I can't watch it because I'm in England. We probably won't get it until the year 3000.
Look on the bright side. You guys get to watch the new Red Dwarf episodes about a year before we do (although, I must say I haven't been impressed with the last two seasons of Red Dwarf).
Well, Bill Gates must know what he's talking about, so I've just reformated all my ext2 partitions to make more room for windows 98 applications and microsoft products.
On on of the ads, the guy from the past is in a space ship with the one-eyed female pilot and asks if he can do the countdown, she says "sure", so he turns around and starts counting down from 10 in a dramatic voice. Meanwhile the pilot takes off and by the time the countdown gets to "7" they've already arrived. Funny stuff, I think the show will be a winner.
As for the accusations of "censorship", you're completely off base in my opinion. If people want to bother reading every single comment in every discussion, they can set their threshhold to a lower number. If they don't want to read the AC comments or stuff that none of the moderaters think is really "important", they set their threshholds higher. Is this censorship? No...it's for convenience. I regularly set my threshhold to 2. This lets me get a pretty good overview of what's being said and saves me from having to load a rediculously large page that consists mainly of single one-off posts that have no replies. If I'm bored (like I am now) I'll lower the threshhold to 0 just to see what sort of other stuff people have to say.
I take your point, but keep in mind that most users will keep their threshold at the default of 0. When you lower a post to -1, you effectively hide it from the 90% of users who simply don't want to wade throught the 30 or so "First Post" comments. Now, I would not object if the moderation was enforced consistantly and with scale, but the moderation is currently very inconsistant and largely dependent on whether the moderators _agree_ with the opinion expressed in your post. Or so it seems to me.
I wish I had a solution, but there is nothing Rob can do about it. The moderators, en masse, decide what the moderation policy is, and it is just a shame that they have decided to use their power of moderators to silence those with different opinions.
I posted a comment about renaming GNU/Linux to GORE/Linux (since he probably invented it) and it got down graded to -1. Now, I would not object to a 0 rating, but a -1 rating smacks of either political bias or out of control moderators. Jokes that are not in bad taste and at least slightly topical should not receive a rating lower than zero.
Moderators (I feel) are using their power to up the ratings for posts they agree with and lower the ratings that they disagree with. Look at the Utah/censorship discussion for some perfect examples. Anti-censorship posts often received a 5, while pro-censorship (or posts perceived as pro-censorship) could hope for a 2 at best.
It is ironic that a community so anti-censorship is working to silence and hide posts they consider unpolitic. I have no doubt that this post, if noticed, will be quickly downgraded to a -1, but hopefully a few people will read it before it disappears. I would appreciate honest rebuttal from moderators if they disagree with me. If you have a defense of what is happening I will read it with an open mind, but I AM SUSPICIOUS.
Why was my comment marked down to a -1. A 0 I can see, but marking every comment that makes fun of Al Gore down to -1 smacks of POLITICAL BIAS. Any moiderator care to respond? Defend your action?
ahem... dear Burnsbert. Could you please explain to me why the incidence of rape in Scandinavian countries is among the lowest in the world? Consider the fact that "hardcore" pornography is available to anyone over the age of 13. Please don't insult our intelligence with your right-wing propaganda. Some of us have actually had a glimpse of life outside Smalltown U.S.A.
"right-wing propaganda", that's funny. I'm against the death penalty, support strong gun control laws, a progressive tax system, and am worried that welfare has been cut back too much. Newt Gingrich hates my guts, buddy.
But to answer your question, I am not familiar with Scandinavia, its laws, or its culture so cannot knowledgably comment on Sweden, Finland, or even, as much as I'd like to, Norway.
But when I say explicit material (graphic violence as well as pornography) is damaging to children, I am more concerned about pre-teens than those "over thirteen" (although, I'd be a bit skittish about providing a thirteen year old son of mine with hard core porn, to be honest). But, unlike you, I think it should be up to the parents to decide what material a child has access to until he/she reaches the age of majority. I don't think you or the schools are better equiped to know what a particular child is ready for better than that child's own parents.
Make of that what you will (and feel free to rail against America and all it stands for, it seems to be an international past-time for condescending, snobbish Europeans).
Pick any other group and substitute their name in the place of "white males", the way I substituted for "children" -- and maybe you'll see how discriminatory and offensive your statement is. Every person -- child or adult -- is an individual. Censorship treats all those individuals the same, regardless of their different capabilites.
Not true, lack of censorship for children treats everyone the same despite their different capabilities. A white male and a black female of the same age have, statistically speaking, the same capabilities. A four-year-old and a thirty-four-year-old have very different capabilities.
To those examples I would also add graphic depictions of violence. ...which would include a lot of medieval art, and most cave paintings.
It simply is not feasible to restrict access in any other way than to have a trusted person, such as a parent or a teacher, evaluate every single item.
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many/. readers were extremists but this really is something.
I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
I made this statement after you said that a parent had "no legal right" to ground his/her children. If you want to modify your earlier statement, I will modify mine.
UEN in Utah serves the entire public school system and some public libraries; The restrictions it has in place affect "children" up to age 18 (!!! doesn't that set alarm bells running?) and adult teachers and library users (!!! doesn't that set even more alarm bells ringing?). We're not talking about 1 year olds crying because a nappy is being changed against their will, or petulant 8 year olds complaining about being grounded, we're talking about people who are fully functional adults by every measurable metric except the one defined by law, which treats them as children, regardless of their maturity, until age 18.
