Posted on 07/10/2006 1:47:07 PM PDT by Ben Mugged
Paige White was surprised when her parents figured out soon after she started driving last year that she'd gone 9 miles to a party, not 4 miles to the friend's house she'd told them she was visiting. It seemed to her almost as if her car was bugged.
It was.
Paige's parents had installed a device in their daughter's SUV that can tell them not only how far she's driven, but how fast and whether she's made any sudden stops or hard turns.
"I was kind of mad because I felt it was an invasion of my privacy," said the Los Gatos resident, now 17.
Parents, some of whom feel outmatched by their offspring in this tech-savvy world, are using a growing number of gadgets, software and specially equipped cell phones to track kids' driving, read their instant messages and pinpoint where they're hanging out.
~snip~But cyber-snooping is simply a new tool, experts say. It doesn't resolve the dilemma parents have grappled with for generations: How much free rein do you give children so they can learn the lessons they need to grow up and be independent?
~snip~
Proponents of the new technology say it can help protect kids -- whether from predators lurking online or their own bad driving. But while there may be gains, monitoring also can take a toll.
"The bottom line is, surveillance will cut down somewhat on potential risk behavior kids will engage in, but it is at a cost," Wolf said. "To the extent that you do surveillance, you are potentially interfering with your kids developing responsibility for their own lives."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
[We also explained to them that no matter what kind of trouble they ever got into, as long as the TOLD THE TRUTH, we would help them resolve the problem.]
You sound just like my parents (whom I respect GREATLY) and this is exactly the way I try to raise my daughter.
Today's cars are much safer to drive at higher speeds (and are safer at any speed) than the cars of yesterday, all jokes to the contrary. I'd have to dig out my safety council text to provide specific citation, but accidental car deaths per mile driven have decreased dramatically in the last 40-50 years.
Can't challenge the lodge buddies statement though - still think that's largely a function of where you live. My sister lives in such a "everybody knows everybody else" sort of area.
Exactly. Now the child has surrendered to the fact that every place she drives (and how fast) will be monitored by the parent. In a couple of years when the government puts those things on our cars for tax purposes (and to make sure we're not going anywhere we shouldn't be or doing it too fast,) do you think thais particular child will be more or less likely to lie down like a sheep and surrender to that?
GE - You are an excellent writer. You ought to save this for your kids to read. Or maybe not. :o) Anyway, I enjoyed the narrative and it brought back memories of the small town police and their "efforts" when I was a kid. I will say in retrospect they may have saved a life or two when they busted up our drag races. But we were immortal back then, weren't we?
Again, you equate two things that are not the same. Concerned parents are not the same as a faceless govt 'forcing' you to pay toll taxes via a transponder.
Further, no one was 'forcing' her to use her parents' car. She could have had friends pick her up and go to wherever. She could have biked over to wherever she wanted to go. Or taken (gasp) a bus! She could have driven to the spot she was saying she was at and then had friends take her over to the other place. You seem to make this case out to be an impossible thing for the kid to overcome. Your transponder tax issue is so much more massive than one kid who has other viable transportation issues.
That is why I don't believe such an action is going to make her or anyone else more likely to just comply. You're comparing apples and oranges. The slippery-slope conditioning argument just doesn't fly here. Perhaps you'd have a better case if government was forcing parents to track their children, then I could see where this is going.
YOu know, if you're so bent out of shape about this, what about all the cameras that record you multiple times through the day at private businesses or parking lots or private security that records you? Why aren't you more upset about schools tracking the daughter and recording her on cameras all day, perhaps without her knowing about it? Why aren't you more concerned about that, than parents who are concerned about what their kid does when mom and dad aren't around? from a privacy standpoint, I'd rather have the parents tracking their own kids if they want to, instead of government (schools, whatever) forcibly tracking everyone.
This is why your argument as it stands falls way short. You can't logically equate the two. One is so much huger in scope and not voluntary. they are so different foundationally that it is just not proper to say equate them to each other.
