepare your child for life, not shelter them from it.
So, if you think porn is bad, then explain to your child and hope they see it your way, because if they don't, you really have no authority to force your views upon them. You might be suprised, children are highly intelligent, and often like to do what's right.
On the point of censorship in general, let me put it this way: Do you think that making laws is going to discourage pornography any more than it has with, say, drugs? No, It's just going to complicate things more. So argue your point, speak intelligently, make informed judgements, and NEVER try to take away another person's freedom, because loss of a freedom for one person will sooner-or-later be a loss for everyone. Democracy is supposed to be founded on the idea that people can collectively make their own decisions -- so why not do this with minimal interference from the goverment? It can be done, and we'd be better off. Legislation is not the answer, but rather communication is.
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANY OF YOU HOT STUDS AND LUCIOUS BABES OUT THERE, BUT I DO HAVE CHILDREN, AND I'VE SEEN WHAT PORNOGRAPHY DOES TO KIDS.
Yea, yea... I know what you're going to say. "You have to educate your kids. Filtering is no substitute for education." Sure sounds mighty fine when you say that, with your chest puffed out with pride in being Holy Defender Of Free Speech. I suppose if someone started planting land mines around my house, you'd tell me, "Well, just EDUCATE your children to not STEP on them, you dumb prick!"
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
I know, filtering is a lousy technology, but I think it should be possible to put at least some level of filtering on URL's, like "www.wefu*ksluts.com". You can't stop everything, but at least you can make it more difficult to accidentally trip across this stuff.
Why at the Library? At home, I know what goes on with the computer. I can see a page and know what the difference is between a gang-bang and an article on breast cancer.
You go somewhere else, and there are no rules, no guidelines, noone checking over the shoulder. It's as if the Library had opened a section on Porn, and left all the hard core magazines out on the table for anyone to pick up. Is this really how you want to educate your children?
OK. You Defenders can start sending me your hate mail now. Just remember that I don't give a rat's a$$ about your opinion unless you've had children of your own.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
This is one of the reasons that I browse the Web at work with images turned off, and only load them once I'm sure the site is okay.
Right on. I don't want to visit porn sites. I find porn offensive. If people want to put porn on the Web, that's up to them, but I object to being tricked into viewing their materiel. If I buy a subscription to a computer magazine, I wouldn't expect to be subscribed to Big Hooters Monthly as well.
Well, you can argue that porn is violent and degrading, but there are women out there who do buy and produce porn, so it's not like, one of those male-oppressive things.
When I was a kid, there was sex all around. I mean, it was so *open*. We'd watch films, get shown books, even from a young age...there's enough sex on TV...certainly when I was a kid, it was thought that educating kids more about the human body was a good thing...videotaping birthings was all the rage. It was like, *so important* to know where babies come from.
I can't speak for Americans, being Cdn, but why do politicians cross their legs and say that all these things are evil? What is so wrong with Jessie Helms (see a book called Close to The Knives) that there's something evil about men loving each other when the US army was invading little island nations and killing people.
Why do people need protecting anyway? Are the American people so afraid of themselves that everyone and everything needs to be locked up, that anything that might offend someone is somehow *evil*...that's Geocities job isn't it?
And I agree, you'd think that the last people to do this would be Republicans...what's there to be so uptight about? Lock up the porn, but don't lock up your guns?
Yes. I mentioned in a post above (at the top level, one of the first) that a line has to be drawn somewhere[1], but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it. For a start; I'd not know where to draw the line, and even if I did, I'd still cop flak from people who thought I was being too restrictive, and from other people who thought I was being too liberal.
[1]: I know that this point of view isn't really appreciated here, but I am in favour of drawing a line somewhere. I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, so stop reading now if you don't care. Whilst freedom of expression is a Good Thing, it is a double-edged sword. There are some things which are so harmful, so destructive that I think it's in everyone's interests that they don't get said at all. Problem is, who decides? I couldn't decide for everyone, because I'm easily offended and would ban stuff that others wouldn't see the slightest problem with. It's a thorny issue. I can't agree with the "don't censor anything, let people make up their own minds, total free speech for all" solution though, because of what I said above; some things are just too bad to be tolerated.