Perry E. Metzger <perry@imsi.com> writes:
A society that forceably prevents fundamentalists from brainwashing their children also has the right tools to keep me from explaining to my children why government is evil and why there is no god.
The cure for brainwashing is not to silence the brainwasher, but to make sure the intended victim is exposed to a wide variety of other viewpoints. We can cure the children of Fundamentalists quite easily without preventing their parents, or you for that matter, from expressing any point of view you choose. Truth usually wins over bullshit when both are equally illuminated in public view. I would certainly oppose any law which said that parents could completely control a minor's access to information in order to make sure that the parent's perspective was the only one presented. Very young children need to be protected from graphically violent material which they might find disturbing. Other than this, I am not sure any censorship on the Net is appropriate. Kids experiencing the Net for the first time are perfectly safe if they follow some simple guidelines. 1. Never give out personal information like your name, address, or phone number to strangers. 2. Check all information obtained from the Net with a trusted person before acting on it. 3. Change the channel if someone interacts with you in a way you find crude and offensive. One should remember that a kid sitting in his living room at a computer is perfectly safe in physical sense. There is nothing bytes of data can do to harm him. As long as he does not volunteer inappropriate information to strangers, he can cruise to his heart's content without fear of unwanted consequences, and learn all sorts of interesting things in the process.
I oppose any attempt to prevent free speech on the net in order to cater to the needs of fundamentalists, but I also oppose vehemently any attempt to make them conform in the education of their children with YOUR view of what is right and wrong.
I certainly agree with this in terms of the censorship issue.
I feel that it is perfectly fine if they produce bowlderized and censored net links for their kids -- I just don't want them changing the structure of everyone else's life in order to do it.
They can just use America Online. It comes pre-bowlderized and pre-censored right out of the box.
Mr. Zooks has a perfect right to raise his children any way he likes that is not inconsistant with the wishes of his children, and I do not want to see you or anyone else telling him what to do, just as I do not want Mr. Zooks telling US what to do.
It's the wishes of the children that tend to be overlooked when the Funny Mentalists are having their legislative orgy. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $