Among my friends, there are plenty of ex-Slashdot readers. They just couldn't take the number of asinine contributors in the discussion threads, and I don't blame them for avoiding the site.
I still read the front page on most days, because are usually two or three items that are worth reading. Occasionally, I will read a thread if there is a good chance the participants aren't mentally out to lunch. But on any political topic, the lefty-libertarian fringe comes out in full force, screaming at the top of its lungs about Bushitler MONITORING MY FREAKING BROADBAND CONNECTION!!!! This is interlaced with huge doses of adolescent sarcasm, misfired jokes, and signature lines referring to Unix system processes.
Case in point: you know how when you're in a group of people, you can pretty much assume that everyone will agree that kiddie porn is horrible, and child pornographers are the lowest form of human scum? Not on Slashdot. A sample of the discussion is below -- each paragraph is from a different person:
When will the think of the children bullshit stop? It's obvious why they want all this data retention, and it AINT child porn. dataveilance...This is what happens when you let Johnny have a computer in his room.The whole "child porn argument" is poorly thought out. It's a knee-jerk line brought out by politicians when they don't have any other way of garnering support for an unpopular and invasive policy, which is so polarizing that it automatically casts a shadow on anyone who opposes it.
If America sacrifices its ideals and stops being America, there won't be any "American" children to protect.
Wholly 1984 Batman!
This is yet another attempt by the Bush administration to increase domestic surveilance, and to create a de-facto state of permanent constant survelliance on all Americans.
How many people are online? How many of those are surfing for child porn? A depressingly larger number than we'd want, yes, but compared to how mnay people aren't? So they're going to keep records of everyone's activities online and sift through all of that to find the people surfing kiddie porn? Wouldn't it be easier and faster to surf the internet for kiddie porn and bust the sites that are spreading it? Hey, maybe we could have the FBI do that.... no wait, theye're too busy working for the RIAA and the MPAA instead investigating dangerous crimes like they used to.
Well, it's like the AG said, the internet is creating a feedback loop where younger and younger children are exploited. Since there's a lower limit to how young a child can be, those sickos have gone on to fantasize about children that aren't even born yet! That's why they're using cartoons, because they can't take pictures of people who haven't even reached the stage of fertilized egg yet. They're being victimized years before they'll even exist. Think of the future children!
Funny thing is, I can take measures to protect my daughter from sex perverts, but how do I protect her from a government that is slowly turning into an orwellian police state?
I think that laws making child pornography possession illegal are, at best, in line with laws making drug possession illegal to try to reduce the demand to squeeze out drug sellers. We want to step on sexual abuse of children, so we stomp on child pornography production. To stomp on that, we try stomping on child pornography consumers to reduce demand. You're talking about a pretty darn indirect benefit at a potentially steep privacy and civil rights cost.
Ya gotta turn on the filtering, Eric. Tune out all the comments rated lower than, say, 4.
Those are the filtered comments -- all of them are rated 5 (the highest rating, for those of you who aren't "in the know.") I can't even find any that I quoted that were rated 4.
I can just imagine what the other comments say.
I just read a Slashdot thread with some helpful recommendations about child care, like (paraphrased) leave your brats at home when you shop, or test for Downs Syndrome before birth to avoid inconvenience, later (after all, not all life is worth living)...
Not humanity at its best
And... why do they need this law to enforce the laws? The DoJ frequently asks for sweeping laws to basically do away with all of the restrictions that used to be considered fundamental rights by civil, patriotic Americans. Why? To make their job easier, not to keep the public safe. Post USA PATRIOT Act, they asked for the discressionary power to strip native born citizens of their citizenship if they determine that you're a supporter of a terrorist group's front, even if you didn't know it was a terrorist group front.
Sorry, but given the number of success stories that get published in the news about them bagging the perverts without these laws, I don't buy the need. The existing laws aren't like the drug laws because they actually work at catching people. The existing laws are enforceable. And lest you think that I am some fringe, pro-kiddie porn slashdotter, I can proudly say that my dad was one of the three federal agents that put together the original anti-child porn unit in Customs back when the laws were first getting established in the 80s.
"The DoJ frequently asks for sweeping laws to basically do away with all of the restrictions that used to be considered fundamental rights by civil, patriotic Americans." What on earth could that possibly mean?
More to the point: I wasn't talking about legislation. I was talking about the nutters who think there shouldn't be any laws prohibiting kiddie porn. You don't seem to be one of those, Mike, so I'm not referring to you.