Re: Filtering out Queers is OK

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 7:48 AM 7/19/96, Mike Duvos wrote:

>Filtering is wonderful.  Long live filtering.
>
>I used to read "Scientific American" too, back in the days when
>the table of contents wasn't illustrated with cute little icons.
...

Well, of course I agree, and have said as much. "Sci Am" used to be so much
better, before the "Wired"  people moved in. (As to comments by some others
that both of the mags I cited have carried articles about piercings,
tattoos, gay rights, blah blah...of course, I would not expect otherwise.
It is the blaring of the issues that I avoid, not all mention.)

>If I had kids, I am sure Tim would support my right to give them
>access to the entire universe of human knowlege and thought as
>early as possible, and to let them form their own opinions on
>every conceivable subject, even if those opinions differed from
>my own.  Where I suspect we differ, is that I would not only
>advocate such an advantage for my kids, but for his as well.

No, we wouldn't differ, depending on what is meant by "advocacy." You are
perfectly within your rights to advocate what you wish, and I may even
listen. Where advocacy crosses into coercion is where I draw the line.
Mandatory indoctrination in schools which are either mandatory to attend
(given the truancy laws) or taxpayer-funded is "coercion" in my book.


>The problem with giving parents the absolute right to control
>their childrens' input of memes until the children are too old
>and stupid to learn anything new, is that it creates generational
>propagation of obsolete ideologies.  All the Dole children think
>exactly like Bob.  All the Hitler children think exactly like
>Adolf.  Same for the Mengele children, the Nixon children, the
>Stalin children, the Netanyahu children, etc...

Well, I rather doubt this. The Kennedy children were liberals, not fascists
like dear old Dad. Most tycoons have liberal, do-gooder children. Newt's
half-sister is as different from Newt as one can imagine. And so on.

In any case, even conceding your point (which I don't), the fact that
certain memes tend to get propagated generationally is no argument for
forced intervention by the State in the home situation.



>The movement towards accessing information from home PCs, coupled
>with the new "parents rights" movement and filtering software,
>creates a situation where no one under the age of 18 can have
>access to any information their parents don't want them to see.

I don't support the CDA or any other such laws felonizing what I or other
content providers offer. Thus, "Tim's Really Kool Sites" could offer access
to all sorts of material.

If a parent blocks access to this, this is not an issue for the State to
worry about. (By State I include other entities beside the family.) If,
however, Junior's friends have unrestricted access, he can access the
interesting sites there.

(And no, this would not be a matter for the State (courts) to interfere
with. Think of it this way: it is _still_ up to parents to control
access...that is the consistent principle.)

>As the Web replaces the library, young people won't even be able
>to preserve the same anonymous access to controversial
>information they have always had in the past.  This is a step
>backwards for youth rights.

They should use Web proxies. And they are welcome to come to my house and
use my Web tools! (Again, no law should forbid either proxies or
"library-type" use, consistent with a non-coercive society.)

>The age of filtering has arrived.  You can filter your childrens'
>access to sex manuals, grandma's access to the elder abuse web
>page, and your underpaid Ethiopian leaf blower operator's access
>to anything having to do with laws against sub-minimum wages or
>slavery.

I can't filter my Ethiopian's acces to the Web if he has his own account,
on his own system. I suppose if I were paying for it, or if I were letting
him use my system, then I would have whatever filters invoked that I
wished. Seems fair to me. ("My house, my rules.")

A more realistic and timely example is that corporations are restricting
access to pornographic and/or frivolous sites on the Web...seems a lot of
folks at large companies tend to do exactly what I like to do: wander the
Web and find interesting stuff. Except I'm on my own time, employees at
Lockheed and Intel who look like they're busy on the Web actually aren't,
by the standards of their companies.

(How long will it be before someone builds one of those buttons that
immediately switches a screen from "Minka's Sex Page" to a harmless-looking
spreadsheet or seemingly work-related Web page? I guess with multiple
windows and URL navigating, a fast employee can still save himself....)

>As an individual who has no desire to engage in gay sex, or watch
>it being performed while I am eating, I must admit my attitudes
>towards the "gay community" have undergone a certain evolution in
>recent years.  Back in the '70s, gays supported a wide-ranging
>platform of human rights issues, and a lot of activists whose
>work I admired on many issues I supported "happened to be gay."

My feelings exactly. The issue is part of a larger one, related to several
interconnected trends/tropics, which I don't have the desire or time to
discuss and so will simply list:

- stridency, shrillness and militancy (where "demands" are made, chants are
yelled, bridges and highways are shut down, etc.)

- short attention spans, soundbites (in the press, magazines, etc.)

- calls for legislation, indoctrination ("more laws")

- "reclaiming" of names (blacks call themselves niggers, blacks demand that
others call them "persons of color," homosexuals demand universities set up
"Queer Studies" programs, etc.)

I catch some interesting flak here in Santa Cruz for openly referring to
blacks as "coloreds." (Hey, didn't they reclaim this name? All
non-Caucasion males are, in this town, "persons of color." Thus we have
"students of color," "queers of color," and the stupid phrase chanted in
marches, "all womyn are people of color." Fine, "colored people" it is!)

Likewise, what were once "homosexuals" became "gays." OK, I adopted this
usage along with most of the rest of the country and world in the 70s. But
now there are the aforementioned demands that "queer" be used. (This has
become quite prevalent here in Northern California, with departments of
Queer Studies, Queer Rights, etc. all over the place.) What's next, demands
that we create "Fag Studies" and "Dyke Culture" departments on campus?

>Now that the gay community has narrowed its focus solely to the
>issue of consensual adult sodomy rights, and shown alarming signs
>of sucking up to the Radical Religious Right, I really don't have

Including the charming principle "all heterosexual sex is rape." All
pornography is degrading to womyn and other people of color, unless, of
course, it is part of the (I gather) large corpus of homosexual porn. So
much for consistency. (Shockingly, Canada passed some laws restricting porn
based on the arguments of feminazis like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine
MacKinnon; they had egg on their face when lesbian erotica stores were
raided.)

I could go on about the bigotry of many "activists" in these communities.
(I'm sure many are fine people, of course. It's the "in your face" queer
activists demanding new and anti-liberty laws I object to.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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