A solution in search of a problem?

Up until now, we have scrupulously avoided delving into politics here, even when such a discussion could arguably be relevant to what this blog is all about. I'm afraid, however, that certain doings out in Utah, which we've become aware of thanks once more to Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News, demand at least some response.

It seems a certain group of activists are convinced that Utah parents are totally incompetent when it comes to protecting their offspring from the ravages of pornography-or, more correctly, what they see as too-easy access to it by children. And, of course, since this is an election year, they have had no trouble getting a state legislator to clamber onto the bandwagon with a bill that, in its initial form, would have essentially shut down all free open hotspots in the state. The Salt Lake Tribune-which in case you didn't know is the daily paper in Salt Lake City that's not owned by the Mormon church-has more details.

Before we go any further, let's make one thing clear. Nothing that follows should in any respect be considered a defense of pornography by any means. Pornography is for the most part everything its detractors say it is. It is demeaning to its subjects, it is dehumanizing both to them and to those who consume it, it trivializes what should be the most valued aspect of our most cherished relationships with one another, and humanity would be better off without it.

Nor can it be argued that young people have any business looking at it. Where I break ranks with the Utah campaigners is over the extreme response they propose. And this is where I'm reluctantly going to have to go political. Does anyone else besides me remember when it was the conservatives who advocated withdrawing the heavy hand of government out from between children and their parents? Didn't Ronald Reagan famously declare that government, instead of being the solution to many of our problems, in fact often was itself the problem? Where, in the debate over issues of what is and isn't appropriate for chlidren, did things get turned around?

There was a time when those decisions were left up to two people; their names were "Mom" and "Dad." And what I believe the Utah group, and like-minded people elsewhere, don't want to admit is that they still can be. Parents are fully capable of setting up controls on laptops or other wireless Internet-capable devices they provide for their children-or having it done for them if they're not technologically savvy enough to do it themselves (another "problem" I really don't think is one any more, at least not to the extent that everyone makes it out to be).

So, if you really think that setting Dick and Jane adrift on The Great Cyber Sea and letting them surf unfettered will turn them into Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos, respectively, the solution is simple, albeit one that won't make great election campaign fodder: Empower their parents to deal with the problem, then get out of their way and let them do it.