Planet America

[stanky]

why would kids read porn in the school library when they can watch it on their friend's devices or on their parent's, when they're gone.

[stanky]

I've seen him speaking. His family has arrived at the same conclusion: He's an antivaxxer. And that makes him delusional as well.

How's the nettle treatment coming along there stank?

if you've decided i'm a pro-trump anti-vaxer, you'd be twice mistaken.
why this fog of delusion? it's the flip side of maga.
that the two won't 'allow' three should be telling.
they're unified in limiting democracy

nettles, good.
like a vaccine.

(although it's actually been short spike noseburn, not technically nettles, a vine from further south, i gather)

[Meadmaker]

Please define "pornography".

As a Supreme Court justice, whose name I forget, once said, "I know it when I see it."


I'm quite confident you use that word in sentences at least occasionally. When you do, I'm sure you know what you are talking about.

Indeed, but I am not a lawmaker. Lawmakers have to be extremely precise. They are the ones who are going to have to define it, and even then there will undoubtedly be a certain amount of ambiguity.

Pornography: n. 1. Material of a sexual nature which, when read aloud at a school board meeting, makes everyone in the room wish that the reader would stop.

[Meadmaker]

In all seriousness, though, this gambit has been tried before, with some success. People complain that since there are multiple interpretations of certain words, regulation can never happen. e.g. since you and I might not agree on what the word "pornography" means, we cannot regulate what goes on in public schools. Specifically, we cannot forbid explicit and lascivious descriptions of oral sex, sometimes including illustrations, becuase somebody says that in his opinion, it's not pornography, or not lascivious, or .....whatever.


And that's what I mean when I say that Democrats got so stupid that people embraced the Republican reaction. Most people don't want to run around policing content for naughty bits, but when someone says, "By the way. The middle school library has a book about ten year olds engaging in fellatio and the Democrats want it to stay there", an awful lot of Americans say, "Screw it. I'm voting Republican."

[stanky]

i'm in a "question everything" mode lately.
so i must ask "what if there's nothing wrong with kids watching porn? That it benefits them somehow; gets it out in the open; gets it over with quick. kid watches one or two, has no compelling interest beyond that; no longer has to fantasize looking up judy's dress to see what one looks like, etc. I'm not promoting this. i'm promoting that our sacred cows deserve examination and review; that our morality may be askew in ways that aren't challenged.

porn doesn't interest me, though i've seen some. never saw the credits, though.

they say the children of the plain's indians got to see some fucking in the teepee over those long cold winters.
privacy, in such settings, is a gift that's bestowed upon you by considerate cell mates. kids learn it quick. so do dogs.
that, mostly lost to modernization. but the opportunity should (perhaps) exist? To develop consideration of people's space.

[sparks]

I've seen him speaking. His family has arrived at the same conclusion: He's an antivaxxer. And that makes him delusional as well.

How's the nettle treatment coming along there stank?

if you've decided i'm a pro-trump anti-vaxer, you'd be twice mistaken.
why this fog of delusion? it's the flip side of maga.
that the two won't 'allow' three should be telling.
they're unified in limiting democracy

nettles, good.
like a vaccine.

(although it's actually been short spike noseburn, not technically nettles, a vine from further south, i gather)

What makes you think I've decided that you are a pro Mango antivaxxer? Where the fuck did you get that?
Fog of delusion? Because, generally speaking, peeps who buy into shit without evidence, like antivaxxers are also delusional. This is a matter of fact, not opinion.
Can't speak to your next point about two not allowing three etc. except to note that IMHO if the third was ever any fucking good at it, the two would be left in their own shit and we might end up with a decent elected official for a change. But no. It rarely happens.

[Admin]

Don't get me wrong. I like pornography. I just don't think the schools should be providing access to it. What has happened in America is that the left got so stupid that people have supported the right wing overreaction. I find myself looking for middle ground, and not finding it from any politician.

Nah, you'd be so far right of centre in an actual democracy - like NZ - you'd be classed as far-right.

Of the three right-wing parties governing NZ right now, 2 of them are pretty far right by normal standards, and neither of them want to ban any books or stop giving people free money, so you'd right of them, even.

