Filtering out Queers is OK
At 11:29 PM 7/18/96, Cerridwyn Llewyellyn wrote:
I am not saying that a private entity doesn't or shouldn't have the Legal Right to censor, but I am saying that censorship of any form by any entity is a Bad Thing and the public (not the government, mind) should fight it on all fronts. This, in my mind, is the only reason to be dismayed by the decision on the CDA. It was found that the government shouldn't censor on the Internet because there were forms of Corporate censorship available. It would have truely been a great day if the decision had been that the government shouldn't censor on the Internet because censorship is wrong.
Filtering is not "wrong," Cerridwyn, it is a rational response to garbage being spewed constantly. I filter lots of items. I read "Scientific American" and "The Economist" because they filter (or "censor," in the sense some are objecting to here) nonsense about "queer rights" and "peircing fashions," to name but a few things I have no interest in hearing about. If I had kids, I'd make sure that lots of negative memes were kept away from them until they reached an age where it no longer mattered, where there views are already basically set. I see nothing wrong in this. Anyone who disagrees is, of course, free to set his filters differently, but not to insist that my filters be changed. And the government is not free to pass any laws about what filter sites can and can't do. Unfortunately, I think many on this list are so taken by "liberalistic" notions that they think the State needs to intervene to stop me from filtering my son's access to "The Joys of Queer Sex." (As a libertarian, I really don't care what sexual practices others practice, so long as I am not forced to either fund or witness their practices. And so long as I am free to filter out their practices as I see fit, including for my minor children and/or members of my household.)
That is another problem, not the Real Problem. The Real Problem is that parents are scared to have to explain to children why something they've seen is wrong or bad. They are afraid to teach their children their beliefs and values, so instead would rather just filter everything that conflicts with those beliefs, so that they believe it by default. This is
Some parents simply get tired of spending time each night trying to undo the propaganda taught in many public school, such as books like "I Have Two Mommies." Many of these parents eventually give up and put their kids in religious or private schools (even though they continue to pay taxes for schools their own children are no longer using). Queers are, as far as I'm concerned, perfectly free to practice their AIDS-spreading practices to any and all receptive anuses they can find, but I eschew this lifestyle and will fight to the death for this right to avoid their practices from being forced on me or my children (if I had any, which I don't). I think of AIDS as "evolution in action." Retroviruses which have existed for millenia now find new vectors for spreading in our population. I cry no tears for those dying of AIDS, and work to reduce to tax dollars spent on such things as "AIDS research." Let those who introduced the new vector pay for the research. What do you call ten million AIDS deaths? You figure it out. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) writes:
Filtering is not "wrong," Cerridwyn, it is a rational response to garbage being spewed constantly. I filter lots of items. I read "Scientific American" and "The Economist" because they filter (or "censor," in the sense some are objecting to here) nonsense about "queer rights" and "peircing fashions," to name but a few things I have no interest in hearing about.
Filtering is wonderful. Long live filtering. I used to read "Scientific American" too, back in the days when the table of contents wasn't illustrated with cute little icons. Back then, reputable scientists, as opposed to staff writers and less reputable scientists, actually wrote all the articles, which were about science, and not political screeds mascarading as science. And to conserve bandwidth, please reread the above paragraph substituting "Nova" for "Scientific American" and "watch" for "read." Having offended "Scientific American" and PBS, let us now proceed to the main agenda item, offending homosexuals.
If I had kids, I'd make sure that lots of negative memes were kept away from them until they reached an age where it no longer mattered, where there views are already basically set.
If I had kids, I would be overjoyed that the new technology of the information age permitted them to investigate any topic of their choice in the safety of their own home. Of course, there would be some reasonable limits during their very early years, if only to prevent them from waking up screaming in the middle of the night, but I expect most of these could be eliminated by the time they reached their early teens. If I had kids, I am sure Tim would support my right to give them access to the entire universe of human knowlege and thought as early as possible, and to let them form their own opinions on every conceivable subject, even if those opinions differed from my own. Where I suspect we differ, is that I would not only advocate such an advantage for my kids, but for his as well. The problem with giving parents the absolute right to control their childrens' input of memes until the children are too old and stupid to learn anything new, is that it creates generational propagation of obsolete ideologies. All the Dole children think exactly like Bob. All the Hitler children think exactly like Adolf. Same for the Mengele children, the Nixon children, the Stalin children, the Netanyahu children, etc...
I see nothing wrong in this. Anyone who disagrees is, of course, free to set his filters differently, but not to insist that my filters be changed. And the government is not free to pass any laws about what filter sites can and can't do.
Before the days of home computers and filters, we had things called public libraries. They provided all citizens with unfiltered access to information of their choice, even children. Members of the American Library Association are pretty good at torching paper trails of what people choose to read, and allowing children who have reached the age of reason access to almost everything in the library, as long as they don't talk too loudly or stick gum to the seats. Parents may not like this, but up until now, the librarians have stood their ground. The movement towards accessing information from home PCs, coupled with the new "parents rights" movement and filtering software, creates a situation where no one under the age of 18 can have access to any information their parents don't want them to see. As the Web replaces the library, young people won't even be able to preserve the same anonymous access to controversial information they have always had in the past. This is a step backwards for youth rights.
Unfortunately, I think many on this list are so taken by "liberalistic" notions that they think the State needs to intervene to stop me from filtering my son's access to "The Joys of Queer Sex."
(As a libertarian, I really don't care what sexual practices others practice, so long as I am not forced to either fund or witness their practices. And so long as I am free to filter out their practices as I see fit, including for my minor children and/or members of my household.)
The age of filtering has arrived. You can filter your childrens' access to sex manuals, grandma's access to the elder abuse web page, and your underpaid Ethiopian leaf blower operator's access to anything having to do with laws against sub-minimum wages or slavery.
Some parents simply get tired of spending time each night trying to undo the propaganda taught in many public school, such as books like "I Have Two Mommies." Many of these parents eventually give up and put their kids in religious or private schools (even though they continue to pay taxes for schools their own children are no longer using).
I certainly believe that the education dollar should be in the hands of the education consumer, that the NEA and the AFT should be splintered into a million pieces and scattered to the winds, and that providing educational services should become a competitive business run with the efficiency of Federal Express. Nonetheless, I am not going to panic when the kids come home after having read "Uncle Bruce's Asshole Has Two Uses" or "Grandma Visits the Euthanasia Clinic" in class. The solution to bad speech is more speech. Older kids can make up their own minds about such things after hearing all sides, including their parents', and younger kids generally take what is said at home at face value anyway.
Queers are, as far as I'm concerned, perfectly free to practice their AIDS-spreading practices to any and all receptive anuses they can find, but I eschew this lifestyle and will fight to the death for this right to avoid their practices from being forced on me or my children (if I had any, which I don't).
As an individual who has no desire to engage in gay sex, or watch it being performed while I am eating, I must admit my attitudes towards the "gay community" have undergone a certain evolution in recent years. Back in the '70s, gays supported a wide-ranging platform of human rights issues, and a lot of activists whose work I admired on many issues I supported "happened to be gay." Now that the gay community has narrowed its focus solely to the issue of consensual adult sodomy rights, and shown alarming signs of sucking up to the Radical Religious Right, I really don't have warm feelings towards it anymore. They have marginalized many of their former supporters and seem more interested in pleasing Jesse Helms than in showing anything resembling ideological integrity. I really believe the gay movement of today would sell out almost anyone if they thought it would guarantee the right of homosexual men to join the Republican Party and plug each others assholes in private in the community of their choice. A right I support, of course, as long as I don't have to watch it or pay for it.
I think of AIDS as "evolution in action." Retroviruses which have existed for millenia now find new vectors for spreading in our population. I cry no tears for those dying of AIDS, and work to reduce to tax dollars spent on such things as "AIDS research." Let those who introduced the new vector pay for the research.
I'm not sure this is "evolution in action", as much as the "law of unintended consequences." Kind of like feeding ground up sheep to cows and discovering that the brains of hamburger eaters are turning to swiss cheese. Not a morality issue at all. Homosexual transmission of HIV is not the significant vector in most of the world anyway, with the exception of the US and a few other countries where the virus happened by pure accident to find its way into a high risk population.
What do you call ten million AIDS deaths? You figure it out.
If this is like the lawyer joke, it isn't very nice. In any case, to summarize... 1. Let a thousand filters bloom today. 2. Filtering what you read is good. 3. Filtering what other people read is bad. 4. Choosing your own perversions is good. 5. Making other people watch is bad. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $
The problem with giving parents the absolute right to control their childrens' input of memes until the children are too old and stupid to learn anything new, is that it creates generational propagation of obsolete ideologies. All the Dole children think exactly like Bob. All the Hitler children think exactly like Adolf. Same for the Mengele children, the Nixon children, the Stalin children, the Netanyahu children, etc...
The same can be said of the children of the more politically correct. My opinion is that religion is a waste of time and resources, and therefore, those who force their children to be religious is doing precisely the same harm you allude to. That is strictly MY opinion. If there are enough of me around, should we be allowed to force the government to take children away from their religious parents? More mildly, can the government "protect" a child from religious ideas? What gives the society more rights to regulate how the child shall be brought up, except the narrow interest of protecting the physical safety of the child? It is not even clear that the government may force a child to accept secular ideas that may violate the child's religious background, even if the government has a compelling secular interest in doing so. Yes, we would like fewer Hitler's in the future. But should we NOT let the people decide how the raise their children because there is some risk of a few of them turning into future Hitlers? Ern
Ernest Hua <hua@xenon.chromatic.com> writes:
The same can be said of the children of the more politically correct. My opinion is that religion is a waste of time and resources, and therefore, those who force their children to be religious is doing precisely the same harm you allude to.
That is strictly MY opinion. If there are enough of me around, should we be allowed to force the government to take children away from their religious parents? More mildly, can the government "protect" a child from religious ideas?
In Russia, under Khrushchev, teaching children religion was viewed as a serious form of child abuse, and its victims would often be taken away and placed in orphanages. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
On Thu, 18 Jul 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
Filtering is not "wrong," Cerridwyn, it is a rational response to garbage being spewed constantly. I filter lots of items. I read "Scientific American" and "The Economist" because they filter (or "censor," in the sense some are objecting to here) nonsense about "queer rights" and
Actually, the Economist has, er, come out strongly in favour of gay rights on numerous occasions- most recently on the issue of same sex marriages.
At 7:07 PM -0700 7/18/96, Timothy C. May wrote:
Filtering is not "wrong," Cerridwyn, it is a rational response to garbage being spewed constantly. I filter lots of items. I read "Scientific American" and "The Economist" because they filter (or "censor," in the sense some are objecting to here) nonsense about "queer rights" and "peircing fashions," to name but a few things I have no interest in hearing about.
<omitted>
I think of AIDS as "evolution in action." Retroviruses which have existed for millenia now find new vectors for spreading in our population. I cry no tears for those dying of AIDS, and work to reduce to tax dollars spent on such things as "AIDS research." Let those who introduced the new vector pay for the research.
Pretty good summary of one position. I'd add that in addition, some groups you mention blackmail society by being loud and in your face, and prey on others' fear of being thought politically incorrect, to gain amounts of public treasure and air time vastly disproportionate to their needs or their problem in the heirarchy of needs and problems facing society. Putting it a bit more directly, gays are a small percentage of society but many are constantly demanding air time, infiltrating the media to create exposure vastly disproportionate to their numbers, and demanding public funds per capita way in excess of what the poor, the heart-disease or cancer-ridden, or the heterosexuals get for _their_ needs. In their latest attempt at public blackmail they're trying to get the nation to agree that we should provide incentives for homosexual marriages (the marriage benefits of Federal law are incentives to behavior society wants to encourage, not an inherent "right" of marriage). David
At 12:48 AM -0700 7/19/96, Mike Duvos wrote: <Long argument that children should be exposed to every idea, omitted> This is simply incorrect. It is a supportable advocacy for most adults, but children's minds tend to be like sponges--everything they take in (up until a certain age) is thought to be true, interesting, worth experimenting with, based on authority, etc. Read Piaget. What is more, a parent can't watch them every second while they're on the net, nor will they ask all the questions they should about certain material they see. I'd no more permit young kids to view gay or bestial or porno sites on the net than I'd let them view propaganda for how good pigs taste (unsupervised), if I were an orthodox Jew. When they've passed the developmental stage (I rely on the experts in this field for that determination) where they have independent critical judgement and the security to exercise it, THEN I would open up their horizons. I speak as a father who has raised four children who turned out to be independent beings to successful adulthood and families of their own, not as a theoretician. David
David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com> writes:
This is simply incorrect. It is a supportable advocacy for most adults, but children's minds tend to be like sponges--everything they take in (up until a certain age) is thought to be true, interesting, worth experimenting with, based on authority, etc. Read Piaget.
Piaget was very good at "proving" how fundamentally different the minds of children were from those of adults, and at constructing elaborate webs of complex terminology and doctrine to support his notions. Unfortunately, his experiments suffered from obvious flaws. I recall one in which he trained a child to relate the terms "more" and "less" to whether the same amount of fluid was poured into a taller or shorter container. Piaget concluded that this demonstrated that children have no quantitative skills. Others had a less flattering description of the research, and realized that all Piaget had accomplished was to teach his subjects incorrect meanings for a few common words. Similar defects can be found is most of his other constructs, and better designed experiments do not demonstrate the effects he claimed.
