From: kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrm 762-6417)
Subject: Re: `Music censorship' issue
Organization: Cores 'R Us
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 19:12:40 GMT

In article <MS-C.702601260.267834847.mrc@marge.cac.washington.edu> Mark Crispin <mrc@marge.cac.washington.edu> writes:
>     I guess I have to join the ranks of the `clueless' in this issue.  As I
>understand the new law, it does not censor anything; nor does it prevent
>adults from purchasing anything that they could previously purchase.  All the
>law does is limit what minors can purchase.

Yes, and it prescribes dire penalties for the hapless retail clerk who sells
offending material to minors.  "Useful" and "productive" activities like sting
operations spring up.  It's just one more small brick in the wall the fascist
state is building up around us.  It's an admission that we, as individuals,
*adult or not*, lack the judgement to decide for ourselves what we want to
purchase or sell.

I guess if you have no problem prescribing limits for minors, then, for you,
the law is OK.  This is one of the core issues here, however.  Nobody has
really made any kind of case *for* limits for minors, or *why* we should have
minors (the concept of minor), or anything along those lines, for which this
particular law is just an instance.  People have these *a priori* beliefs
which never seem to be questioned.  For example, people seem to believe,
without any foundation whatever, that exposure to material that they consider
"bad", is somehow "not good" for young people.  Yet the best people can do
when asked to substantiate their belief is to stare at you uncomprehendingly,
or in case the of the lady who started all this, point to all the rotten
adults running around as evidence supporting their belief.  It never seems to
occur to anybody that the reason adults -are- as they -are- is *because* they
-were- treated as they -were-.

There is this idea extant that somehow children are *innocent*, or in some
sort of pristine state, and somehow that needs to be *protected*.  The idea
recurs again and again in human history, variously applied to animals, women,
people of differing skin colors, people above or below certain biological
ages, etc., etc.  I think it is worth taking particular note of the fact that
this is *never* self-referential; the idea of "purity" or "innocence" is one
that is *always* applied to *other* things or groups, not to ourselves.
Looked at another way, the charge of "purity" is always levelled by the
"corrupt" at *some other group*.  It is this that is never questioned.

The censorship lady said (in the telephone conversation her and I had)
that adults were basically corrupt, beyond redemption, and therefore,
since there was nothing worth saving, that they should basically
be allowed (by the state, presumably) to wallow in their corruption.
But the state can be regarded as the "collective will of the adults", or
if you will, the "collective will of the thoroly corrupt".  Yet, with
apparently no self-reflection, parents have no difficulty entrusting the
welfare of their children to such a presumably depraved entity.

People seem to have *no* problem sending off the flower of their youth to
fight state-instigated wars (Does anybody remember "Gold Star Mothers"?
In WWII *all* the principals deified mothers with lots of offspring; pretty
depraved IMO), but want to protect their innocence.

Why is that? Does this not seem paradoxical to you?  Doesn't it seem like
there's a naked emperor running around here?

>     What is the point of the protest?  Is it that there should be no
>limitations on the activities of minors?  Should minors be permitted to buy
>tobacco and alcohol?  If minors should have all the privileges as adults, then
>should they have the responsibilties as well?  If a 16-year-old commits a
>brutal rape/murder, should he be subject to the death penalty?

A major point is that age is an arbitrary and capricious criterion for
deciding who is and who is not a functional member of society.
I have asked several times in this thread: why have restrictions of this
nature at all?  I don't think a valid objection is "because I have a gut
fear that it will be bad", which I think is all most adults can come up with.

>     Maybe I'm missing the point again.  Perhaps it's a fear that limitations
>on what minors can buy is a first step towards limitations on what adults can
>buy.  If that's the case, I haven't heard that being made clear.

That's *one* of `em; it's the camel's nose under the tent.

>     I find it strange that the same sorts of people who protest against a
>photographer soliticing models for "Playboy's Girls of the Pacific Northwest"
>will leap to the defense of songs advocating violence against women.

I do not think that I am one of them.
While there may be people who support illegalizing the former while legalizing
the latter,  I haven't seen any postings of that nature on this thread.
I think you are confusing "left/liberal" with "libertarian" (note lowercase "l")
here.  "Left/liberals" are statists, like conservatives.  Their only
disagreement with conservatives is *what* business the state should stick it's
collective nose into.

>                                                                      I happen
>to agree that neither cheesecake pictures nor dirty songs hurt people.

In that case, why support laws that make that assumption, perhaps by declaring
that human beings *not* meeting some criterion, such as age, are *not-people*?

>                                                                        Still,
>it is reasonable to assist parents in limiting their children's access to such
>material.

I don't see why.  If it *is* reasonable, then I'd prefer to assist them in
their choice of contraceptives :( ...

>     Is there some common ground in the middle?  Is it possible to have
>freedom of choice for adults without destroying all controls on children?

IMO, no.

>Perhaps if the extremists on both the liberal and conservative sides would
>shut up, the rest of us could create an acceptable compromise.

That has already been done.  We "extremists" are just not too happy with the
result.

kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)