From: BCL <cypress@connected.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 94 13:22:22 PDT
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Children and the Net
In-Reply-To: <199407311826.LAA24798@netcom10.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9407311328.A27517-0100000@goshen.connected.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 31 Jul 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:

> Practically, any system such as Mike proposes above would fail.
> Parents have control over the reading material of children. Ditto for
> television, movies, etc.

  Exactly. An that's where the control should stay. In my view the 'net' 
should be like a giant world-wide library. You can get good stuff and you 
can get bad stuff and it is up the parents to regulate what the kids get. 
Passing the buck to the net authorities just circumvents the parent's 
control of the material. What if there is something that I want my kid to 
access and the 'authorities' say that it cannot be allowed until they 
turn 18.

> I'm getting involved here in this political discussion because some
> Cyherpunks think it's OK to forcibly butt into how others raise their
> children, that this is somehow consistent with a Cypherpunk attitude
> about information and liberty. It's not.

  Raising kids the way you believe is all part of the 1st amendment. When 
then state starts telling you how to raise them(as it already is in some 
states) then you have just lost one of your greatest freedoms and rights.

> We saw this idea that "parents cannot force their children ..." reach
> its fruition in the Branch Davidian case, where the BATF had to burn
> the children in order to save the children.

  But the state always knows whats best, right? Have you heard that the 
ABC documentry on Waco has been postponed under pressure from the WH 
until after the crime bill is voted on? Heard his on the radio the other day.

> 
> I reject the notion that the state needs to intervene in families in
> order to make sure that balanced and appropriate views are provided.

  An interesting thing that I learned in anthropology last quarter. Out 
teacher likes to goo of on tangents and give useful info. According to 
him the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) sent the Indian kids to BIA school 
on other completely different reservations in order to break down the 
transfer of the Indian culture from the elders in the tribes to the 
children. 

  If you don't transfer your culture(whatever it may be, religious, 
anti-government, etc) to your kids then it is lost. If the governemnt is 
the one doing the 'cultural development' of your kids then where is that 
going to leave us in a generation or two?

  Brian

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