I love Dennis Taylor. No, really; he gives me the best excuses
to pontificate. I could not hire anyone to shill for me the way Mr.
Taylor does for free.
I love Dennis Taylor. No, really; he gives me the best excuses to pontificate. I could not hire anyone to shill for me the way Mr. Taylor does for free.
In his column of April 27, Mr. Taylor wonders why we oppose the Santa Clara County Library System, merely because it allows minors to have access to pornography on library Internet terminals. He adds: “Yet these are the same people who vehemently support the right to own assault weapons!”
Love the parallel, Mr. Taylor! I may even have used it myself, five or six years ago, but no harm in doing so again. Let us extend the analogy.
In our society, there is information that is legal for everyone: scientific, literary, artistic, and political information, for example. Then there is harmful matter, or erotica, as Councilman Bob Dillon prefers to call it, which is legal for adults to own, but a misdemeanor to display, distribute, or exhibit to anyone under 18, according to California Penal Code 313.
Then there is obscenity, hard-core porn, which is illegal for anyone, according to CA PC 311. And there is child pornography, possession of which is a felony.
Making the parallel with firearms, there are weapons, such as pocket knives and sling shots, which are legal for anyone to own. There are weapons such as single-shot and semi-automatic rifles and pistols and shotguns, which adults can keep and bear, but children may only use under adult supervision.
There are automatic weapons, which, last time I checked, one needs a federal permit to own. And there are nuclear bombs, possession of which would probably land one at Gitmo for an indefinite stay.
Now, the county library Internet terminals are filtered on the children’s side of the library. But children are not restricted to the children’s terminals.
(Some library systems do restrict children to the children’s side, or allow them access to unfiltered terminals only with parental supervision, or only with parental consent. That would be a common sense approach, and we did suggest it to our library.
Other libraries have policies prohibiting pornography in the library; others filter all terminals. We suggested some such course of action be adopted. We worked for four years, often 20 hours a week “to get the library to solve the porno problem some other way,” as Mr. Harlan Breneman suggests. No dice.)
In Santa Clara County Libraries, if a patron complains to a librarian that a child is porn-surfing, the librarian is apt to say, “The child has a right to look at whatever he wants. Please respect the privacy of the child.”
If a parallel situation existed for guns, one would be able to walk into a county agency, say the sheriff’s department. In the lobby, one would find some unlocked cabinets. One, marked “CHILDREN,” would be stocked with squirt guns and wrist rockets. Another would shelve .45’s, .357 magnums, semi-autos, automatics, and, with a little digging in the back of the cabinet, some dirty bombs.
And if a citizen in the lobby on other business told the sheriff’s deputy on duty, “Excuse me, but that 12-year-old seems to be helping himself to a machine gun,” the deputy would respond, “The child has a right to keep and bear whatever arms he wants. Please respect the privacy of the child.”
Insane? Yes. It is absolutely insane that a government agency is doing what is illegal for any entity: allowing the distribution, exhibition, and display of pornography to minors. If 7-11 were pulling a stunt like that, the police would shut them down. And if the police didn’t, a boycott would bring them to their senses right quick.
But the county library system is not vulnerable to boycott. Their money keeps coming in regardless … unless we vote NO on measures A and B. The only control we have over the county library system is votes and taxes.
The measures will probably pass. Everybody loves libraries. I understand. I used to love the public library myself, until I went toe-to-toe with the ALA. They have very different standards: “All materials to all patrons, regardless of age.”
