David Downey wrote:

LOL, all right, all right. I'll take my lickings and like it.

OK. Now that we've got that settled, what shall we talk about next, Abortion or Ebonics?

I do not know how to word where I stand because I take a little from each side as to what is the correct way to handle these issues.

On its face, this is not an unreasonable concept. As I see it, the reason for the 'Fuck Compromise' stance being so heartily proclaimed on the list is not because CypherPunks see compromise as inherently evil, but because of the recognition that compromise that is beneficial to both parties requires honesty and integrity on the part of both parties. Compromise at the point of a gun is weakness, not wisdom, and every step one loses is twice as hard to regain in the future. The classic example is Hitler, who "only wanted Austria." Then he "only wanted Poland." The government claimed they only wanted to ban the *bad* guns, but as Tim May pointed out, now it is theoretically illegal in some places for a citizen to carry a paring knife home from the store. Of course, in practice, these laws will only be used against *bad* people. Mary Tyler Moore has nothing to worry about.

I believe in fighting for what one believes in. I firmly believe in protecting the children and guiding them towards an understanding of today's world in *all* it trappings. I am also unsure as to the correct and "right" way to do this. I am open to suggestions, and am willing to openly contribute my own.

The fallacy that creates more problems than it solves is that there *is* a "right" way to do things. Life is a crapshoot, and the most we can hope for is to use our best judgement to minimize whatever ill effects might occur as the result of haphazard circumstance. Sadly, our society has been moving further and further toward a fascist, control-freak mentality which dictates that there are clear lines between right and wrong actions, attitudes and beliefs. Even more sadly, society is crying out for stiff punishment in every niggardly aspect of life, including the areas which are beyond the control of those involved. An example is the woman in New York (?) who went to get food for her baby, and the dog killed/ate the baby while she was gone. The masses called for her head on a platter and she was charged with manslaughter (or whatever). I am certain that those who could afford a nanny to take care of their children had enough time on their hands to write a letter to the editor to call for the woman's imprisonment. I would not be surprised to find that some of those letters to the editor were of the opinion that, if the mother had no bread for the baby, then she should have let the baby "eat cake." I couldn't help but think of this poor woman who had lost the child that she was trying to feed and nurture. Did she need to be 'punished' because her options were limited by her position in life? I don't know all the details of her situation, but I do know that neither the media nor the masses seemed to care about the details--they just wanted blood. I would wager that there are far more children who die in the company of their mother in a bad neighborhood, than those who are eaten by the family dog. I would also wager that if the Clinton's cat killed and ate Chelsea, that there would be no charges pending. Which is the "right" choice--to take your child with you and have him/her die when you are mugged--to leave your child at home and have the dog eat him/her? Which is the "right" choice--to allow your child to learn about kinky sex techniques and then die when they try hanging themself from the ceiling and standing on a chair--to "protect" them from exposure to *trash* such as this, and then they die by suffocation when their sex-partner tells them semi-strangulation enhances sex, because they've never encountered information about it which also mentions that it may be dangerous? If you beat your child in order to prevent them from doing what you feel will be harmful to them, then society will put you in jail. If you beat them psychologically, with guilt, and they kill themself out of shame when they do something *bad*, society will give you sympathy. Which is the "right" way to teach your children to avoid things which will harm them? There *isn't* a "right" way. Before your child can understand speech, you can't protect them from touching a hot stove by "telling" them not to. Is it "wrong" to slap their hand when they reach for it? Once they *do* know how to understand what you are telling them, slapping their hand may not be the best way to keep them from harm. The bottom line is that you have to use your best judgment about issues such as these, and you will never be "right." You will merely be doing the best that you can. If you don't care about making the effort to protect your children and they never touch a hot stove, it does not make you a "good" parent. If you care immensely, and do everything you are capable of to protect your children and they *do* touch a hot stove, it does not make you a "bad" parent. It is human nature that if you take your child to the park to enrich their life, and they get killed by a meteor falling from the sky, you may find yourself "blaming" yourself, saying, "If only I hadn't taken him/her to the park!" This is part of life, and part of being human. However, when others decide that you should be imprisoned for child endangerment for taking your child outside when a single astronomer in China told the media that a meteorite "might" be on the way, then there is something seriously wrong with society. Is this a ridiculous example? Sure it is...just like someone claiming that they were justified in raping someone because their slip was showing, so they were "asking for it." The point I am trying to make is that there are no ridiculous examples. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, once had a law that required pedestrians to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. This was a fairly recent event. Insane? Yes, and City Council eventually figured out that they were idiots, but if someone's child had died when bumping into someone while their parent was walking them on the "wrong side" of the sidewalk, the parent would have been legally guilty of child endangerment. The "Big Lie" that we tell ourselves is that we can guarantee our safety and security, and that of our children, if we just pass enough laws against things that are "wrong." If we can just figure out who is "to blame" for society's ills and imprison them. The guy who sold you the "junk bonds" might well have cost you less money than the long-term government bonds you bought just before inflation went through the roof. Who is the "right" person to put in jail, and who is the "wrong" person to put in jail? Truthfully, the "right" person to put in jail may well be *you*. It might "protect" you from making bad financial decisions. I don't want your child to get molested by a pedophile. I don't want your child to die of a heroin overdose. But I don't want a video camera mounted in my home to monitor my activities in an attempt to keep your child from coming to harm, either. A solution to protecting the citizens is to put them in prison and keep the criminals on the outside. Really! We would be protected by the security of concrete walls and locked doors. Is the "right" thing to do to put your child in prison? I think you know better than that. Some children are going to be molested, some are going to be abused and/or murdered, some are