So, Minister, since when were the civil liberties of porn users more important than those of children?



And Mel knows this how? Don't go there Rob just don't go there............



Parents are ultimately responsible for limiting their children's access to porn. Although this is more of a mail type moral panic. Kids, especially teenagers, watch and look at porn. I know plenty of kids who did, myself included, so no real panic. My kid is too young to want to look. Even so, it is not that hard to monitor his internet access.

That said....

How do we keep children away from viewing some of the genuinely vile and depraved spew that is on the mail website?

Freedom of the press?

Go fuck yourself....

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

It's all over the place, isn't it? Parents are supposed to set up schools and all that, but they can't be trusted to keep an eye on their kid's internet.

I don't know what age you're concerned with here, but this only holds if you assume the parents are computer-literate and the child not so much. There are many families where this is not the case. Some kids know their way around a computer at (to me) an amazingly prodigious age. Many parents are much less skilled, and in my experience unfamiliarity is highest among single mothers, immigrant families, and poorer households.

I think it's something of a middle-class fallacy to assume that all adults work with computers these days and must be able to master what are fairly complex operations. That chimes well with the equally middle class idea that parents should take responsibility for what their children get up to on the computer: you're effectively demanding that parents keep pace with their kids' technical knowhow. I'm not a parent, but if I were, I wouldn't be able to do this — I'd need to pay someone to show me how to install filters and explain how tracking software works, and even then it would require an inordinate amount of time and effort on my part.

What intrigues me is the phrase "lurking just a few clicks away...", as if pornography is some sort of sentient creature, lying in wait for nice middle class kids in the dark corners of the Internet. And that in turn, the Internet is cast as some sort of labyrinth, where people wander blindly, stumbling over whatever lies round the next corner.

To which, bollocks. Although the matters of search engine optimisation (where keywords are used to promote certain sites on searches - so if you ever see an article starting "Celebrities, like Rihanna...", or see a picture from the latest blockbuster movie used to accompany a article on estate agents, that's SEO) and article weighting (where a search for info on, say, MLK might turn up a link to a Stormfront site) are important and in some cases of great concern, generally, you find what you search for.

The entire point is that in typical Mad Mel style, she's quick to abdicate responsibility for the bad stuff. It's not the parents fault - they're either too busy, or the kids clever enough to bypass the parental controls. Nor is it the fault of the kids - the Internet did it and ran away.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

Then perhaps they should educate themselves before letting their children perform an activity that they, the parents, don't know a lot about?

To be frank, most people I know take a lot of steps to ensure that their kids are safe online. I know I do. There are situations where it is not always possible to monitor kids internet activity. That's part and parcel of the anxiety of being a parent and being ultimately responsible for making sure your kid's needs are met.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

Hallelujah! A family court judge has told the truth about the damage divorce wreaks on children

The truth = ignorant Mailite dogma.


Weasel. There are fewer marriages than a century ago, but the number is rising. That's why the number of divorces is up, too. The percentage of marriages ending in divorce has declined slightly over the last 20 years. But mere numbers will not hold Phillips back.


How is this measured? What's the alternative — should parents stay together, miserable and loveless?


It marks you, for sure. But to suggest that children "never recover" requires a belief that they lived in some intrinsic state of purity and contentment beforehand.
Note the link made between single parents and criminality.


So true. This is the only reason for divorce, ever.


It's no fun picking this argument apart, is it? Too easy.


Being stuck in a house with miserable people who hate each other is not good for anyone's welfare. Children are perceptive. They notice.


So the best way to ensure stable families is to bribe people into getting married? The opportunity to get on your high horse and look down at the unmarried rabble is apparently not enough of a privilege.


She didn't? Lolz!

I wish my parents had stayed together when I was 9. I found it hard to cope without all the rowing at night and seeing them miserable.

Me and my partner aren't married - our son's fucked isn't he? Still, as long as he doesn't grow up to be a nasty vicious right-wing arsehole we'll have got off lightly.

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MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

I normally like to just lurk here rather than post but this line:



is just something else. Even accepting for the sake of argument that all the other fuckery on display here is fine, what sane person of any political bent could be upset about this? "Bloody liberals, can't even punish people for the mere fact of having been born anymore..." Really, totally despicable person is Mel.

That's because they don't support favouring marriage in the tax system?

Or is it party policy to have affairs?

I love the idea (also expressed in the Telegraph) that "liberals" went around telling people not to get married and all. They've got such a patronising view of the public, the hard right, haven't they?

How do StainlessSteelRat? - good point and good name!

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MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

Yeah, welcome!

I saw a debate with both Philips and Charles Murray on the panel- Jack Straw was the token centrist. An old man in the audience stood up and asked Murray about stigma, saying his mother was a prostitute and he had no idea who his father was. Murray said something like, um, yeah. Can't remember what Philips said.

How do

I think that quote really sums up that sort of attitude. All the 'think of the children' stuff is just wondow dressing. What she means is 'think of the children of people I like'. Ostracizing illegitimate kids is fine because they'll probably only grow into ambulant tracksuits that make her drive to work depressing anyway.

Ah. The Stainless Steel Rat in the wainscot of the forum.
Welcome aboard, Slippery Jim.

Back at you mate

Now get over to the Introduce Yourself thread and spill.

(I especially want to know why your avatar has a bed pan on his head)