Comment by rtkwe
21 hours ago
There are significant factions who would prefer porn be eradicated in it's entirety and laws like this just use 'protecting children' as the more agreable face to their crusade. Ironically the same people who often crow about parental autonomy and how they should be in complete control of their children's education and lives.
For all the talk about free speech and freedoms, a significant portion of the US doesn’t actually want free speech. They want free speech only for things they agree with.
Something that occurred to me a while back that I can’t stop seeing is that Americans fundamentally do not expect laws to actually be enforced and will get angry if they are, even when they voted for those laws. It’s something baked deeply enough into American society that we don’t consciously notice it, but no American actually expects to actually have to follow the laws they’re voting for.
I think from so many examples that many don't think the laws will be imposed on them. See so many latino republicans tearful interviews when their relatives get deported after supporting the Trump 2024 campaign. Or farmers who's business is selling their crops harvested by migrant laborers to overseas buyers. Factory owners or resellers dependent on imported goods. The list goes on and on, with the common theme of "I didn't think it would affect/happen to me!".
It's weirder than that. These people are all downloading porn, but they just want to rally against it to seem pious. Like the politicians voting against gay rights who are frequently discovered in restroom encounters.
This concept can be applied to literally everything.
The idea that what folks say in public / online / amongst their friends is a lot different than what they think behind closed doors.
I noticed that none of our human rights are actually in the Bible.
Implying they have actually read the Bible
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In fact the Bible normalizes many anti-human rights. Subjugation of women, slavery, child abuse, etc.
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This isn't even really it. If you read the section of Project2025 about porn and these sorts of age laws, then barely talk about porn at all. They lead with "transgender ideology" and such. The goal isn't to keep porn away from kids. The goal is to keep anything that offends their desired hierarchy away from kids.
Everybody has a desired hierarchy; and you have one too. Own it; fight for it if you can; and recognize someone has to lose.
This view is the antithesis of the entire, pluralistic, classical liberal project that this country was founded on. Everybody has a hierarchy, and people should, for the most part, be allowed to choose their own hierarchy. The problem isn't that someone dislikes porn or whatever, it's that they try and force it on the rest of us.
Of course. I think that theirs is horrible. I'm not saying that having a preferred way of ordering society is bad. I am saying that oppressing LGBT people is bad.
With no recognition of what harm the desires result in? This is a fast way to all out war.
Have you considered finding middle ground and compromises? Or is war the only option?
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Hierarchies are in and of themselves stupid.
If you think they exist naturally, you're only looking at one of thousands of independent variables. If you average them out, we all tend towards mediocrity.
When someone appeals to hierarchies (e.g., "there's always a bigger fish"), they're just admitting to using a painfully one-dimensional worldview.
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> crow about parental autonomy and how they should be in complete control of their children's education and lives.
Ah yes, those monsters
James Dobson made a career advocating for child abuse including physical abuse for “strong willed children”. Somehow it’s never Focus on the Family that these people want to ban.
The US fought a whole war with itself over whether people should be allowed to own other people. They shouldn't, we decided, except on certain circumstances.
Some parents, finding themselves owning a child, decide to push the boundaries of what they get to do with their possessions to the point that it runs afoul of other laws against how humans treat one another.
I would not call that a decision; it was the victor's dictate.
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Conflating parenting with slavery and ownership is not only a category error but an offensive one. Parental authority isn’t ownership; it’s a duty to safeguard children’s developing autonomy and vulnerability.
Pretending otherwise betrays an indifference to children’s actual welfare, and a disturbing form of motivated reasoning deeply concerning in its implications.
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That’s idiotic; as the amount of control parents are allowed over their children has never been lower compared to historical norms. We’re at the point a minor can get an abortion without parents being informed; which would have been unheard of and unthinkable 50 years ago, let alone the idea that a government would even mandate leaving parents unaware of a sexually active child. That idea didn’t even occur to the most rabid of socialist dreams.
