A letter I sent my senators, please consider similar.

[Outsider]

But other parents may disagree with you about whether the material has value or not.

So let them buy the books from the bookstore for their kids. Most parents don't want their elementary and middle-school children reading sexually explicit books and graphic novels. Why should the majority subsidize a minority's values?

And if you don't know what's in the books the parents are protesting, how can you even weigh in on the matter?

In this country we don't give one person veto power over what all children are able to have access to.

It's not just me. It's not just one mom. It's not just DeSantis. It's the majority of parents who don't want their kids to be exposed to graphic descriptions and pictures of sexual activity such as are in these books. These aren't dry academic descriptions.

The Bible has pornographic and excessively violent content as well.

Where exactly is the pornographic content in the Bible? "Ham uncovered his father's nakedness"? "So-and-so knew his wife"? That's a far reach from the step-by-step eroticism and descriptions of the sex act in these books. These books read more like "Candy" or "My Secret Life"- and I can testify that the things they describe are even more disgusting than even that latter book, which I would have said was perhaps the most dirty book ever written. Did you hear the woman read the part about "feltching"? Do you think that's in any way comparable to the bible? And do you think it's in any way suitable for elementary school and middle-school kids?

If the Old Testament was a video game it would receive a Mature 17+ rating for all the violence, genocide, killing of babies, stoning of people, and so forth. Should we purge the Bible from public spaces and put it out of the reach of children? On the say so of one parent? Or does it maybe have some redeeming value anyways?

The Bible is more like a newspaper report on what happened, than a gory indulgence in the sensual experience of those things. You're comparing apples and oranges.

I'm 100% in favor of giving parents more ability to control what their children have access to online. I have said so. I think parents should have more tools to manage what their children have access to. I don't necessarily think one parent should be entitled to make those decisions for others.

I am too. But I'm also in favor of arresting and locking up people like the tik-tokker urging kids to run away from home to be with their "sparkle family". And I'm in favor of putting pornographic sites behind a ".xxx" domain in order for them to be filtered at the provider level for subscribers who request such. And I'm in favor of an encrypted token with a biometric ID to access social media. And trashing the algorithm, as per your suggestion as well.

You claim that this is "intrusive", but my state requires a thumbprint when you get a state ID or driver's license already. How is putting your thumb on a sensor when you get your license any more intrusive than what they're already collecting? They already have all of your information. If you've taken a DNA test, they have that too. I assure you.

[Ken]

Where exactly is the pornographic content in the Bible?

I gave Josh one example upstream. Genesis 19:30-36. In that passage, Lot's two daughters get him blind drunk and then both have sex (incest) with him in order to get pregnant. If we filmed that story in a modern context it would absolutely be considered pornography and obscene. If such a scene were put into any book for a teenage audience it would most definitely be protested and censored. Especially if it was a graphic novel.

How many more do you want?

I'm 100% in favor of giving parents more ability to control what their children have access to online. I have said so. I think parents should have more tools to manage what their children have access to. I don't necessarily think one parent should be entitled to make those decisions for others.

I am too. But I'm also in favor of arresting and locking up people like the tik-tokker urging kids to run away from home to be with their "sparkle family". And I'm in favor of putting pornographic sites behind a ".xxx" domain in order for them to be filtered at the provider level for subscribers who request such. And I'm in favor of an encrypted token with a biometric ID to access social media. And trashing the algorithm, as per your suggestion as well.

Let's take that example. Your example is neither pornography or obscene. Yet you still object to it. On what grounds would you arrest someone for encouraging runaways? Running away is only a crime in 9 states and even in those 9 states it is not a felony. Mostly they will just detain you until your parents or CPS shows up. So in the majority of the country, encouraging kids to run away can't even be prosecuted as soliciting a criminal act. Mainly you are objecting to the LGBT element of the TikTok. But being LGBT is not a crime in this country, either for adults or minors. So ultimately you are making a political or social objection.

I seem to recall you having a conniption fit when I suggested the government screen content for medical and political misinformation and not censor it, just rate it so parents could filter it. Yet that is more or what you are doing above when you demand this TikTok-er be arrested and locked up. Not censored mind you arrested and locked up.

[Josh]

Once again, the Bible is not pornographic nor obscene.

It is in fact pure, holy, and perfect.

[Outsider]

Where exactly is the pornographic content in the Bible?

