Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Be Heartless

Should we have guns in every home or should we take them away, lock them up, disable them and make them inaccessible because children can find them, and play with them, and shoot each other? Could you be so heartless and lacking in compassion to really want the burden of knowing that your opposition to common sense laws that disarm you resulted in death or injury to a child? We simply must take action for the children’s sake.

Can you defend pornography? Should we have books in our library where children could stumble upon Michelangelo’s David standing there with his winkie exposed for all to see? Would you want your child reading a book about homosexuals? Do you want your daughter to get information on abortion? Want your adolescent son to get on a library computer and look up porn on the internet? We have an obligation to make our libraries safe for the children, don’t we? If I leave my third grader there after school I want to know that they wouldn’t find something I wouldn’t want them to see.

Have you heard that rap music and those vile lyrics? Do you want children exposed to that sort of racist slang and misogynistic attitudes? There clearly needs to be restrictions on what is published and recorded and videoed because children can gain access to it. We’ve got to protect them, don’t we?

Well, now we’ve got this taken to extremes:

Do It For the Children

Frankly, I don’t think so. I simply refuse to live in a world that is safe for children. Got that? I want my guns. I want them loaded and accessible. I’ll exercise my adult responsibilities and train children how to properly handle guns. I’ll monitor them so they don’t have hours to explore and get into danger from them. I’ll take away the novelty and mystique and teach them respect for weapons. That’s what I’m willing to do for the children.

I’ll defend to the death the total unrestricted access to information and the arts in our libraries. I abhor the mere thought of a library filled with only that information which is safe for a third grader. I’ll support children’s sections, but won’t lock things out of the adult collection. I’ll set up dedicated children’s access computers in their area. I’ll demand that children not be left unsupervised by parents using the library as a daycare center That’s what I’ll do for the kids.

I’ll teach kids respect for women and each other. I’ll try to instill values and good judgment so that crude songs and trash magazines and crap movies aren’t attractive to them. I’ll guide them through their childhood, but I won’t advocate censorship of any kind.

And I definitely won’t link Presidential politics and voting to protection of the children. It is about protection of our nation, our culture and our future. It’s not about the children. Get over it Michelle.

1 comment:

LauraB said...

Quite right in all.

Dad had made it quite clear to us as had Mom what freedoms we had. Even though I'd have considered myself a "punk" I still knew...decorum. Right was right. You could dress up a failure in excuses all you liked but you still knew, inside.

And libraries - the only thing that made me what I am today - should be like churches. Shrines to knowledge, respected, open 24/7 and completely unabridged.