| Posted: 27 March 2021 at 11:30am | IP Logged | 10
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Hi Marc. I'll bite.
First let me say this: I think the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are both very broad, and refer to an array of people with varied beliefs. I often find myself disagreeing with other Republicans on a variety of issues, so I don't feel its necessary to "square my sentiments" with anyone else, but I'm willing to discuss all of these topics, and whether I believe these laws fit the definition of conservativism from my point of view.
Personally, I've always looked at these types of things in the same way the Supreme Court analyzes a statute. First by asking whether the statute addresses a legitimate state interest, and (assuming it does), then determining whether the statute goes too far. In other words, does it do more than necessary?
Starting with the UT statute, I think the state has a legitimate interest in keeping pornography out of the hands of children. Is the filter a reasonable solution? Maybe, but we need to know more about how it works.
It would definitely be government over reach if access to content was blocked for adults, but the article I read indicated adults can easily disable the filter.
I agree with Peter that defining pornography could be problematic, but I think there are some materials the vast majority of people would agree are not appropriate for children. The other concern I have would be how well the tech works. Assuming we could agree on what content should be filtered, can we be sure the tech will only filter that content, and nothing else?
If you can solve these problems, then I think the statute would be okay.
I don't like the Pennsylvania law. I'm against censorship, including the removal of gay literature you mentioned from libraries. I know that sounds hypocritical given that in this same post I'm agreeing that pornography should be censored for kids. But banning books strikes me as a different type of censorship because we are silencing speech; including political speech.
I think the state has a legitimate interest in preventing censorship, but this bill is not narrowly tailored to address that. There are a number of problems, including: - The funding that's being blocked is unrelated to the purpose of the legislation, and there is too much potential for this to be used inappropriately or as a political weapon.
- As Michael pointed out, all libraries curate their content. No library has the capacity to carry every book in the world, so some must be cut. As long as these decisions are not motivated by the desire to silence certain voices, curation does not equal censorship, but the statute is too broad to recognize that.
- The statute is unnecessary, because there are other, existing ways to address this issue, and I think a law could be drafted that is more narrowly tailored to prevent the type of censorship this statute seeks to prevent.
Regarding the issue of trans athletes, I think the government has to take a position. Both public and private organizations that sponsor sports teams are faced with the decision of who is allowed to play on their teams. There will be instances where someone disagrees with their decision and goes to court, claiming they've been unfairly treated, and these cases have to be decided one way or the other. Inevitably, in the absence of a statute, those court decisions will become the law of the land. So there's no way for the government to avoid "sticking their noses in" as you say.
I'm not going to make an argument one way or the other with regard to how they should rule on this issue, because previous discussions on this board have shown that it is extremely complex, and I would want to take more time to inform myself before taking a hard stand. But for the reasons mentioned above, I don't think it is hypocritical for conservatives in government to have an opinion, or to propose legislation to address this.
Lastly, none of the issues you've raised have anything to do with socialism. While I agree the conservative media has broadly painted all Democrats as socialists (which is clearly erroneous), I've never heard specific political opinions that have nothing to do with the economy (you mentioned pro-choice) being characterized as socialist views.
You're obviously an intelligent person and recognize the media is wrong when they refer to all liberals as socialists, so I guess I find it a little amusing that in a discussion about hypocrisy you would deliberately make the same error.
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