I gave Josh one example upstream. Genesis 19:30-36. In that passage, Lot's two daughters get him blind drunk and then both have sex (incest) with him in order to get pregnant.

Yeah, I was going to mention that one in the examples I gave. But it already has been filmed and was able to get the idea across without going into explicit graphics. The movie was "The Bible".

Once upon a time, the movie industry was quite adept at putting forth an idea or a story without feeling the need to explicitly depict what could be suggested (and go over the heads of pre-pubescents).

How many more do you want?

I quoted you a few myself in the previous post. As I said though, the Bible's depictions are no more graphic than what you would read in a newspaper. The books we're talking about are exactly blow-by-blow descriptions of sex acts like you would find in any pornographic novel. Apples and oranges, Ken.

I'm 100% in favor of giving parents more ability to control what their children have access to online. I have said so. I think parents should have more tools to manage what their children have access to. I don't necessarily think one parent should be entitled to make those decisions for others.

Let's take that example. Your example is neither pornography or obscene. Yet you still object to it. On what grounds would you arrest someone for encouraging runaways? Running away is only a crime in 9 states and even in those 9 states it is not a felony. Mostly they will just detain you until your parents or CPS shows up. So in the majority of the country, encouraging kids to run away can't even be prosecuted as soliciting a criminal act. Mainly you are objecting to the LGBT element of the TikTok. But being LGBT is not a crime in this country, either for adults or minors. So ultimately you are making a political or social objection.

So, you're OK with some guy on the internet luring your kid to someplace to hook up with them?

I seem to recall you having a conniption fit when I suggested the government screen content for medical and political misinformation and not censor it, just rate it so parents could filter it. Yet that is more or what you are doing above when you demand this TikTok-er be arrested and locked up. Not censored mind you arrested and locked up.

I have a great deal of problems with the government managing the information allowed for adult human beings. PARTICULARLY "political misinformation". That's letting the fox guard the henhouse. Our government has and does spew tons of "misinformation" itself. Both parties do. For example, the Biden administration claimed that it had "grown 15 million jobs" during its term. What they neglect to mention is that the centrally-planned lockdowns they forced on us had cost 22 million jobs. "Big Brother has raised the chocolate ration to 15 oz!" That's what's wrong with the government determining "political misinformation". Gulf of Tonkin? WMDs in Iraq? Now the US is playing the Cuban Missle crisis in the Ukraine in the Kruschev role.

I see no special expertise in the District of Criminals to determine the validity of medical information, nor to evaluate a medical doctor's expertise in his field. They were condemning the guy who INVENTED the MRNA "vaccine" as a quack. Just like the (D)'s were anti-vax while it was Trump "fast-tracking" it, and then quickly about-faced and became mandatory jabbers when Biden took office. No, I do not want my health politicized.

News flash: your government doesn't love you, Ken. Your government doesn't care about you at all except as a useful idiot to maintain the power and wealth of the politicians and the corporatist oligarchy that owns them. They willfully kill millions overseas, and they willfully spend the lives of their citizens and spit out their broken bodies to wallow in misery on the streets. And every state run by "progressives" are an open-air sewage pit.

No, I'll pass on your central-planning state. I don't need that basket of serpents micro-managing my life, or determining what any adult should be able to hear.

[Ken]

So, you're OK with some guy on the internet luring your kid to someplace to hook up with them?

I did not say that. Although I would say that 99% of the time children are at risk on the internet it isn't anything LGBT related. But rather just pervy older men looking to hook up with girls.

I'm all in favor of giving parents more tools to manage their children's internet use and I keep saying so. But what you are actually talking about has nothing to do with porn. It is about older people having unsupervised access to children. [/quote]

I have a great deal of problems with the government managing the information allowed for adult human beings. PARTICULARLY "political misinformation". That's letting the fox guard the henhouse. Our government has and does spew tons of "misinformation" itself. Both parties do. For example, the Biden administration claimed that it had "grown 15 million jobs" during its term. What they neglect to mention is that the centrally-planned lockdowns they forced on us had cost 22 million jobs. "Big Brother has raised the chocolate ration to 15 oz!" That's what's wrong with the government determining "political misinformation". Gulf of Tonkin? WMDs in Iraq? Now the US is playing the Cuban Missle crisis in the Ukraine in the Kruschev role.

You do realize that the lockdowns and job losses all happened during the last year of the Trump Administration, not the first year of the Biden Administration. A time when both the White House and Senate were under Republican control.

No, I'll pass on your central-planning state. I don't need that basket of serpents micro-managing my life, or determining what any adult should be able to hear.

Then why do you keep advocating for it? Your age-based government-driven lockdown of the internet based on content would require an enormous new bureaucracy on the scale of what China is now doing with their internet. And it is vastly more "central planning" and "big government" than what I propose, which is simply giving parents more robust tools.

[Josh]

You do realize that the lockdowns and job losses all happened during the last year of the Trump Administration, not the first year of the Biden Administration. A time when both the White House and Senate were under Republican control.

Believe it or not, this isn’t a Trump or Republican campaign thread.

Then why do you keep advocating for it? Your age-based government-driven lockdown of the internet based on content would require an enormous new bureaucracy on the scale of what China is now doing with their internet. And it is vastly more "central planning" and "big government" than what I propose, which is simply giving parents more robust tools.

Banning pornography is quite easy, Ken.

Child sexual abuse material is already illegal, so why can’t the rest of pornography be illegal or severely restricted? It has no place and no use in a free society.

[Outsider]

So, you're OK with some guy on the internet luring your kid to someplace to hook up with them?

I did not say that. Although I would say that 99% of the time children are at risk on the internet it isn't anything LGBT related. But rather just pervy older men looking to hook up with girls.

Probably so. But then heterosexuals are the majority of the population so it would only figure that heterosexuals would be the majority of the offenders.

I'm all in favor of giving parents more tools to manage their children's internet use and I keep saying so. But what you are actually talking about has nothing to do with porn. It is about older people having unsupervised access to children.

My letter was about both of those things. Both are equally important.

You do realize that the lockdowns and job losses all happened during the last year of the Trump Administration, not the first year of the Biden Administration. A time when both the White House and Senate were under Republican control.

Ken, it doesn't matter to me who was in office. It's the central planning stupidity I find egregious. But you're wrong. The 22 million jobs were lost during the first part of the Biden administration:

CNN March 11, 2021:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/11/economy/ ... index.html

"Between March and April last year, more than 22 million jobs vanished in the United States. The majority came from the leisure and hospitality industry — restaurant and bar workers, hotel staff, event planners, virtually all positions that rely on face-to-face interactions. For millions of other Americans whose jobs were deemed “essential,” going to work became a life-and-death risk."


Biden had been president for a couple of months when that occurred.

Then why do you keep advocating for it? Your age-based government-driven lockdown of the internet based on content would require an enormous new bureaucracy on the scale of what China is now doing with their internet. And it is vastly more "central planning" and "big government" than what I propose, which is simply giving parents more robust tools.

Once again, Ken, there's time-tested precedent to treat children differently from adults.

[Ken]

Ken, it doesn't matter to me who was in office. It's the central planning stupidity I find egregious. But you're wrong. The 22 million jobs were lost during the first part of the Biden administration:

CNN March 11, 2021:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/11/economy/ ... index.html

"Between March and April last year, more than 22 million jobs vanished in the United States. The majority came from the leisure and hospitality industry — restaurant and bar workers, hotel staff, event planners, virtually all positions that rely on face-to-face interactions. For millions of other Americans whose jobs were deemed “essential,” going to work became a life-and-death risk."


Biden had been president for a couple of months when that occurred.

Read the article again. A CNN article published March 11, 2021 was talking about 22 million jobs lost LAST YEAR. If we are in March 2021 then last year is 2020 which was the final year of the Trump Administration. Biden was not sworn in until January 2021. Biden hadn't even been been nominated yet when that was all happening and Bernie Sanders was considered the front runner.

[Outsider]

Read the article again. A CNN article published March 11, 2021 was talking about 22 million jobs lost LAST YEAR. If we are in March 2021 then last year is 2020 which was the final year of the Trump Administration. Biden was not sworn in until January 2021. He hadn't even been nominated yet when that was all happening.

Yeah, you're right. It's late and I'm tired. But it doesn't matter who was president. It was stupid whoever did it. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I don't generally vote for either.

[Josh]

It’s interesting, Ken, how you seem to assume I’m going to be a Republican and Trump apologist. If you paid any attention to my posting, you’d know my greatest criticisms of Trump is his mishandling of the pandemic and rushing dangerous vaccines.