going to walk willingly, and perhaps ignorantly, into bad situations that will lead them to suffer irrepairable harm. I don't want this for your child, or for any child, but I truly don't believe that they can be protected by making the lives of everyone so regulated and restricted that our life energy is drained from us by effectively imprisoning our spirit. When I was a child, there was a local priest named Father Flanigan who enjoyed the company of young boys. He regularly offered to take them to out-of-town hockey games, supervise them in their parent's absence, etc. When he offered to take myself and several other young boys to an out-of-town game, my parents allowed me to go with him, but they also made a point of telling me not to let him put his hand down my pants. The fact of the matter is, the trip enriched my life, and Father Flanigan did many good things for the youth of my community. Did he "molest" any of them? I don't know. He didn't molest me, or anyone I know of. Were my parents "bad" parents? No, they were *great* parents. They "protected" me by making their best judgement and giving me the information they felt I needed in order to use my own judgment effectively. Did my parents "endanger" me by allowing me to go with Father Flanigan? Sure, they did. They also endangered me by allowing me to go outside and risk getting hit by a falling meteor. Was Father Flanigan a pedophile? I don't know. Was he a pedophile, but non-active? I don't know. Did my parents know? Perhaps, perhaps not. I wouldn't doubt that they may have asked him about his fondness for young boys, or talked to those in a position to know, or perhaps they merely used their own best judgement. Or, it could be that they and I are way off base, merely being prejudiced by anti-Catholic views promoted by those with an axe to grind against differing religious views. Regardless, when I was thirteen, I was approached by a guy who stepped out of an alley and offered me $20.00 to let him give me a blow-job. I politely declined, and went on my way. I spent about an hour at home with my family, without giving the event much thought. However, at some point it occurred to me that there were children younger than myself who might be more vulnerable to the man's approach, and that, while he had not used any force or pressure in the situation, that it was possible that this could occur with a smaller child. I asked my mother if there was a law against adults offering children money to let the adult give them a blow-job. She was startled by my question, though she hid it as best she could, but she was also amused that I was so casual about asking it. She dealt with the situation matter-of-factly, and I went with a policeman to help him find the man. The policeman chased him down, subdued him, and took him to jail. To tell the truth, I felt compassion for the man, since I sensed that he was a tortured individual, and he had not really done anything that 'violated' me, or 'infringed' on my right to self-determination (although I would not have been able to verbalize these feelings at the time). Looking back on the event, I realize that, strictly speaking, I did not take a course of action that would lead to his being judged and punished for what he did, but rather, for what he "might" do. Was I "right" or "wrong" in subjecting someone who did not do any harm to me to arrest and imprisonment? I don't know. It could very well be the man never had, and never would, force himself on a child, or exert undue pressure on a child in order to coerce the child into doing something against their will. Can my actions be deemed "right" or "wrong," depending on the "odds" of him forcing himself on a child, versus being of strong enough character not to do evil to satisfy his desires? In retrospect, I believe I made my decision to act based on the fact that I sensed that the man was not totally in control of basing his actions only on his best rational judgement. It could be that I had him wrongly imprisoned, or it could be that I saved him from doing something he would regret for the rest of his life. The irony of this story is that the local police solved their "problem" with this man by buying him a bus ticket to a small town nearby. End of problem... It is my belief that this "solution" to the local police's "problem" is illustrative of the attempts of censors and regulators to "shift" the problems instead of "solving" them. I could be dead in a ditch because my parents allowed me to go with a priest who had a fondness for children. I could also be dead in a ditch because my parents "protected" me from being exposed to recognizing the reality of adults who are fond of children, and I might not have had enough information to deal properly with the guy who stepped out of the alley. Which legislation do we pass to protect our children? Do we pass legislation "preventing" parents from allowing their children to accompany an adult who is fond of children, or do we pass legislation "requiring" parents to allow their children to accompany an adult who is fond of children, but who will enrich their lives and help them to understand the difference between controlling one's urges versus violating others in order to satisfy themself? The reality of the current state of affairs is that there are a plethora of laws which prevent parents from making their own decisions as to how to live their lives and how to raise their children to the best of their ability. If you know that you need to slap your child's hand in order to keep them from touching a hot stove, will you do so? What if you also know that Child Services will take away your child and put them in an orphanage if you do so? Is your child better off having a deformed hand and living at home in a loving environment, or having a normal hand and being raised by strangers who don't care for him/her? Laws aren't going to universally protect our children, nor are rating systems, or lynchings. Nor, sadly, the best judgement of concerned, loving parents. We can't solve the problems of life by passing legislation that attempts to control everyone and everything, forcing us all to meet standards that may be based on erronious beliefs and/or information. There are laws against murder. People still get murdered. Punishment may be justified for the act of murder, but it is not the "solution" to preventing murder. We can't legislate away poverty, destitution, and desperation. Making "anger" illegal won't prevent it. Making "embarassment" illegal won't stop people from blushing. We are increasingly shifting "social" problems into the arena of "legal" remedy. We "liberate" the mentally ill from their confinement in nuthouses, and then we "imprison" them for peeing in an alley because they live on the streets. We pass laws limiting political campaign contributions, and then we vote for the person who spends $50,000,000 on ads telling us what an asshole their opponent is. We allow doctors to give their patients heroin in order to relieve their suffering, and we deny an Ambassadorship to someone who believes that a doctor should be able to give his patients marijuana to relieve their suffering. Yes, I care about other people, and I care about children. I am not selfishly clinging to my rights to privacy and freedom in order to further my own interests at the expense of others. I am doing so because I don't believe that the world will be a better place if my rights and freedoms are taken away. Then again, I'm Chinese...I could be "Wong." TruthMonger