Kids, Porn and Politics [and Public Libraries and Voters]

The Oregonian ^ | September 10, 2006 | David Reinhard, Assoc. Ed.

[plan2succeed.org]

KIDS, PORN AND POLITICS

Sunday, September 10, 2006
David Reinhard, Assoc. Ed.
The Oregonian Editorial

Rob Brading had a chance to stand up for children and blew it -- twice. The Democratic challenger to House Speaker Karen Minnis had a chance to champion the common-sense notion that children are different than adults and said nothing -- twice. Brading had a chance to protect kids from pornography when they're in Multnomah County public libraries and did nothing -- twice.

First, as a member of the Multnomah County Library Advisory Board, he voted for the county to join with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the federal Children's Internet Protection Act. It requires libraries to filter pornography from Internet access or lose federal funding. Second, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the library's lawsuit, Brading voted to have the library stop seeking federal funds since the library would have to require filters limiting access to sites showing smut.

Toni Manning thinks Brading should be called to account for this, and it's personal. In 2004 one of her children experienced the Brading policy in action. As Manning was helping her 13-year-old daughter with a homework assignment on a library computer, her 10-year-old daughter saw the naked women a teen-ager was taking in on a nearby screen.

This is where it gets interesting politically. Manning is now the executive director of something called Friends for Safer Libraries. Recently they handed out about 1,200 fliers saying "Brading. Defending the right to pornography over the rights of children." It's tough stuff -- one shade too tough for my taste -- but all built on fact. Here's some of the copy:

"Rob Brading has repeatedly supported the right to access pornography, even though vulnerable children have been exposed to hard-core porn in our public library . . . With such a strong record of protecting pornography, we can't expect Rob Brading to stick up for children. We can't give him the right to make decisions involving our kids."

OK so far. The Friends for Safer Libraries are right. Brading's failure to distinguish between what adults are able to access in private and what children are able to access at the public library -- his failure to see it's not an attack on the First Amendment for public librarians to take steps to limit children's access to Internet porn -- should disqualify him from serving in the Legislature. It's a matter of basic values and judgment. Someone who can't differentiate between the rights of adults and the needs of children -- someone who doesn't understand that parents shouldn't be the only line of defense between their kids and smut in our libraries or that, as Saint Hillary famously said, it takes a village -- shouldn't be making decisions on what's best for our state's kids.

That said, the Friends for Safer Libraries handout goes one step too far. It talks about Brading's "history of supporting pornography."

That's below the belt, and we're not talking porn here. Brading doesn't support pornography, and it's indecent to say so. Nor does he support children viewing pornography. Brading's radical and absolutist view of the First Amendment simply prevents him from advocating reasonable, adult steps to protect children from pornography while they're at a public library. He is, as the flier says, "responsible for children viewing internet porn in our county library."

Toni Manning and Friends for Safer Libraries have every reason to bring up Brading's kid-unfriendly no-holds-barred approach to the First Amendment. So does Minnis, who's been unfairly blamed for the flier.

Brading's views may be the rage in certain downtown Portland circles. But Minnis has made a distinguished career of reflecting the views and values of her east Multnomah County district -- and most of Oregon, for that matter -- in opposing income-tax hikes and the attack on traditional marriage. Heck, that's why left-wing elements from Portland to Washington, D.C., are targeting her this year.

It's hard to believe east Multnomah County voters think there's a contradiction between the Constitution's First Amendment and adults' obligation to protect all kids, not just their own, from porn in public libraries. Minnis should certainly make an issue of Rob Brading's notions about the First Amendment and (not) protecting children. But there's no call for anyone to make him out to be a porn supporter or a raincoat-wearing pervert.

David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or davidreinhard@news.oregonian.com.

[SteveMcKing]

It's been 42 minutes, I'm still waiting for plan2succeed.org to think of a lie.


He's been here since 7:03, at least.

[dsc]

"Pornography, it's values and evils are not a big part of life."

It's like poison gas...when it's not in the environment, you don't have to worry about it. When it's all around you, you do.

Question Assumptions has it exactly right just above. “As a society, we have two choices. We can force adult behavior behind closed doors and make the public space safe for children or we can force the children behind closed doors and make the public space an adult space.”

If you consider legislation to “force adult behavior behind closed doors and make the public space safe for children” to be “imposing my views on you,” then that’s just tough, because I intend to continue agitating for such laws.

“I raised my kids to know right from wrong.”

Never since Adam and Eve has knowing right from wrong halted a wrongdoer from doing wrong. Besides, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by getting personal.

[Jeff Gordon]

If you are viewing pornography in a public place, unless you can confine the view of it to your own personal space, you are forcing it on others.

If I saw you do that I would call you out on the spot. I would deal with you right then and there.

All the rest of your arguments are straw men.

[Question_Assumptions]

I don't generally like answering a question with a question but you are begging for it.

When did you stop beating your wife?

I don't beat my wife so I never started. See how easy it is to answer loaded questions?

If that is not clear enough for you, then just understand that I am not going justify your loaded question with a response.

Are you sure the problem isn't that your answer is going to be loaded or sound pretty awful?

What I would like to know is if you personally have any problem with children being exposed to hardcore pornography. Do you consider that a bad thing? If you do, then our debate is one between liberty for adults and harm to children. If you don't, then we don't have much to talk about and I'll let your answer speak for itself.

