Subject:
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Re: Something not right about Captain Ahnee and the Dipwads?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 5 Nov 2000 20:22:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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922 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mark Sandlin writes:
> I meant *my* world as in the Adult world we all live in. The USA makes a
> person legally responsible for themselves at age 18. Before that time, their
> parents are responsible for them.
Only sort of. I see the grant of self-responsibility as legally being a
gradual thing. As a person ages, the law puts more and more responsibility on
the shoulders of the individual, and provides more and more rights.
Maybe you are right in the strict sense of liability. But, for instance, kids
are sometimes tried as adults. And, since you can't buy alcohol until you're
21, I can't swallow complete legal self-responsibility.
> > > *your* kids. Having kids is *your* choice, not mine. therefore, it becomes
> > > *your responsibility to shelter them, not mine.
> >
> > I think that I can extend this logic to a ludicrous example that you won't
> > buy,
> > but will prove that the logic is broken. It sounds like you're saying that • it
> > is my responsibility to protect my kids from, for instance, being molested.
> > Fine, I'll go with that.
>
> OK, I'm with you up to here.
>
> > But it seems that further, you are saying that it is
> > not the molestor's responsibility to _not_ molest my kids. I don't buy • that.
> > And neither do you.
>
> No I don't, because it doesn't follow my logic.
I think it does. You are saying that you should be able to openly publish
_potentially_ psychologically damaging work with no responsibility for the
result of children seeing it, and with no responsibility for preventing kids
from seeing it. I think that being molested is _potentially_ psychologically
damaging. I think people have a responsibility to NOT sexually molest
children.
> I have said that *your* kids are not *my* responsibility: i.e. you take
> responsibility for the kids you brought into the world.
So I take complete responsibility for my kid getting molested? The person
doing the mollesting (or other _potentially_ damaging activities) bears no
responsibility. Right? I don't buy it.
Free speech doesn't give you the right to describe necrophilia to a class of
kindergardeners while they're on the playground.
> You take responsibility for your actions, right?
I do.
> I should not be responsible for your actions, right?
Right.
> I am not responsible for you or your kids.
You are responsible for what you do to my kids.
> Just as
> you are not responsible if you are my neighbor and my dog gets out of my
> yard and bites the person across the street.
What if I let the dog out of your gated yard? What if I douse your dog's face
with pepper spray and it goes nuts and then bites the guy across the street?
> My dog = My responsibility.
And my actions related to your dog = my responsibility.
> Your kids = Your responsibility.
And your actions related to my kids = your responsibility.
> Obviously kids are a much, much greater responsibility,
Arguable, but I'll let it go. :-)
> Why is this so hard to communicate?
Because it's an incomplete picture of responsibility and you seem to be
presenting it as if that were not so.
> > > I resent efforts to alter
> > > the things to which I have access in the interest of someone else's kids.
> >
> > Like drunk driving?
>
> I don't know where you live, but drunk driving is illegal in the United
> States. Therefore, I don't have access to it.
Before cars (and ignoring issues of prohibition and dry counties), you simply
had the right to drink. Cars were invented, became common, and you still had
the right to drink. And drive. Then some kids and other folks got killed, and
the right to drink and drive was removed. So, there were (successful) efforts
to alter the things to which you (in the sense of adults in general) had access
in the interest of somone else's kids. Do you, or do you not resent that?
The process of making stuff illegal to protect kids (and others) is an ongoing
one. What seems unreasonable now may seem totally obvious in forty years.
> > > > The enjoyment of cruelty,
> > >
> > > *Fake* cruelty toward a *fake* media construct.
> >
> > I don't think that makes it healthy or good.
> >
> > > > the desire for a psychologically unhealthy environment,
> > >
> > > Are you a Psychologist?
> So you feel qualified to make judgments about my mental health based on a
> few paragraphs you read in an internet newsgroup?
I have made the barest of hints in judgment based on these notes. I have not
stated that you're a loon, or insane, or even neurotic about Jar-jar. See a
few lines up where I say that your enjoyment of fictional cruelty isn't
healthy? Yes. I think I have enough grounding in psychology and the world to
state that the enjoyment of cruelty is not a healthy attribute of your (or my)
psyche.
For the record, I'm not taking the high ground at this time. I have committed
attrociously mean activities for pretty stupid reasons and there is no doubt in
my mind that particularly as a teen, I was troubled. But I got better.
Mostly. At least I like to think so. ;-) (Really I did, and have no doubt
about it.)
> > > You know nothing about my environment or how healthy
> > > it is.
> >
> > I know about the environment that you are advocating the projection of for
> > the general public.
>
> I'm talking about keeping the world from being turned into Barney-land. This
> is unhealthy?
No. Barney is unhealthy too. As with most television programming, it teaches
that real-world problems usually have 20-minute solutions which is a supreme
disservice to kids. Mine doesn't watch TV (at my house).
But creating a world where people are free (and more importantly willing,
because I am pretty hopped up on your freedom to do so) to create bad stuff
(whatever that is) and present it to kids is unhealthy. I think it speaks
poorly about you that you think it's an OK thing to do, I think it is unhealthy
(at least potentially) for kids (who might be 18 and broke when you're 50 and
not, and kill you for your car), and I think that it is an unwise investment in
the future in general.
> As an adult, I have the privilege of viewing whatever media I wish.
Not so. When you travel from China into the US in possession of snuff films,
go ahead and declare them at customs and see the reaction.
> I am
> quite capable of viewing violent or disturbing content, yet not carrying
> that content over into my life.
I believe that you believe this, but I think it's pretty clearly false. At
least a little. It is clear that adults who begin viewing violent movies can
reach a degree of violence that makes them personally uncomfortable. Over
time, that degree of violence becomes more extreme. I have no clear research
showing that that translates into any change in the real world, but it seems a
reasonable hypothesis.
In any case, I believe (and this might be good enough for you) that adults are
_much_ better equipped to prevent that kind of exposure from influencing their
daily behavior.
> Children may not be, therefore their parents should be responsible for
> educating them.
Agreed.
I've mentioned this here before (I think) but about 15 months ago, I was
setting up our home theater system, and the TV tuner accidentally got set to a
station. It was about 2:00 PM. Something caught my interest and it turned out
to be this sleazy talk-show that I'd heard about but never seen. There was a
young woman describing in detail the way her pervert client would pay her to
produce excrement, urine, and vommit for his cullinary and sexual pleasure.
_I_ was shocked. I had never once in my life, previous to that time, expressed
a pro-censorship stance. I do now. That should not appear on the public air
waves. Really, it should never, but certainly not in the early afternoon. My
son was at school, but what if he had been home, and while I was lying down in
my room, or mowing the lawn or whatever, had stumbled across that. At five,
I'd prefer he not be exposed to scatalogical sexual fetishes.
And the stance that parents should control 100% of their childrens' lives is
horse pucky. There are degrees of reasonable care, and I'm sure that children
have been exposed to such crap :-) without their parents' knowledge.
> I don't mind ratings systems or age limits on things that may be offensive
> or of a mature nature. What I dislike are Irate Parent Groups that want to
> ban something because they don't like it.
In general, me too. See the exception above.
Chris
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