From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 15:29:23 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Filtering out Queers is OK
Message-ID: <ae143914000210044473@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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,
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