What is more, a parent can't watch them every second while they're on the net, nor will they ask all the questions they should about certain material they see. I'd no more permit young kids to view gay or bestial or porno sites on the net than I'd let them view propaganda for how good pigs taste (unsupervised), if I were an orthodox Jew.
Again, we are applying a standard to the Net which has never been applied to libraries. Any orthodox Jewish child can read all he or she wants in a library about the wonders of pig-eating, without any possibility of parental supervision or disclosure of their un-Jewish interests. But it is now being advocated that on the Net, no child has a right to view even a syllable of any information their parents do not want them to see. While gay or bestial sex is frequently the excuse for such antics, it is clear that parents will be using this new technology to impose a level of control over their childrens' minds which has heretofore never been possible. This should worry us all.
When they've passed the developmental stage (I rely on the experts in this field for that determination) where they have independent critical judgement and the security to exercise it, THEN I would open up their horizons.
Generally, very young children do not have the neural wiring in place to suspend emotional reactions to imagery based on intellectual considerations. Seeing an picture of someone being hurt in a movie causes them the same emotional pain as seeing someone hurt in real life, even though they may know perfectly well that the former image is fictional in nature. Almost all children develop this important critical faculty by the age of 12, by which point, they manage to only be sickened by the evening news, and not by the latest "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequel. While limiting the "horizons" of persons in their middle to late teens is often justified by arguments about developmental stages, the truth is that it is simply an attempt by their keepers to control how they think and to what views, mostly political and social in nature, they are exposed to.
I speak as a father who has raised four children who turned out to be independent beings to successful adulthood and families of their own, not as a theoretician.
Do they troll on Usenet too? :)
At 12:57 PM -0700 7/19/96, Mike Duvos wrote:
David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com> writes:
This is simply incorrect. It is a supportable advocacy for most adults, but children's minds tend to be like sponges--everything they take in (up until a certain age) is thought to be true, interesting, worth experimenting with, based on authority, etc. Read Piaget.
Piaget was very good at "proving" how fundamentally different the minds of children were from those of adults, and at constructing elaborate webs of complex terminology and doctrine to support his notions.
There are many others who have come to similar conclusions about the formation of independent judgement in children, and lots of non-Piaget experiments. Your comments are diversionary and in fact by the end of your post you come to agree with my basic point.
Again, we are applying a standard to the Net which has never been applied to libraries. Any orthodox Jewish child can read all he or she wants in a library about the wonders of pig-eating, without any possibility of parental supervision or disclosure of their un-Jewish interests.
That is also false in its implications. Librarians are in loco parentis, and most libraries are VERY careful about what materials young children are exposed to and what is more, are responsive to community pressure in the matter since most libraries are community-based. Again you have seized on the details of an example to act as if it were the argument itself, and nit-picked. My core point remains unrefuted.
Generally, very young children do not have the neural wiring in place to suspend emotional reactions to imagery based on intellectual considerations. Seeing an picture of someone being hurt in a movie causes them the same emotional pain as seeing someone hurt in real life, even though they may know perfectly well that the former image is fictional in nature.
Almost all children develop this important critical faculty by the age of 12, by which point, they manage to only be sickened by the evening news, and not by the latest "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequel.
So after trying to refute my point, you come to agree with it and want to shift the issue to the question of at what age.... I'm not competent to assess that nor, I assert, are you; I suggest it varies with the child and it's up to the individual parent to make those subtle distinctions, issue by issue, child by child.
While limiting the "horizons" of persons in their middle to late teens is often justified by arguments about developmental stages, the truth is that it is simply an attempt by their keepers to control how they think and to what views, mostly political and social in nature, they are exposed to.
Now you've really got me on the ropes to understand you. As I parse the above sentence it says limiting is often justified but it might not be. What kind of definitive conclusion is that? I suggest none, and your bottom line is that it's case by case. If so, it's up to the parents to figure out where THEIR kid is on the scale--nobody else has as much time, motivation, or opportunity to observe. David.
At 10:24 AM -0700 7/21/96, Robert A. Hayden wrote:
The purpose of a librarian is to aid patrons in locating materials and to maintain the order of the library. The Library Bill of Rights (which, of course, legally means nothing) guarantees access to any materials by any patron. If little eight year old Johnny Doe comes and asks for _The Joy of Gay Sex_, a librarian is supposed to do nothing more that point Johnny to the "J" section.