That is the injustice here. That is the parallel between the denial of basic human rights to these people and the denial of basic human rights to african americans. "Children" remain the only group of people in American society who are routinely denied basic rights for no reason other than prejudice, bad law and appearance.
You made no distinction for age before, it is only now that we are discussing teens specifically.
We can argue about what the age of majority should be (15 instead of 18?), but an age of majority protects those not yet ready to look after themselves. It is true that this is just number, a teenager doesn't magically become mature on his/her eighteenth birthday, but age is the only non-arbitrary way to handle this.
This is not discrimination on appearance, but discernment based on age and maturity. I will tell you, even though I am 23 I look like I am in my teens, yet I can vote and (if I wanted to) buy beer and such. The law doesn't discriminate against me based on my appearance.
I guess we could phase in rights more gradually, giving children->teens increasing amounts of control as they age. Do you have a specific suggestion? You're British, right (judging from your use of the word "nappy" and condescending attitude towards anything American)? How do they handle it in your enlightened monarchy?
I have no trouble believing that a 15 year old is capable of making decisions about the kind of content they want to see on the web. The Utah public school system, however, doesn't make any distinction whatsoever between that 15 year old and a five year old starting school for the first time.
If you want to distort this into "shoving porn into the faces of children," then go ahead and do it in the knowledge that you are being knowingly dishonest. That is not what this case is about, and it never has been. This case is about the ability of Utah parents to make their own decisions about the upbringing their children get instead of trusting the moral guidance of their treasured offspring to a piece of software.
Not shoving porn into faces of children (you had this in quotes, even though I never said it) but ignoring parental authority. A fifteen year old should be given more leeway than an eight year old, but it is for the parents to decide whether said fifteen year old should be browsing www.playboy.com or www.whitepower.org. Trust the parents, not the schools, and the schools should facilitate this by restricting access to material that most parents would object to. If parents want to provide access to material above and beyond this for their children, that is their business.
Let me also add that I am not an advocate for the software specifically, merely supervision.
Again, we can argue about what, exactly, the age of majority should be, but currently it is eighteen.
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many/. readers were extremists but this really is something.
I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
I made this statement after you said that a parent had "no legal right" to ground his/her children. If you want to modify your earlier statement, I will modify mine.
A Question and a Comment by newt on Wednesday March 24, @08:31AM EST (User Info) http://www.freebsd.org/~newton/cv.html
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many/. readers were extremists but this really is something. I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
Roughly analogous to the thinking a hundred years ago, where the law failed to treat certain people as human beings on the basis of their skin color, even though the constitution said nothing about blacks Now you're equating PARENTING with SLAVERY, if you weren't serious, this would be hilarious. Blacks during American and European slavery were treated differently based on external appearance. That is WRONG. Children are treated differently because they are intellectually and emotionally immature, and NOT, as you would have us believe, because they are short.
I'm not talking about slavery, I'm talking about the past 20 - 100 years of American history where slavery has been and gone but blacks have still been treated badly.
There was serious academic research done in the 1920's and 1930's to show that african americans were, in an evolutionary sense, closer to apes than "good god-fearin' whitefolk." The results of that utterly bizarre research was, and sometimes still is, used to justify the most henious restrictions on the lives of black people even though slavery was abolished over a century ago.
Now back to the subject at hand and the parallels with the case presented above: From their early teens, so-called "children" are often a lot more mature than you seem to think they are. They can reason, use logic, make their own moral and ethical conclusions, learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for thier actions. Yet you refuse to believe this; you treat them as non-humans with non-human-rights, forcing them to use censorware against tieir will because you've made an arbitrary judgement about their maturity based on nothing more substantial than their age. You haven't even met the people you'd censor.
UEN in Utah serves the entire public school system and some public libraries; The restrictions it has in place affect "children" up to age 18 (!!! doesn't that set alarm bells running?) and adult teachers and library users (!!! doesn't that set even more alarm bells ringing?). We're not talking about 1 year olds crying because a nappy is being changed against their will, or petulant 8 year olds complaining about being grounded, we're talking about people who are fully functional adults by every measurable metric except the one defined by law, which treats them as children, regardless of their maturity, until age 18.
That is the injustice here. That is the parallel between the denial of basic human rights to these people and the denial of basic human rights to african americans. "Children" remain the only group of people in American society who are routinely denied basic rights for no reason other than prejudice, bad law and appearance.
You made no distinction for age before, it is only now that we are discussing teens specifically.
We can argue about what the age of majority should be (15 instead of 18?), but an age of majority protects those not yet ready to look after themselves. It is true that this is just number, a teenager doesn't magically become mature on his/her eighteenth birthday, but age is the only non-arbitrary way to handle this.
This is not discrimination on appearance, but discernment based on age and maturity. I will tell you, even though I am 23 I look like I am in my teens, yet I can vote and (if I wanted to) buy beer and such. The law doesn't discriminate against me based on my appearance.
I guess we could phase in rights more gradually, giving children->teens increasing amounts of control as they age. Do you have a specific suggestion? You're British, right (judging from your use of the word "nappy" and condescending attitude towards anything American)? How do they handle it in your enlightened monarchy?
I have no trouble believing that a 15 year old is capable of making decisions about the kind of content they want to see on the web. The Utah public school system, however, doesn't make any distinction whatsoever between that 15 year old and a five year old starting school for the first time.