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If it weren't so often about denying them medical care or a proper education or about their ability to abuse them in various ways I'd be more sympathetic. Kids have rights too their parent's don't own them to get to violate their rights just because they're their kids.
Children are human beings who need growing autonomy as they mature, not property of parents. I have several (adult, to be clear) friends who have suffered serious damage due to overly authoritarian parenting.
I agree kids need growing autonomy. Not unlimited autonomy though. The law clearly recognizes this.
Kids can’t sign contracts, I’m liable for damage caused by my kids, I go to jail if my kids skip too much school etc…
In legal terms, children aren't full humans. They literally don't have fully formed brains and there isn't an expectation that they can make decisions that consider the consequences of their actions.
In the sense that a phrase like "growing autonomy" doesn't really mean anything, sure they should get that. Practically, they shouldn't have a lot of autonomy. The concept of childhood education is largely predicated on the idea that children have no idea what is going on and someone else should be inculcating knowledge, values and beliefs in them while making long term decisions on their behalf. And there is a pretty good argument that those values and beliefs ought be aligned with their family.
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Really? Now do the math on all the kids harmed by overly lax parenting. Many of them are literally dead.
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They are monsters because of what they will do to obtain their goals.
I mean yes, treating children as property that you control rather than people you are obligated to care for does make you a monster.
Guardians with a duty of care necessarily exercise control. That's not ownership, it's responsibility.
Evil little fuckers. Who even thinks that the US Federal Government isn’t totally qualified to be in complete control of their children’s education and lives, anyway? Probably some racist Ruby Ridge types (/s)
The hypocrisy is very clearly evident.
And there is nothing on Blue sky that is not appropriate for children over 13-with parental guidance.
They do need to keep the morons, and knuckle dragging lawyers off the platform simply because of their felonious actions and prison records.
There's absolutely porn on there if that's what you're after
Which is where the parental guidance comes in.
My dad gave me my first porn magazine. It was a good thing, too, since by the time I could legally buy a picture of naked ladies I'd already spent a good deal of time in their company.
> And there is nothing on Blue sky that is not appropriate for children over 13-with parental guidance.
I've heard that it's full of furry porn and worse. Is that not the case?
It's certainly not "full of", though I'm sure it's there. I never see it, but then I don't follow people who post it.
I certainly see less random pornographically-tinged content showing up in my day-to-day usage than I did when I was on twitter. The default view being literally only stuff I've explicitly followed does rather change that experience.
I wouldn’t say “full of”, but like other mostly uncensored social media sites like Twitter, it’s definitely there if you’re looking for it (and sometimes even when you’re not).
It is. OP has cleverly redefined everything as being age appropriate with guidance, for convenience.
To be fair, their concern tends to be a more consistent "Don't push these corrupting agents towards me or my society"
If the school curriculum aligned with their belief system, they won't be talking about a need for control
Except “corrupting” in this case often just means “LGBTQ”. In exactly the same way “corrupting influence” used to mean “music made by black people” or “anything pro-worker”.
Corrupting ideas don’t exist. There is truly no such thing as an infohazard. We, as humans, are capable of making up our own minds about things and we don’t need to give this power of censorship over to people who are not acting in good faith.
I've been convinced for a while that the religious angle against queer folk is just a front.
Instead of honest religious conviction, I think the pearl clutching is the manifestation of the collective paranoia of weak men who are terrified that other men are looking at them the same way they look at women.
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> If the school curriculum aligned with their belief system, they won't be talking about a need for control
No they wouldn’t. They don’t want anyone accessing materials they disagree with. Having such materials available on the internet feels like a threat to themselves and their children. They don’t care about collateral damage, they just want more control.
If they had control of the school they wouldn't be talking about needing control of the school?
Well, they would be talking about maintaining control. Control requires constant vigilance to reinforce compliance coupled with making sure there is no disobedience. The latter speaks to "needing control."
Does this make any sense or am I full of hot air?
Just yield and do as they say, and they’ll maybe spare you.