I don't support the big brother cameras everywhere, either. We are creating a society of people that depend on someone else to make their decisions and police their actions. We are teaching our kids that freedom is dangerous and not important. So we get an entire generation that values only a false sense of safety and that will sell away any liberty to get it. I'm not sure how you can't see the connection. I assume it's because you don't want to.
I don't see this the way you do because by your own statements you are lumping ALL surveillance into the big brother category. Not every type of surveillance is bad. I have cameras looking around my property. That isn't bad. I believe in private individuals being able to use security cameras in their homes and businesses because I believe in individual rights and I also believe in individuals being able to secure their property.
When government requires us to do it, or forces us to be under surveillance and there is no ability to say no, that's a different context. I am unsure why YOU cannot understand the difference between govt-enforced surveillance and private individuals using the same tech in their own homes and vehicles. Try not lumping all security things into one big bowl because they all don't belong together.
Hey, I totally agree with you about not wanting government to take over parenting, but I'm sorry, they've done a hell of a lot more conditioning of kids just by being in public schools. Me, I'm a homeschool advocate, or at least a biblically-based private religious school. They get a lot more patriotism and real American history there than just about any typical public school, without being forced to take homosexual questionnaires they want to hide from parents.
And don't get me wrong, I do understand your concern here. I'm just saying several things here: I am all in favor of conscientious parents trying to nip their kids' patterns of lying to them in the bud because as parents they know this is not a good habit for their kid to have (Bill Clinton come to mind here?). If technology can help concerned parents nix this behavior and get the kid to recognize lying is wrong and mom and dad aren't mindless idiots who'll just believe anything she says, I think it's a valuable life lesson.
Like i said before, not every advance in surveillance is a bad thing. Surveillance technology, like any technology, is neutral - the intent of the user determines whether it's good or bad. Ultrasounds help doctors identify defects nad correct some of them before a baby is even born. In an abortionists' hands, it helps them rip apart an unwanted baby more efficiently.
I'm not nearly as worried parents (at least these parents) are going to abuse or scar their kids as much as I am worried that government (schools, etc) are desensitizing kids to surveillance or tracking. There is a huge difference in scope and control.
Just as you pointed out, parents can't control their kids. Once they're out of the house, they can pretty much do what they want. This wasn't even an example of real-time surveillance. But government schools and such track times kids come in and leave, where they go, what visitors come into the school, and more. It is still true today that parents can't control their kids, even with a recording device such as this. There are so many ways she could have gotten around this it's not funny. With a government-implanted chip or a government device on your car, how do you get around that?
I think the larger issue you're worried about is that kids aren't being taught what the limits of authority govt has. We can tell govt to stuff it. Schools don't teach it. The solution in my opinion is to get kids out of the govt schools and into schools that teach limited govt and that freedom requires eternal vigilance. I guess I just don't see parents using a new device to help teach their daughter an important life lesson about lying as automatically being the same as government-mandated tracking and surveillance.
Hey, I gotta say, I like your car. Looks like you did a great job with it.
I also wanted to mention I liked that horrendous pic of Pelosi you posted in another thread yesterday.
Thank you.
I woound up re-reading this one. Have you seen and talked to kids today? Most have very little respect for their elders or authority. They don't care about trying to impress teachers or their parents. If their parents don't like what they're doing, they just do not care at all. They're being taught in an atmosphere of moral relativism and an atmosphere that teaches them to think mom and dad are stupid and that they don't have to listen to mom and dad if it makes them feel bad or hurts their self-esteem.
No, mom and dad have to ACCEPT them for who they are and what they want to do. If they want to have sex, they will. It's mom and dad's problem if they don't like it.
They are taught often so well that I am surprised that teachers seem puzzled why they can't control their classes anymore. Or that kids tell them 'F#CK YOU' to their faces and know there's nothing they can do about it.
Kids of today question authority much more than kids in the fifties did. today's kids have very little conscience and very little self-introspection. That's the scary part - I had a step-brother like this about 11-12 years my junior, and the kid just had no concept of right and wrong or any remorse over doing anything bad.
This is the future to be scary about. People like this are going to kill a whole bunch of other people and not bat an eye.
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