If you want to distort this into "shoving porn into the faces of children," then go ahead and do it in the knowledge that you are being knowingly dishonest. That is not what this case is about, and it never has been. This case is about the ability of Utah parents to make their own decisions about the upbringing their children get instead of trusting the moral guidance of their treasured offspring to a piece of software.
Not shoving porn into faces of children (you had this in quotes, even though I never said it) but ignoring parental authority. A fifteen year old should be given more leeway than an eight year old, but it is for the parents to decide whether said fifteen year old should be browsing www.playboy.com or www.whitepower.org. Trust the parents, not the schools, and the schools should facilitate this by restricting access to material that most parents would object to. If parents want to provide access to material above and beyond this for their children, that is their business.
Let me also add that I am not an advocate for the software specifically, merely supervision.
Again, we can argue about what, exactly, the age of majority should be, but currently it is eighteen.
"Your Honor, I had to rape that woman. I saw a picture of a naked woman on line when I was a kid, so I had no choice!"
"Agreed. This court finds that the defendant is not responsible for his own actions, and is a rapist from forces beyond his control rather than from a deliberate, conscious choice to hurt other people. All charges are dismissed and the defendant is ordered released at once."
Straw man argument again, I never suggested direct mind control. But child's environment affects how he will grow up, and TV and movies are part of that environment. If you expose and desensitive children to graphic violence and sexual content, that will influence their development. That will move the population toward violence and mistreatment of women, so statistically, some men will become rapists who will not otherwise have done so. For the same reason, children of alcoholics have a higher rate of alcoholism.
Rapists/muderers/etc are still responsible for their actions, but it is fairly obvious (to me, here on Earth, I don't know where you are) that a child's environment affects how he will grow up, and the wrong environment can have disasterous consequences.
If TV didn't affect behavior, noone would advertise.
A rational person would say, "If people didn't think TV affected behaviour, no one would advertise."
Well, I've seen a study that shows that people buy name brand (i.e. widely advertised) products even if the price is higher and the quality of the competition is just as good. There is a statistically proven foundation for the effectiveness of advertisement. If there wasn't, hardly anyone would drink Budwieser.
On one hand you're talking about things like licenses to drive or serve in the military, which are based on a child's physical ability to do whatever tasks are in question (drive, fight, whatever).
On the other hand, you're talking about age limitations which have been chosen with absolute arbitrariness (the right to vote, buy a gun, drink, get grounded, etc).
The first category I'd argue are justified. The second category are not. The courts seem to agree with this in many instances (which is why, for instance, parents legally cannot ground their children; children can divorce their parents if they understand the issues and have good enough reasons, and why so-called minors have been able to join the military, legitimately or not).
That's hilarious, "parents legally cannot ground their children"? What a laugh, I'd like to see the Supreme Court decision that said that.
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many/. readers were extremists but this really is something.
So does a parent have to ask permission before changing his/her baby's diapers? And does the baby have the right to refuse?
Should a child who gets in trouble be able to ascert a right to an attorney?
A child in trouble already has an absolute, incontrovertibe constitutional right to an attorney. Again, if you do not understand this you are not qualified to influence the course of this discussion.
I didn't know any "qualifications" were necessary to voice my opinion.
You seem to think that the law doesn't treat someone as a human being if they're too young -- Roughly analogous to the thinking a hundred years ago, where the law failed to treat certain people as human beings on the basis of their skin color, even though the constitution said nothing about blacks (or earlier this century when Germany said certain people were less than human due to their religion). You are incorrect. It is people like you that perpetuate the underclass I speak of above, just like people in the deep south perpetuated the idea that blacks were too stupid to understand the concept of "rights" for decades after the rest of the country had (sort of) come to the complete opposite conclusion. It's a very dangerous attitude, adopted despite thousands of years of history which shows that if a group considers its treatment at the hands of the more privileged to be unjust they just reach out and grab the rights they need whether the privileged ones let them or not.
Now you're equating PARENTING with SLAVERY, if you weren't serious, this would be hilarious. Blacks during American and European slavery were treated differently based on external appearance. That is WRONG. Children are treated differently because they are intellectually and emotionally immature, and NOT, as you would have us believe, because they are short.
Blacks are -NOT- too stupid to understand rights, but try discussing rights with a two year old. "Stupid" is not the right word, but it takes a child years and years before he/she is competent to look after him/herself. Parents are necessary to protect children and steer them away from bad choices.
And I don't know why you're railing against the U.S. in particular. There's not a country on the face of the Earth that doesn't treat children and adults differently under law. It would be foolish not to. You want to do away with all parental authority, that's insane, you must not be a parent.
When you look at the First Amendment, you should be asking, "Does this deny rights to children or limit them to adults?" If the answer is "no" (and it most assuredly is in this case) then you can only conclude that the law is age-neutral.
Is the second amendment "age neutral" as well? Do six year olds have the right to purchase and use firearms?
Sorry, but this is complete twaddle. Courts have routinely held that children have a right to freedom of speech on every issue from school uniforms through to the CDA. If you think the First Amendment doesn't apply to children then I think you need to seriously reevaluate your stance on this issue with the knowledge that you are utterly incorrect in some of the basic assumptions that have contributed to your beliefs. To use common vernacular, your behaviour on this topic is un-American.
With all due respect, sir, I don't think there is anything "Un-American" about recognizing a difference between children and adults. There are age limits on driving vehicles and drinking alcoholic beverages, there is an age-limit on voting, and there are age restrictions for joining the military. Those restrictions are in place to protect children, or to keep them from participating in society in ways for which they are not yet prepared, and there is nothing "Un-American" about that. Similarly, parents should be able to protect children by limiting access to harmful material.
