From: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 94 17:09:22 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Children and the Net
In-Reply-To: <199407312055.NAA01717@netcom12.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199408010009.RAA23634@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


James A. Donald writes:

 > If I find that the children of fundamentalists are being
 > "cured" I will move my ammo stash from my garage to hole in
 > the hills, and take my gold out of the safety deposit box,
 > and add booby traps to my alarm system.

Children are "cured" of their parents' ideas all the time. I've
known lots of kids who grew up in restrictive settings where
their access to forbidden ideas was tightly controlled.  After
four years at college away from parental influence, they were
magically transformed into happy free-thinking sensible people.

 > It is completely impossible for a private person to insulate
 > his children from opposing views.  Only the state has that
 > kind of power.

If it's impossible, then why does such outrage manifest itself
when it is suggested that it shouldn't be done?  Something is
fishy here.

 >> Very young children need to be protected from graphically
 >> violent material which they might find disturbing.

 > I gather you do not entirely trust parents to perform this
 > important social activity.

There's always one loony toon who wants to screen all five
volumes of "Faces of Death" for his son's kindergarten class. :)

Teaching kids is sort of like feeding them.  In general, we let
the parents make the day to day decisions.  But we also let
experts research what things are toxic and hold parents
accountable if they insist upon feeding the kid lemon scented
furniture polish.  Both approaches are needed.

>> It's the wishes of the children that tend to be overlooked when
>> the Funny Mentalists are having their legislative orgy.

 > Who is more likely to care about the welfare of a kid?

 > A fundamentalist who happens to be the kids father, or
 > bureaucrat in charge of child welfare?

This is a trick question, right?  Caring counts for zip.  The
road to Hell is paved with good parental intentions.  Suppose the
fundamentalist father wants to beat his six year old son with a
belt everytime he touches himself to save him from Satan's
influence?  A little bureaucratic input from a child welfare
professional might not be a bad idea in such a case.

-- 
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $