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• Monday, December 12, 2005 04:05 PM

  Does Sen. Stevens Even *Have* Children?

  You know, I will never understand all this hooraw over cable. It seems pretty simple: either lock out the channels you are afraid your kids will watch (Didn't Ned Flanders lock out every channel except PBS?) or, heaven forfend, keep an eye on your kids and stop them from watching the programs you don't want them to see. What's the hard part in this scenario?

  There's plenty of TV I don't want my kids to watch, and I don't let them. It's, ya know, not all that hard.

  I think Heinlein put it well in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:"

  "Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws--always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" – not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it."

  I've never been able to undertand why "conservative" groups--you know, the folks who supposedly want to conserve the original intent of the Constitution--continually try to abridge the First Amendment. They must be doing it "for our own good."

  —Douglas Moran Read Douglas Moran's other letters
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