Frankly, I think your equating children with adults is a bit ridiculous when you take it to its logical conclusion. Should parents not have the right to ground their children or send them to their rooms because it constitutes unfair imprisonment without a trial before their peers? Should a child who gets in trouble be able to ascert a right to an attorney? Give me a break!
> do you believe it you have the right to tell other people how to raise their children?
That's kinda the crux of the issue: In an earlier post you said there were certain types of material that should never be provided to children. Doesn't that mean that you're telling "... other people how to reise their children"?
No, because I would leave it up to parents to decide how to raise their children at home. You would have the schools give the children access to whatever material the children want, robbing the parents of a choice.
Now, _I_ believe that children should not be given access to certain material, but I would NOT force parents to do what I would do. Each parent should be able to choose what material is appropriate for his or her child.
Where you have it wrong is that you seem to think this is a community issue. It isn't -- It's a family issue. There are no such things as "community standards," because communities are too diverse. Pretending community standards exist for no reason other than to set censorship guidelines is one of those things that makes foreigners think the US attitude towards their first amendment is a complete farce.
Foreigners can think what they like. Here is the text of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now, please tell me how this can be interpretted to provide the right for children to look at pornography, even if their parents don't want them to. The first amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and press, not the right to access any and all information. Additionally, the Bill of Rights provides rights for adults, not children. If it were otherwise, then children would have the right to bear arms under the second amendment.
> Look how the rape crime rates have risen since the 1950's.
Correlation is not causation.
True enough, the old "ice cream causes skin cancer" argument demonstrates that. But if I cut my hand with a knife and my hand starts to bleed, it's fairly obvious what the causation was. And it's damned suspicious if not out-and-out undeniable what the causation is after 30 years of increasingly sexual explicit entertainment is mirrored by an dramatic increase in rapes. I could say (and have said) the same thing about graphic depictions of violence and violent crime rates. What people see and hear affect their behavior, so statistically, a subset of the population will engage in this sort of behavior who would otherwise not have. It only makes sense. If TV didn't affect behavior, noone would advertise.
I cannot and will not accept -- ever -- the notion that anything, be it sexual, militant, bigoted, or just plain Insensitive can be said to be Absolutely Inappropriate for someone on the basis of age.
That is your right. But other people have a right to make their own decisions for their own children; or do you believe it you have the right to tell other people how to raise their children?
"To learn how to read, write, and do simple math. Hopefully, to learn a bit more than that. To be a useful member of society in the 20th century, you need to have at least these basic skills."
Not American society. If your "at least" is reading, writing, and simple math, then you're in a world of hurt. "Readin' ritin' and cipherin'" is a skillset adequate for a steam-powered thresher-driver of the late nineteenth century.
That's called the "straw man" argument, when you purposely misunderstand a person's view in order to rail against them. You knew that I made no such claim, inane sophistry notwithstanding.
You (or another AC) asked me why children should go to school. I listed the most basic skills imaginable that children typically learn from school (Reading, Writing, Arithmatic). I never suggested that this was the limit of what children should learn. But no one without these skills can become a useful member of society.
Now, my dear demagogue, how do you suggest children gain these skills if they don't attend school? Not enough parents stay home to make home schooling en masse a viable alternative. Do you suggest a means of education, or are you simply taking potshots for the fun of it?
"Sesame Street", you bloated sack of ignorance. A great deal of it is animated, and it's probably taught more children to read than the schools have.
"bloated sack of ignorance"? I bet you didn't learn THAT from Sesame Street. Anyway, Im glad you've found a solution to our education problems. Forget that school stuff, just plop kids in front of the TV for six hours a day, they'll learn a whole lot that way. Especially from the Jerry Springer show.
A 'right' they don't have. It is not the government's decision or the parents', it is the INDIVIDUAL'S
A young child is not a mature individual and should not have the right to decide everything for himself or herself. Children need to be parented and protected, they do not know enough to care for themselves. If you think otherwise, then you are obviously very ignorant of children and their abilities.
It's a perfectly logical reply to someone who wants to make illogical decisions for other peoples' children.
On the contrary, I wish to allow parents the opportunity to make decisions for their own children. When a school gives children unfettered access to the Internet, it robs parents of the right to decide which content their children should and should not be exposed to. I DO NOT wish to decide for the parents, or have the government decide, I wish to trust parents to make the correct decisions for their own children.
If you have that power, so do I, and by my power, I revoke your right to life, and order you dead by tomorrow by your own hand. Do you still feel so empowered?
Hmm, a death threat, an interesting method of debate... I guess that's easier to master than logic or facts.
Parents should not decide things for their children. That only promotes immaturity.
So if a six-year-old wants to stay home, watch cartoons, and eat candy all day instead of going to school, his parents should let him? Part of being a good parent is providing guidance and, yes, LIMITS.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't watch it because I'm in England. We probably won't get it until the year 3000.
Look on the bright side. You guys get to watch the new Red Dwarf episodes about a year before we do (although, I must say I haven't been impressed with the last two seasons of Red Dwarf).
-Eric
Well, Bill Gates must know what he's talking about, so I've just reformated all my ext2 partitions to make more room for windows 98 applications and microsoft products.
-Eric
PS - Not.
