Last night, the Middle Son, a high school senior, took part in Model Congress at his school. He has had a longstanding interest in politics and debate and was instrumental in establishing a Model Congress at his school. He came in from the meeting somewhat shaken and distressed.
For the last week, Middle Son had been working on a bill to introduce for discussion and vote. He was interested in developing a mechanism and structure to enforce some minimal standards on the internet. He realized that in the very liberal atmosphere of his school (suburban New York), leaving the policing of the internet to the United States would never win enough votes for passage; any attempt at controlling the internet would have to be under the auspices of the UN, which remains a beacon of idealism for his classmates.
With approximately forty members of the Model Congress in his High School, he was prepared for some argument and contention but what he discovered was troubling.
Middle Son proposed that the internet should be kept free of unnecessary censorship and malicious software. He cited three specific areas in which regulators would be empowered to censor the internet:
Any media that advocates or incites violence.
Any media that advocates or shows real rape.
Any media that advocates or shows individuals under the age of 18 in acts of sex.
When the bill was introduced, the split was approximately 50:50. The content of the objections was what was most amazing to the Middle Son. All the objections had to do with setting limits to people's freedom to see whatever they want on the internet. These quotes are examples of the level of rhetoric and discourse among this group of very bright, very well educated, fairly well-to-do young people living in a wealthy suburb of New York City:
"I object to limiting what people can see. What if they are into those things? Shouldn't they be allowed to see what they want?"
"This bill is narrow minded because its just a stupid American view. Other countries don't have to do what we want."
"We shouldn't have an opinion on what is proper to see because it would impose our opinion on others."
There are two points to emphasize about this.
The first is that the multi-cultural Kool aide has done its job. Some of these youngsters apparently have no capacity for making any moral distinctions.
The second, more optimistic point, is that despite an education from grades 1-12 which has force fed such nonsense, most of these children retain some rudimentary ability to reason and draw appropriate conclusions; the bill eventually passed with only 5 "nay" votes, which means that ~15 of the members were persuaded to reassess their position and change their mind.
When our children are taught that the ethical position is to never make moral judgments about anything (with the exception of regularly arguing that America is the source of all the problems in the world), they are able to glibly assert that even rape and child abuse is acceptable as long as someone, in some culture, is "into" it. It gives me the chills.
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