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June
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Of Bits, Bytes, And Content
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A Celebration Is In OrderPlease excuse me while I diverge from the NBA for a moment in my continuing series of online editorializing. As hopefully most of you are aware (even those of you overseas), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled specific provisions in the Communications Deceny Act violated free speech guarantees in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Go ahead, take the time to read the U.S. Constitution. (And if you can read PDF files, also check out this version of the Bill of Rights.) It's pretty clear isn't it?
Suffice it to say, our leaders, who have supposedly been sworn to uphold the Constitution, need to be reined in every so often. I won't get into why it's necessary, or speculate on why they insist on overstepping their bounds. But a generally conservative Supreme Court nearly unanimously (the two contrary votes still recognized that the provisions were unconstitutional) struck the provisions down.
What Next?
Unfortunately, the White House still doesn't get it. Demagoguery at its worst. The Government can solve your problems by mandating uniform solutions, by being the parent you choose not to be.
And Congress is sure not done yet. They will try once again, just with different tactics. The battle may be one, but the war is not.
I will be watching.
How Should Control Be Maintained?
To be honest, I'm torn on the issue. In general, government can never get the issue right. Lawmakers, in general, are incapable of crafting a sensible approach to free speech issues. I don't trust them to ever get it quite right.
However, complete freedom for these activities is out of the question. That is NOT guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. So, where, and more importantly HOW, do you draw the line? I'm not ready to answer that question yet.
But if you're allowing a computer connected to the Internet to be a surrogate parent for you, then you are losing out on one of life's greatest pleasures (and, at times, frustrations): raising children.
This opinion of mine is not done being formed. Give me some time, I might write something better (and more focused). In the meantime, I'll provide a good, clean resource on the history of the Zephyrs/Bullets/Wizards franchise.
wtf 29 June 1997