Some of the books are pornography? How many is some?

All I can find is this, which is actually two lists: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/po ... 603297007/

The first list contains works that are universally acknowledged as some of the finest literature in the English language. The only surprise to me is that it doesn't include The Diary of a Young Girl. She masturbates in it and is underage - you can't get more pornographic than that!

The second list is largely unknown to me and seems to contain a lot of books that are about LGBT love. That's so pornographic I'm surprised they even published them - people of the same sex fucking? Horrendous.

So, if you'd like to state which ones you consider pornographic, I'm actually interested.

they say the children of the plain's indians got to see some fucking in the teepee over those long cold winters.

Obviously, the further back you go in time, the higher the likelihood of adults not caring if kids watched them - there ain't much privacy in a cave, and few ancient civilisations lived in multi-bedroom places. Houses in England were so overcrowded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that often there were only two bedrooms - one for boys and one for girls, because it was well-known that if you put dad or brothers in with girls, they'd be dropping babies from age 12.

Not to mention, even now, kids who grow up on farms have a perfect sex education right outside their house.

No doubt Brave New World is on the list of banned books because Russell thought there was no harm in letting kids explore themselves and others of the same age. And that kids want to explore is undeniable - when my oldest was a toddler, the two 6 year old girls (both only-child) in the same house tried to see his penis as often as they could, and he proudly related to me a story from school at age 5 where he and his little friend showed each other their privates. (Yes, it was a girl)

Sadly, some adults take advantage of that, and here we are.

[Meadmaker]

so i must ask "what if there's nothing wrong with kids watching porn? ....

Perfectly legitimate questions. Maybe it does no harm at all.

There are certain things that, in the public schools, we demand our children be exposed to, and that includes that I, as a citizen, demand that other people's kids be exposed to. There are other things that I allow them to investigate within the public school system. There are other things that I keep out of the public school system, but allow parents to present to their own children if they wish. Finally, there are a few things that I absolutely prohibit under any circumstances, with or without parental approval.

There are certain books, including books that I and others have labelled pornographic, that have caused controversy in Ameria, because some people insist that those books should be in one of the first two categories (required or allowed), while the majority of people think they ought to be in the third category (restricted to parental approval), and a few people think they ought to be in the fourth category (totally prohibited).

That's the issue that everyone is fighting about. As is so often the case, some people want to spin it into something it isn't, but that's the controversy in a nutshell. Should "Lawn Boy" and other books be required, allowed, allowed with parental consent, or prohibited?

Why is it that people insist on putting those books in category one or two, and raise Hell and demonize the people who want them in category three? That isn't just a rhetorical question.

[Meadmaker]

All I can find is this, which is actually two lists: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/po ... 603297007/

By including "challenged books" and "books under review", it really distorts the reality of the situation.

Has "Raisin in the Sun" been challenged? i.e. is there some moron somewhere who thinks it's a good idea to have the State of Oklahoma override the decision of the local school board to include that book on shelves? I'm sure someone has done so.

Did the challenge succeed? I seriously doubt it.

But that is what makes everything sensational. "They want to ban 'Lord of the Flies'!!!!" Who the heck is "they"? Oh....don't forget Huck Finn. A great book. Classic literature. Frequently appears on lists of books left wingers want to exclude from school libraries. This book banning thing was once a province of the right in America, and then became a left wing thing, and is now back to right wing.


Personally, I think my favored approach is that state governments should never prohibit any books from being on school library shelves, but school boards, elected locally, should have very broad power to choose which books are not allowed on school shelves in their districts. However, people on left and right have rejected that method for different reasons.

A staple of youtube videos over the last couple of years has been a school board meeting recording where someone starts reading a book and is asked to stop because the content is too explicit for that setting. The point they are making by reading the book is so obvious that no one ought to pretend not to understand it.

[Meadmaker]

I should emphasizze that in my opinion, the right wing, in places like Oklahoma and Florida, really have gone too far, i.e. farther than I would like.

That's what I mean by embracing the reaction. Because the left tried to push things into schools which really ought not to have been there, the middle ground accepted the right wing alternative.