[Jeff Gordon]

Is this the old "I am a sinner so you must be a sinner" argument?

[Question_Assumptions]

If I saw you do that I would call you out on the spot. I would deal with you right then and there.

OK. I'll bite. How, exactly, would you "call me out on the spot" and "deal with" it? Is this like the UN threatening sanctions?

[Jeff Gordon]

I have a problem with parents who want the state to handle the enforicing of their values rather than doing the job themselves.

No, I do not think that exposing kids to porn is a good idea. I do not think exposing kids to John Kerry is a good idea. I can not prevent them from being exposed to Kerry and I can not prevent them from being exposed to porn. What I can do is to try to teach them that John Kerry and porn represent something that is against our family values. After I have made my best effort, the rest is in the hands of God (not you).

[Jeff Gordon]

How, exactly, would you "call me out on the spot" and "deal with" it?

I'll leave that up to your imagination. What would you do? Write your congressman?

[Question_Assumptions]

Is this the old "I am a sinner so you must be a sinner" argument?

I think it's an understanding that short of keeping children away from the computers in a library (thus making it an "adult space" -- Why is the idea of "adult space" and "child-friendly space" so dificult to understand?) so they can't see what's in the screen or teaching them to always avert their eyes, if someone is viewing hardcore pornography on the computer and they look at the screen, they are going to see it. This goes right back to my question. Do you see any problem with exposing young children to hardcore pornography?

I also want to know if you think having sex in public spaces like a library should be banned and, if so, on what grounds. If it's OK to view pictures of people having sex in a public library, why is it not OK to actually have sex in a public library?

[SteveMcKing]

As a matter of record, I am now logging off at 7:56, lest I be similarly accused of "hiding".

[Question_Assumptions]

I'll leave that up to your imagination. What would you do? Write your congressman?

Install anti-pornography filters and make it illegal so that calling the police becomes an option, just like it's an option if a couple decides to walk around the public library in the nude or have sex in front of the computers.

So back to you, my imagination is a little rusty tonight. All I can imagine is you doing nothing. If you had something, you'd answer the questions.

[dsc]

"Is this the old "I am a sinner so you must be a sinner" argument?"

I never heard of any such argument. I suspect it to be a straw man.

[dsc]

"I can not prevent them from being exposed to porn."

Why not? Society prevented children of my generation from being exposed to porn.

[plan2succeed.org]

You said, "I still want to know what your hidden agenda is."

Happy to comply. First, I have no hidden agenda.

Rather, I have an out in the open agenda. My out in the open agenda is to educate people about how the American Library Association has near total control of American libraries in a way that may be a violation of the United States Supreme Court of America. You see the ALA says it's "age" discrimination for a librarian to keep children from inappropriate material, even after the SCOTUS said it is "legitimate, even compelling" to separate minors from such material. That is my agenda. I believe the SCOTUS is more authoritative than the ALA, especially where one seeks to protect children and the other seeks to sexualize children. The goal is that children will stop being raped and molested in public libraries as may be occurring as a result of the ALA's actions and words despite law, the Courts, and community standards.

Now is there anything wrong with pointing out publicly exactly when and where the ALA has acted or made statements in defiance of the law, the courts, and the public?

For example, the ALA said the rights of a 9/11 terrorist should have been protected and he should not have been turned into the police after a librarian recognized him as one of the hijackers. Do you agree with the ALA on that?

[Question_Assumptions]

Whether "plan2succeed.org"'s article and anecdote are real or not is irrelevant to larger issue of whether it should be easily possible, level, and even protected to view pornography on public library computers. If it never actually happens, then putting filters on the computers, throwing people who evade the filters out of the library, or even making viewing pornography in the presence of children in public illegal will limit nobody's liberty since nobody is doing it, right?

[Jeff Gordon]

Society prevented children of my generation from being exposed to porn.

I don't know what generation you were raised in. The first time I saw pornography was in 1955 at a barber shop. They kept girly magazines on the table for their customers. I was 11 years old. I survived that experience.

[Question_Assumptions]

Did that magzine in the barbershop include close-ups of spread genitals, hardcore sex, anal and oral sex, group sex, gay sex, bestiality, and so on? And before you tell me I exaggerate, my wife had to deal with bestiality pictures coming off of the printer in the college computer lab where she worked when we were in college (they had the same sort of "enlightened" view of pornography that you do). Yes, that sort of picture is out there on the Internet, and if you are unwilling to say "no" to any of the content that people view on public computers, there is no way to stop people from looking at those sorts of pictures rather than the airbrushed pin-ups you remember as a child, and there are most certainly people who will look at them in public if they are protected while doing so.

So, would you support a modern barber leaving hardcore pornography magazines around where 11 year-old boys can find them? Or should I take that as an admission that you see no problem with exposing children to pornography and think it's harmless?

[dsc]

Question Assumptions beat me to it.

I remember the "girlie" magazines in the barber shops in the fifties, and they were pornography like a guppy is a great white shark.

[Jeff Gordon]

Or should I take that as an admission that you see no problem with exposing children to pornography and think it's harmless? No. You should not.

[SteveMcKing]

Whether "plan2succeed.org"'s article and anecdote are real or not is irrelevant to larger issue of whether it should be easily possible, level, and even protected to view pornography on public library computers.

Correct. And that issue should be discussed anywhere but here, since this thread is the work of a scam artist.