Not in the cities I'm familiar with. And so to do would be wrong, in my view. In fact, library children's programs do a LOT more than simply aiding patrons in locating materials and maintaining the order of the library, so your contention is false on its face. David
Sorry Perry, I tried. On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, David Sternlight wrote:
The purpose of a librarian is to aid patrons in locating materials and to maintain the order of the library. The Library Bill of Rights (which, of course, legally means nothing) guarantees access to any materials by any patron. If little eight year old Johnny Doe comes and asks for _The Joy of Gay Sex_, a librarian is supposed to do nothing more that point Johnny to the "J" section. Not in the cities I'm familiar with. And so to do would be wrong, in my view. In fact, library children's programs do a LOT more than simply aiding
At 10:24 AM -0700 7/21/96, Robert A. Hayden wrote: patrons in locating materials and maintaining the order of the library, so your contention is false on its face.
Ok bonehead, explain the difference between LIBRARIAN and LIBRARY CHILDREN'S PROGRAM. Then go back and re-read what Mr. Hayden wrote. Then think about it for a couple hours. Then look at what you wrote. Does what you wrote have more than a passing relationship with what Mr. Hayden wrote? No. You ignored his point, you missed his point, and you didn't bother to reply to his point, you just went blythly blathering along on your own self indulgent little course. Let us look at this line by line:
The purpose of a librarian is to aid patrons in locating view. In fact, library children's programs do a LOT more than simply aiding
Librarian != library children's program.
materials and to maintain the order of the library. The Library Bill of Rights (which, of course, legally means nothing) guarantees access to any materials by any patron. If little eight year old Johnny Doe comes and asks for _The Joy of Gay Sex_, a librarian is supposed to do nothing more that point Johnny to the "J" section. Not in the cities I'm familiar with. And so to do would be wrong, in my view. In fact, library children's programs do a LOT more than simply aiding patrons in locating materials and maintaining the order of the library, so your contention is false on its face.
How so Mr AssTorch? He contends that the Library Bill of Rights says one thing and you argue that the library childrens programs do a LOT more than this bill of rights says they must. The US Bill of rights says a lot of things that our government ignores whenever possible, that doesn't mean that those words aren't written, nor does it mean that they aren't in effect anywhere. y Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@smoke.suba.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 20 Jul 1996, David Sternlight wrote:
That is also false in its implications. Librarians are in loco parentis, and most libraries are VERY careful about what materials young children are exposed to and what is more, are responsive to community pressure in the matter since most libraries are community-based. Again you have seized on the details of an example to act as if it were the argument itself, and nit-picked. My core point remains unrefuted.
Uh, wait a second. Libraries and Librarians are not acting in loco parentis. The purpose of a librarian is to aid patrons in locating materials and to maintain the order of the library. The Library Bill of Rights (which, of course, legally means nothing) guarantees access to any materials by any patron. If little eight year old Johnny Doe comes and asks for _The Joy of Gay Sex_, a librarian is supposed to do nothing more that point Johnny to the "J" section. Now, I am generalizing as SOME librarian do refuse to check materials some might feel inappropriate, but that is not a librarian policy. The Library Establishment (ALA, basicly) believes in the idea that it is the parents that should be responsible for what Little Johnny reads, not the librarian. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: PGP Signed with PineSign 2.2 iQCVAwUBMfJLmjokqlyVGmCFAQFGLwP/YCz5RNWunZnDlEXIUaiWyyKtQWkY1eFo H6ztprN9u8natpFQPn9beRq0QyV3g54gkGUvNKs2jh34caCRpaAbv4dajXSBE9Jy VzdryDZFhUsNATGJ+Vz8S8v/mFXBLr9Duni41llElzNj8RQDKWx2m4tbquaLiz/L Lo5hBJBXkcI= =G65B -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu \ /__ Finger for Geek Code Info <=> Finger for PGP Public Key \/ / -=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=- \/ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/Welcome.html -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GED/J d-- s:++>: a- C++(++++)$ ULUO++ P+>+++ L++ !E---- W+(---) N+++ o+ K+++ w+(---) O- M+$>++ V-- PS++(+++)>$ PE++(+)>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++>$ e++$>++++ h r-- y+** ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
participants (8)
-
David Sternlight -
dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Ernest Hua -
mpd＠netcom.com -
Robert A. Hayden -
Simon Spero -
snow -
tcmay＠got.net