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It’s becoming too easy to spot instances when both liberals and conservatives oppose tenets that are traditionally attributed to them. The left, who supposedly support free speech, is currently pushing to have the Fairness Doctrine, which is nothing more than legislation to have the government not only regulate but mandate particular speech, brought back in an effort to promote “fairness” on television and radio talk shows. It appears that this morning conservatives have had a bit of a position switch, too.
...A federal judge recently struck down the unconstitutional 1998 Child Online Protection Act (HR 3783), which made it illegal for commercial Website operators to allow children to access information that was deemed “harmful.” The judge explained that parents can do the protecting by utilizing filters and blocking software that wouldn’t restrict the free speech rights of others.
...We see a rather interesting change of ideological stance by way of a quote near the end of the story. We usually hear conservatives say that they parents should be the ones to raise—and educate, in the case of public versus private schools and the topic of vouchers—children, free from government intrusion.
...Oddly enough, government attorney Peter D. Keisler said, “It is not reasonable for the government to expect all parents to shoulder the burden to cut off every possible source of adult content for their children, rather than the government’s addressing the problem at its source.”
...Parents paying attention to their children’s Internet surfing is a burden? I thought that the right-wing view of parenting was that parents should have more power in raising their children than the state. Wasn’t it usually a left-wing view that the government should have more say in parenting than the parents? Isn’t that where the concept of “it takes a village to raise a child” originated?
...These are strange days when conservatives and liberals are borrowing ideological points from each other.
References
▪ Houston Chronicle
▪ Library of Congress
...A federal judge recently struck down the unconstitutional 1998 Child Online Protection Act (HR 3783), which made it illegal for commercial Website operators to allow children to access information that was deemed “harmful.” The judge explained that parents can do the protecting by utilizing filters and blocking software that wouldn’t restrict the free speech rights of others.
...We see a rather interesting change of ideological stance by way of a quote near the end of the story. We usually hear conservatives say that they parents should be the ones to raise—and educate, in the case of public versus private schools and the topic of vouchers—children, free from government intrusion.
...Oddly enough, government attorney Peter D. Keisler said, “It is not reasonable for the government to expect all parents to shoulder the burden to cut off every possible source of adult content for their children, rather than the government’s addressing the problem at its source.”
...Parents paying attention to their children’s Internet surfing is a burden? I thought that the right-wing view of parenting was that parents should have more power in raising their children than the state. Wasn’t it usually a left-wing view that the government should have more say in parenting than the parents? Isn’t that where the concept of “it takes a village to raise a child” originated?
...These are strange days when conservatives and liberals are borrowing ideological points from each other.
References
▪ Houston Chronicle
▪ Library of Congress
