-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 08:42:02PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
At 11:20 PM -0400 10/11/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:
http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/12/0326212&mode=nested
Bush Links Columbine Massacre to Internet Use posted by cicero on Wednesday October 11, @10:25PM from the sounds-a-lot-like-joseph-lieberman dept.
George W. Bush may have bested Al Gore in tonight's presidential debate, but it sure wasn't because of the governor's tech-savviness. Warned the Texas Republican, in response to a gun-control question: "Columbine spoke to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that somewhere along the line we begun to disrespect life, where a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet and walk in and decide to take somebody else's life." It was undeniably a good, mushy, appeal-to-the-softhearted line, but the sheer schmaltziness of it is in questionable taste. For instance: Was the Net really to blame? Shouldn't even a "compassionate conservative" want to hold miscreants responsible for their own actions? And would the guv have offered the same warning to millions of Americans if the Columbine killers had, say, been regulars at the public library?
Transcript is at: http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/12/0326212&mode=nested
This was a very small, and inconsequential, part of the debate/discussion.
Had George Bush called for _Internet licensing_ in some concrete way, comparable to the way Al Gore called for gun licensing, I would be more concerned about Bush's comments. But he did not.
His statement reflects his total lack of any sort of intellignce. I don't interpret it as a policy statement.
Throwing in a line about the Columbine creeps being influenced by the Internet (or by Quake and Doom and other games, or by "The Matrix," or by being spoiled suburban brats) is not the same as calling for unconstitutional abridgments of freedoms.
You're right. But only a dumbass would blame the Internet for student violence.
Normally I vote Libertarian. This year I may vote for Bush as a vote for who will do me, us, and the Constitution the lesser damage of the two. (All voting is about bang for the buck, about effectiveness of a vote...an election is not about "voting for the best man," it is instead about minimizing damage.)
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