Morality Police
- Thread starter Rockslinger
- Start date
Even in Ontario there is a large difference between a mother breast feeding an infant in a quiet nook in the Houses of Parliament and surfing porn sites on a computer in a public library.
I am strongly anti-censorship, but I also willingly accept that there are limits regarding generally-accepted bounds of behaviour. Shouting "fire" in a movie theatre is the classic example of justified censorship. I think Canada is very generous in its definition of what those bounds are. Ontario moreso than even most other (very liberal) Canadian provinces.
The problem I have with the "porn in the library" scenario is that children in the library could very easily see screen shots that they should not be exposed to. As adult citizens, while it is of course not our job to raise strangers' children or to define the (legal) content of what they can be exposed to (that's mom and dad's job) it is our responsibility to protect Canada's children from what a normal, rational person would consider inappropriate. I think that even on a prostitution-related website like TERB, most of us would agree that children should not be exposed to pornography. Viewing escort websites on a library computer could very easily expose children to pornography, and so it should not be done.
That said, I am also not a fan of women breastfeeding their babies in public. Masturbation and defecation are normal, healthy physical acts that everyone does. Behind closed doors. And that is where breast feeding and surfing porn belong too.
The problem I have with the "porn in the library" scenario is that children in the library could very easily see screen shots that they should not be exposed to. As adult citizens, while it is of course not our job to raise strangers' children or to define the (legal) content of what they can be exposed to (that's mom and dad's job) it is our responsibility to protect Canada's children from what a normal, rational person would consider inappropriate. I think that even on a prostitution-related website like TERB, most of us would agree that children should not be exposed to pornography. Viewing escort websites on a library computer could very easily expose children to pornography, and so it should not be done.
That said, I am also not a fan of women breastfeeding their babies in public. Masturbation and defecation are normal, healthy physical acts that everyone does. Behind closed doors. And that is where breast feeding and surfing porn belong too.
CapitalGuy said:
Yours is an intelligent and rational post with no immature name calling so I will respond in kind.
I logged on to "Triple X Ladies" simply to get their telephone number. There was no surfing of porn sites. Really no different than if someone turned on their Blackberry. And much less explicit than Gwen Jacob walking topless down the street.
As I mentioned, I did call Library HQ the day after. They have debated the issue of deciding what their patrons can or cannot view in a free and open society (we are not in Islamic Iran) and decided the limit is what the law permits. They have also decided not to install filters on their adult computers (they do on their children computers).
The HQ lady also said that it is inappropriate for someone to look over my shoulders at what I or any other patron is viewing when we are using the computers.
The HQ lady agreed that what I was viewing was perfectly within my legal rights and within library policy. (BTW I did comply with that morality policewoman's demands as a matter of courtesy. She is the type who will also probably complain about the Gay Pride Parade.)
CapitalGuy said:
I respect the fact that you are not a fan of women breastfeeding their babies in public
, but can we count on you and all TERBIES to defend to the death a woman's constitutional right to breastfeed her babies in public if she so choses?Rockslinger said:
Maybe you just should have started singing 'O Canada' at her, loud as a bastard.
jwm
LIM said:
These are reasonable questions. Here is my response.
In order to contrast the incredible human rights we have in Canada, I need to compare what we have to what people in other countries don't have but are willing to die to gain such rights. Islamic Iran is an appropriate and easily recognizable contrast. Not a personal grudge (I am not Iranian and the mullahs never did anything to me personally) but I have several Iranian friends who have suffered and their families and friends back home in Iran are still suffering at the hands of the Islamic mullahs, therefore I take every opportunity to remind people of the gross violation of human rights perpetrated by the Islamic mullahs.
I like the people of Iran but I hate the murderous Islamic Iranian mullahs.
