From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 94 11:13:34 PDT
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Subject: Re: Children and the Net
In-Reply-To: <199407311720.KAA03972@netcom14.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9407311813.AA06454@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Mike Duvos says:
> 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.

This may be so, but I am unsure that I have any interest in spending
energy in attempting to "cure" people of their views. Its not my place
to tell people what to think, and I'm uncertain that a society that
makes it easy to perform such "cures" is necessarily one that I want
to live in. Perhaps society would wish to "cure" my children of their
views.

Frankly, I don't CARE if fundamentalists brainwash their children.  I
want to be left alone myself, and I'm perfectly willing to leave them
alone, too. I'm not so interested in running my neighbors lives, nor
am I so perfect that I am capable of running theirs as well as my
own. So long as they grant me the same respect they can tell their
children that Jesus levitates at all times thirty stories above the
Royal Albert Hall for all I care. I just don't want them telling ME
what to do and think.

Understand that I disagree with Zooks' proposal to impose a censorship
structure on the net. I merely ALSO disagree with the flood of
opinions that seem to say that he doesn't have the right to raise his
children as he sees fit. If he wants to only let them see sanitized
net traffic, let him find a service to provide that to his children. I
am not interested in interfering in his life. I ask the same respect
from him, but thats all.

Perry