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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Surething who wrote (7246)	2/12/1998 9:15:00 AM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 71178

Hi Surething, Contrary to our reputation, we at DAR do occasionally express a serious thought or two. There is no particular agenda here, and I am not silly enough to think I could impose one on a group even if I wanted to. I am, in theory, opposed to censorship. As a parent however, I have reason to be concerned over the easy access to what I consider extremely inappropriate material on the Internet. I try hard to monitor what my children see and hear within reason, but as they enter their teens, that becomes an impossibility. These questions about the Internet are examples of the new issues and conflicts technology brings to us as a society. What responsibility, if any, does society have to its young people? Does it take a village to raise a child? Should it? Is there a point at which something is so offensive that some protection, some reasonable restriction is necessary? Most of us I think would agree that abortion at 8 1/2 months would be irresponsible, but many feel first trimester abortions are acceptable and this is legal. We have laws against indecent exposure (although I've seen some bathing suits at family pools that certainly push the envelope on this one). Are these forms of censorship that society decided it must impose to protect others? It would be wonderful if everyone out there had some individual sense of responsibility about what he or she is doing. Unfortunately, they don't or their ideas don't agree with someone else's. So how far can a person go before his "rights" are considered an infringement, a problem? How do we protect our children and still retain our freedoms without government interference? Only when we as individuals accept that we all have some responsibility to each other and to our future (our youth), when we choose to behave independently with integrity and from the structure of a well-considered value system, will this occur. It is from the extremists on both sides that we need protection.

To: Surething who wrote (7246)	2/12/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71178

Surething, This is very upsetting. After my response to you early this am, I called the Dallas office of C.O.N.N.E.D. to request more information and spoke with a lovely woman who initially was polite and helpful. However, when I began to ask her about how they planned to balance constitutional rights with censorship, she became more and more agitated. And when I mentioned that Satanists had rights, too, she became almost abusive. By the end of our conversation, I was trying to remember if I'd given her my name out of fear she was going to report me as an unfit parent because my children are allowed on their computers unsupervised. When she asked for my address and phone number, I hung up, although they may have caller I.D. I have no idea about the goal statements on the national level, which sounded fairly moderate in the article, but here in the Bible Belt, C.O.N.N.E.D.'s intentions are quite clear. Unless we agree with them, we will be targeted as unfit guardians of our children's moral development. I have a call in now to Mr. Nemin at his Washington office, although I'm not optimistic about it being returned. I have also contacted the governor's office and my state representatives in Austin to see if they are aware of this group's alarmingly extremist stance. I'm still shaking. Should I answer the phone?