On on of the ads, the guy from the past is in a space ship with the one-eyed female pilot and asks if he can do the countdown, she says "sure", so he turns around and starts counting down from 10 in a dramatic voice. Meanwhile the pilot takes off and by the time the countdown gets to "7" they've already arrived. Funny stuff, I think the show will be a winner.
-Eric
PS - Salon sucks.
As for the accusations of "censorship", you're completely off base in my opinion. If people want to bother reading every single
comment in every discussion, they can set their threshhold to a lower number. If they don't want to read the AC comments or stuff
that none of the moderaters think is really "important", they set their threshholds higher. Is this censorship? No...it's for convenience. I
regularly set my threshhold to 2. This lets me get a pretty good overview of what's being said and saves me from having to load a
rediculously large page that consists mainly of single one-off posts that have no replies. If I'm bored (like I am now) I'll lower the
threshhold to 0 just to see what sort of other stuff people have to say.
I take your point, but keep in mind that most users will keep their threshold at the default of 0. When you lower a post to -1, you effectively hide it from the 90% of users who simply don't want to wade throught the 30 or so "First Post" comments. Now, I would not object if the moderation was enforced consistantly and with scale, but the moderation is currently very inconsistant and largely dependent on whether the moderators _agree_ with the opinion expressed in your post. Or so it seems to me.
I wish I had a solution, but there is nothing Rob can do about it. The moderators, en masse, decide what the moderation policy is, and it is just a shame that they have decided to use their power of moderators to silence those with different opinions.
-Eric
I posted a comment about renaming GNU/Linux to GORE/Linux (since he probably invented it) and it got down graded to -1. Now, I would not object to a 0 rating, but a -1 rating smacks of either political bias or out of control moderators. Jokes that are not in bad taste and at least slightly topical should not receive a rating lower than zero.
Moderators (I feel) are using their power to up the ratings for posts they agree with and lower the ratings that they disagree with. Look at the Utah/censorship discussion for some perfect examples. Anti-censorship posts often received a 5, while pro-censorship (or posts perceived as pro-censorship) could hope for a 2 at best.
It is ironic that a community so anti-censorship is working to silence and hide posts they consider unpolitic. I have no doubt that this post, if noticed, will be quickly downgraded to a -1, but hopefully a few people will read it before it disappears. I would appreciate honest rebuttal from moderators if they disagree with me. If you have a defense of what is happening I will read it with an open mind, but I AM SUSPICIOUS.
-Eric
Why was my comment marked down to a -1.
A 0 I can see, but marking every comment
that makes fun of Al Gore down to -1
smacks of POLITICAL BIAS. Any moiderator
care to respond? Defend your action?
I'm listening...
-Eric
Why doesn't Albert Gore ever get the credit he deserves. Since Al Gore invented Linux (after inventing the Internet) it should be called GORE/Linux.
-Eric
Dammit, Rob, I'm a computer programmer, not a doctor!!!
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
Forget tricorders, I want a space ship that can travel faster than the speed of light. Holodecks would be nifty, as well.
-Eric
ahem... dear Burnsbert.
Could you please explain to me why the incidence of rape in Scandinavian countries is among the lowest in the world? Consider the fact that "hardcore" pornography is available to anyone over the age of 13.
Please don't insult our intelligence with your right-wing propaganda. Some of us have actually had a glimpse of life outside Smalltown U.S.A.
"right-wing propaganda", that's funny. I'm against the death penalty, support strong gun control laws, a progressive tax system, and am worried that welfare has been cut back too much. Newt Gingrich hates my guts, buddy.
But to answer your question, I am not familiar with Scandinavia, its laws, or its culture so cannot knowledgably comment on Sweden, Finland, or even, as much as I'd like to, Norway.
But when I say explicit material (graphic violence as well as pornography) is damaging to children, I am more concerned about pre-teens than those "over thirteen" (although, I'd be a bit skittish about providing a thirteen year old son of mine with hard core porn, to be honest). But, unlike you, I think it should be up to the parents to decide what material a child has access to until he/she reaches the age of majority. I don't think you or the schools are better equiped to know what a particular child is ready for better than that child's own parents.
Make of that what you will (and feel free to rail against America and all it stands for, it seems to be an international past-time for condescending, snobbish Europeans).
-Eric
Pick any other group and substitute their name in the place of "white males", the way I substituted for "children" -- and maybe you'll see how discriminatory and offensive your statement is. Every person -- child or adult -- is an individual. Censorship treats all those individuals the same, regardless of their different capabilites.
Not true, lack of censorship for children treats everyone the same despite their different capabilities. A white male and a black female of the same age have, statistically speaking, the same capabilities. A four-year-old and a thirty-four-year-old have very different capabilities.
-Eric
To those examples I would also add graphic depictions of violence.
...which would include a lot of medieval art, and most cave paintings.
It simply is not feasible to restrict access in any other way than to have a trusted person, such as a parent or a teacher, evaluate every single item.
Exactly what I would advocate, we agree entirely.
-Eric
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or
limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many
extremists but this really is something.
I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
I made this statement after you said that a parent had "no legal right" to ground his/her children. If you want to modify your earlier statement, I will modify mine.
UEN in Utah serves the entire public school system and some public libraries; The restrictions it has in place affect "children" up to age 18 (!!! doesn't that set alarm bells running?) and adult teachers and library users (!!! doesn't that set even more alarm bells ringing?). We're not talking about 1 year olds crying because a nappy is being changed against their will, or petulant 8 year olds complaining about being grounded, we're talking about people who are fully functional adults by every measurable metric except the one defined by law, which treats them as children, regardless of their maturity, until age 18.
