children accessing porn; adults turning off filterware (was Re: Selection)

[earl young]

Hi Shirl:

I am among the people who feel as you do right up to the point where
access is paid for with public money.  I run an ADSL line into our house
- it's essentially a T1 line - and there are no filters on any of my
machines.  We have three sons, 13, 8, and 5.  They have their own email
accounts and I do not have the passwords.  I let the 13-year old have
considerably freer reign than the younger boys, but in the neighborhood
I am thought of as probably way too lenient with Internet access.  I
agree that the kids need to be exposed to a wide variety of things, and
that as a parent I have an obligation to walk them through a lot of
these issues.  I doubt you've been lucky - it sounds like you spend the
same kind of time we do to help navigate the children through the
various thickets of growing up.

But where does that translate into a government duty to subsidize
access?  Why are taxpayers being coerced into paying for something with
which they deeply disagree?  Libraries generally spend tax money.  It
eludes me why it's a surprise that the taxpayers may want control over
how the money is spent.  The conflict between the various interest
groups is a given.  It's democracy.  It's people exercising their First
Amendment right - even if we think they are ignorant, narrow,
straight-laced yahoos.  Why are we so many on this list intolerant of
the process that makes the money available?

By the way, our kids thought Pulp Fiction was over-hyped.

Earl Young