That is the injustice here. That is the parallel between the denial of basic human rights to these people and the denial of basic human rights to african americans. "Children" remain the only group of people in American society who are routinely denied basic rights for no reason other than prejudice, bad law and appearance.
You made no distinction for age before, it is only now that we are discussing teens specifically.
We can argue about what the age of majority should be (15 instead of 18?), but an age of majority protects those not yet ready to look after themselves. It is true that this is just number, a teenager doesn't magically become mature on his/her eighteenth birthday, but age is the only non-arbitrary way to handle this.
This is not discrimination on appearance, but discernment based on age and maturity. I will tell you, even though I am 23 I look like I am in my teens, yet I can vote and (if I wanted to) buy beer and such. The law doesn't discriminate against me based on my appearance.
I guess we could phase in rights more gradually, giving children->teens increasing amounts of control as they age. Do you have a specific suggestion? You're British, right (judging from your use of the word "nappy" and condescending attitude towards anything American)? How do they handle it in your enlightened monarchy?
I have no trouble believing that a 15 year old is capable of making decisions about the kind of content they want to see on the web. The Utah public school system, however, doesn't make any distinction whatsoever between that 15 year old and a five year old starting school for the first time.
If you want to distort this into "shoving porn into the faces of children," then go ahead and do it in the knowledge that you are being knowingly dishonest. That is not what this case is about, and it never has been. This case is about the ability of Utah parents to make their own decisions about the upbringing their children get instead of trusting the moral guidance of their treasured offspring to a piece of software.
Not shoving porn into faces of children (you had this in quotes, even though I never said it) but ignoring parental authority. A fifteen year old should be given more leeway than an eight year old, but it is for the parents to decide whether said fifteen year old should be browsing www.playboy.com or www.whitepower.org. Trust the parents, not the schools, and the schools should facilitate this by restricting access to material that most parents would object to. If parents want to provide access to material above and beyond this for their children, that is their business.
Let me also add that I am not an advocate for the software specifically, merely supervision.
Again, we can argue about what, exactly, the age of majority should be, but currently it is eighteen.
-Eric
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or
limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many
extremists but this really is something.
I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
I made this statement after you said that a parent had "no legal right" to ground his/her children. If you want to modify your earlier statement, I will modify mine.
A Question and a Comment
by newt on Wednesday March 24, @08:31AM EST
(User Info) http://www.freebsd.org/~newton/cv.html
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many
I'm sorry, but this is pure hyperbole. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that I don't advocate that at all.
Roughly analogous to the thinking a hundred years ago, where the law failed to treat certain people as human beings on the basis of their skin color, even though the constitution said nothing about blacks
Now you're equating PARENTING with SLAVERY, if you weren't serious, this would be hilarious. Blacks during American and European slavery were treated differently based on external appearance. That is WRONG. Children are treated differently because they are intellectually and emotionally immature, and NOT, as you would have us believe, because they are short.
I'm not talking about slavery, I'm talking about the past 20 - 100 years of American history where slavery has been and gone but blacks have still been treated badly.
There was serious academic research done in the 1920's and 1930's to show that african americans were, in an evolutionary sense, closer to apes than "good god-fearin' whitefolk." The results of that utterly bizarre research was, and sometimes still is, used to justify the most henious restrictions on the lives of black people even though slavery was abolished over a century ago.
Now back to the subject at hand and the parallels with the case presented above: From their early teens, so-called "children" are often a lot more mature than you seem to think they are. They can reason, use logic, make their own moral and ethical conclusions, learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for thier actions. Yet you refuse to believe this; you treat them as non-humans with non-human-rights, forcing them to use censorware against tieir will because you've made an arbitrary judgement about their maturity based on nothing more substantial than their age. You haven't even met the people you'd censor.
UEN in Utah serves the entire public school system and some public libraries; The restrictions it has in place affect "children" up to age 18 (!!! doesn't that set alarm bells running?) and adult teachers and library users (!!! doesn't that set even more alarm bells ringing?). We're not talking about 1 year olds crying because a nappy is being changed against their will, or petulant 8 year olds complaining about being grounded, we're talking about people who are fully functional adults by every measurable metric except the one defined by law, which treats them as children, regardless of their maturity, until age 18.
That is the injustice here. That is the parallel between the denial of basic human rights to these people and the denial of basic human rights to african americans. "Children" remain the only group of people in American society who are routinely denied basic rights for no reason other than prejudice, bad law and appearance.
You made no distinction for age before, it is only now that we are discussing teens specifically.
We can argue about what the age of majority should be (15 instead of 18?), but an age of majority protects those not yet ready to look after themselves. It is true that this is just number, a teenager doesn't magically become mature on his/her eighteenth birthday, but age is the only non-arbitrary way to handle this.
This is not discrimination on appearance, but discernment based on age and maturity. I will tell you, even though I am 23 I look like I am in my teens, yet I can vote and (if I wanted to) buy beer and such. The law doesn't discriminate against me based on my appearance.
I guess we could phase in rights more gradually, giving children->teens increasing amounts of control as they age. Do you have a specific suggestion? You're British, right (judging from your use of the word "nappy" and condescending attitude towards anything American)? How do they handle it in your enlightened monarchy?
I have no trouble believing that a 15 year old is capable of making decisions about the kind of content they want to see on the web. The Utah public school system, however, doesn't make any distinction whatsoever between that 15 year old and a five year old starting school for the first time.
If you want to distort this into "shoving porn into the faces of children," then go ahead and do it in the knowledge that you are being knowingly dishonest. That is not what this case is about, and it never has been. This case is about the ability of Utah parents to make their own decisions about the upbringing their children get instead of trusting the moral guidance of their treasured offspring to a piece of software.
Not shoving porn into faces of children (you had this in quotes, even though I never said it) but ignoring parental authority. A fifteen year old should be given more leeway than an eight year old, but it is for the parents to decide whether said fifteen year old should be browsing www.playboy.com or www.whitepower.org. Trust the parents, not the schools, and the schools should facilitate this by restricting access to material that most parents would object to. If parents want to provide access to material above and beyond this for their children, that is their business.
Let me also add that I am not an advocate for the software specifically, merely supervision.
Again, we can argue about what, exactly, the age of majority should be, but currently it is eighteen.
-Eric
"Your Honor, I had to rape that woman. I saw a picture of a naked woman on line when I was a kid, so I had no choice!"
"Agreed. This court finds that the defendant is not responsible for his own actions, and is a rapist from forces beyond his control rather than from a deliberate, conscious choice to hurt other people. All charges are dismissed and the defendant is ordered released at once."
Straw man argument again, I never suggested direct mind control. But child's environment affects how he will grow up, and TV and movies are part of that environment. If you expose and desensitive children to graphic violence and sexual content, that will influence their development. That will move the population toward violence and mistreatment of women, so statistically, some men will become rapists who will not otherwise have done so. For the same reason, children of alcoholics have a higher rate of alcoholism.
Rapists/muderers/etc are still responsible for their actions, but it is fairly obvious (to me, here on Earth, I don't know where you are) that a child's environment affects how he will grow up, and the wrong environment can have disasterous consequences.
If TV didn't affect behavior, noone would advertise.
A rational person would say, "If people didn't think TV affected behaviour, no one would advertise."
Well, I've seen a study that shows that people buy name brand (i.e. widely advertised) products even if the price is higher and the quality of the competition is just as good. There is a statistically proven foundation for the effectiveness of advertisement. If there wasn't, hardly anyone would drink Budwieser.
-Eric
On one hand you're talking about things like licenses to drive or serve in the military, which are based on a child's physical ability to do whatever tasks are in question (drive, fight, whatever).
On the other hand, you're talking about age limitations which have been chosen with absolute arbitrariness (the right to vote, buy a gun, drink, get grounded, etc).
The first category I'd argue are justified. The second category are not. The courts seem to agree with this in many instances (which is why, for instance, parents legally cannot ground their children; children can divorce their parents if they understand the issues and have good enough reasons, and why so-called minors have been able to join the military, legitimately or not).
That's hilarious, "parents legally cannot ground their children"? What a laugh, I'd like to see the Supreme Court decision that said that.
So you would honestly remove any and all authority from a parent to discipline or limit his/her children. That's amazing, that really is, I knew many
So does a parent have to ask permission before changing his/her baby's diapers? And does the baby have the right to refuse?
Should a child who gets in trouble be able to ascert a right to an attorney?
A child in trouble already has an absolute, incontrovertibe constitutional right to an attorney. Again, if you do not understand this you are not qualified to influence the course of this discussion.
I didn't know any "qualifications" were necessary to voice my opinion.
You seem to think that the law doesn't treat someone as a human being if they're too young -- Roughly analogous to the thinking a hundred years ago, where the law failed to treat certain people as human beings on the basis of their skin color, even though the constitution said nothing about blacks (or earlier this century when Germany said certain people were less than human due to their religion). You are incorrect. It is people like you that perpetuate the underclass I speak of above, just like people in the deep south perpetuated the idea that blacks were too stupid to understand the concept of "rights" for decades after the rest of the country had (sort of) come to the complete opposite conclusion. It's a very dangerous attitude, adopted despite thousands of years of history which shows that if a group considers its treatment at the hands of the more privileged to be unjust they just reach out and grab the rights they need whether the privileged ones let them or not.
Now you're equating PARENTING with SLAVERY, if you weren't serious, this would be hilarious. Blacks during American and European slavery were treated differently based on external appearance. That is WRONG. Children are treated differently because they are intellectually and emotionally immature, and NOT, as you would have us believe, because they are short.
Blacks are -NOT- too stupid to understand rights, but try discussing rights with a two year old. "Stupid" is not the right word, but it takes a child years and years before he/she is competent to look after him/herself. Parents are necessary to protect children and steer them away from bad choices.
And I don't know why you're railing against the U.S. in particular. There's not a country on the face of the Earth that doesn't treat children and adults differently under law. It would be foolish not to. You want to do away with all parental authority, that's insane, you must not be a parent.
-Eric
When you look at the First Amendment, you should be asking, "Does this deny rights to children or limit them to adults?" If the answer is "no" (and it most assuredly is in this case) then you can only conclude that the law is age-neutral.
Is the second amendment "age neutral" as well? Do six year olds have the right to purchase and use firearms?
Sorry, but this is complete twaddle. Courts have routinely held that children have a right to freedom of speech on every issue from school uniforms through to the CDA. If you think the First Amendment doesn't apply to children then I think you need to seriously reevaluate your stance on this issue with the knowledge that you are utterly incorrect in some of the basic assumptions that have contributed to your beliefs. To use common vernacular, your behaviour on this topic is un-American.
With all due respect, sir, I don't think there is anything "Un-American" about recognizing a difference between children and adults. There are age limits on driving vehicles and drinking alcoholic beverages, there is an age-limit on voting, and there are age restrictions for joining the military. Those restrictions are in place to protect children, or to keep them from participating in society in ways for which they are not yet prepared, and there is nothing "Un-American" about that. Similarly, parents should be able to protect children by limiting access to harmful material.
Frankly, I think your equating children with adults is a bit ridiculous when you take it to its logical conclusion. Should parents not have the right to ground their children or send them to their rooms because it constitutes unfair imprisonment without a trial before their peers? Should a child who gets in trouble be able to ascert a right to an attorney? Give me a break!
-Eric
> do you believe it you have the right to tell other people how to raise their children?
That's kinda the crux of the issue: In an earlier post you said there were certain types of material that should never be provided to children. Doesn't that mean that you're telling "... other people how to reise their children"?
No, because I would leave it up to parents to decide how to raise their children at home. You would have the schools give the children access to whatever material the children want, robbing the parents of a choice.
Now, _I_ believe that children should not be given access to certain material, but I would NOT force parents to do what I would do. Each parent should be able to choose what material is appropriate for his or her child.
Where you have it wrong is that you seem to think this is a community issue. It isn't -- It's a family issue. There are no such things as "community standards," because communities are too diverse. Pretending community standards exist for no reason other than to set censorship guidelines is one of those things that makes foreigners think the US attitude towards their first amendment is a complete farce.
Foreigners can think what they like. Here is the text of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now, please tell me how this can be interpretted to provide the right for children to look at pornography, even if their parents don't want them to. The first amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and press, not the right to access any and all information. Additionally, the Bill of Rights provides rights for adults, not children. If it were otherwise, then children would have the right to bear arms under the second amendment.
-Eric
> Look how the rape crime rates have risen since the 1950's.
Correlation is not causation.
True enough, the old "ice cream causes skin cancer" argument demonstrates that. But if I cut my hand with a knife and my hand starts to bleed, it's fairly obvious what the causation was. And it's damned suspicious if not out-and-out undeniable what the causation is after 30 years of increasingly sexual explicit entertainment is mirrored by an dramatic increase in rapes. I could say (and have said) the same thing about graphic depictions of violence and violent crime rates. What people see and hear affect their behavior, so statistically, a subset of the population will engage in this sort of behavior who would otherwise not have. It only makes sense. If TV didn't affect behavior, noone would advertise.
-Eric
I cannot and will not accept -- ever -- the notion that anything, be it sexual, militant, bigoted, or just plain Insensitive can be said to be Absolutely Inappropriate for someone on the basis of age.
That is your right. But other people have a right to make their own decisions for their own children; or do you believe it you have the right to tell other people how to raise their children?
-Eric
> And why should kids go to school?
"To learn how to read, write, and do simple math. Hopefully, to learn a bit more than that. To be a useful member of society in the 20th century, you
need to have at least these basic skills."
Not American society. If your "at least" is reading, writing, and simple math, then you're in a world of hurt. "Readin' ritin' and cipherin'"
is a skillset adequate for a steam-powered thresher-driver of the late nineteenth century.
That's called the "straw man" argument, when you purposely misunderstand a person's view in order to rail against them. You knew that I made no such claim, inane sophistry notwithstanding.
You (or another AC) asked me why children should go to school. I listed the most basic skills imaginable that children typically learn from school (Reading, Writing, Arithmatic). I never suggested that this was the limit of what children should learn. But no one without these skills can become a useful member of society.
Now, my dear demagogue, how do you suggest children gain these skills if they don't attend school? Not enough parents stay home to make home schooling en masse a viable alternative. Do you suggest a means of education, or are you simply taking potshots for the fun of it?
-Eric
"Sesame Street", you bloated sack of ignorance. A great deal of it is animated, and it's probably taught more children to read than the schools have.
"bloated sack of ignorance"? I bet you didn't learn THAT from Sesame Street. Anyway, Im glad you've found a solution to our education problems. Forget that school stuff, just plop kids in front of the TV for six hours a day, they'll learn a whole lot that way. Especially from the Jerry Springer show.
-Eric
A 'right' they don't have. It is not the government's decision or the parents', it is the INDIVIDUAL'S
A young child is not a mature individual and should not have the right to decide everything for himself or herself. Children need to be parented and protected, they do not know enough to care for themselves. If you think otherwise, then you are obviously very ignorant of children and their abilities.
-Eric
And cartoons are more educational than school
They are? Then give me one example of a cartoon that teaches children how to read an write.
-Eric
It's a perfectly logical reply to someone who wants to make illogical decisions for other peoples' children.
On the contrary, I wish to allow parents the opportunity to make decisions for their own children. When a school gives children unfettered access to the Internet, it robs parents of the right to decide which content their children should and should not be exposed to. I DO NOT wish to decide for the parents, or have the government decide, I wish to trust parents to make the correct decisions for their own children.
If you have that power, so do I, and by my power, I revoke your right to life, and order you dead by tomorrow by your own hand. Do you still feel so empowered?
Hmm, a death threat, an interesting method of debate... I guess that's easier to master than logic or facts.
-Eric
Parents should not decide things for their children. That only promotes immaturity.
So if a six-year-old wants to stay home, watch cartoons, and eat candy all day instead of going to school, his parents should let him? Part of being a good parent is providing guidance and, yes, LIMITS.
-Eric