Morality is the real 'inconvenient truth'

Do you remember when you might get your mouth washed out with soap for using a dirty word in front of your parents?

Today, that would be child abuse.

Do you remember going to a movie when you were 10 years old and having to cover your eyes whenever the hero and his lady friend got close enough to kiss? Or having to cover your ears to avoid being exposed to the mysterious words "prostitute" or "mistress"?

Today, in many families, you would not have your eyes closed, and it would not just be a kiss you'd be watching.

Do you remember when there were actually things you couldn't say on television and parts of the body you could not publicly expose?

Today, anything goes.

So if you remember the old days, and appreciate them, you are probably as bewildered by the "enlightenment" of American society as I am. Traditional values have been jettisoned as "an inconvenient truth" and been replaced by the more expedient code of "if it feels good, do it."

Indeed, our society today has been so habituated to immoral behavior that most of us don't even know it is immoral any longer. As I've argued previously, that's because morality is based on a group standard of behavior, and in America we have more and more made it impossible for groups to regulate the behavior of their members. Instead of having the freedom to exercise their moral judgment, employers, churches, and groups like the Boy Scouts all have to tiptoe through a legal minefield in order to assure that they do not violate someone's God-given right to be offensive.

Backed by one court order after another, what could be called the apotheosis of the individual has made it almost impossible for modern society to regulate itself as a group. The group must always bow to the individual, not the other way around. This sounds great to our liberty-loving people until you realize that the proper word for such a system is anarchy.

Let's look at one simple example of this to make the problem more understandable.

Society for many years has provided libraries as a way for individual citizens to access reading material and information. The individual could request a certain book, but it was always up to the librarian to decide on behalf of the town or county what would actually be available in the library. The individual never had an unlimited right to access any and all books, just the ones carried by the library.

That is essentially a case of the group deciding what is appropriate for the individual, since typically libraries are funded by public dollars and thus must answer to the community for what is on their shelves. This system has worked fine for hundreds of years, and it has always been understood that you don't go to the local library to check out X-rated movies or Hustler magazine. Such acquisitions would simply not be tolerated by the people whose tax dollars are funding the library.

But when the Internet revolutionized the information-services industry (including libraries) it appears that society's standards were revolutionized as well. As anyone who receives e-mail or uses the Google search engine knows, there are many portals to sexually explicit, X-rated material on the Internet. And yet libraries across the United States have made a decision to allow unregulated Internet use on their public computers, no matter how vile or offensive the content is, and no matter how young the user is.

The argument is that the only way to restrict access to pornography on the Internet is to use imperfect filters which would also unintentionally eliminate useful Web sites such as medical or scholarly ones. Thus, supposedly, library patrons would be having their First Amendment right to free speech violated.

This is foolish in several regards. First of all, there is no right to have free access to published material as part of the First Amendment; the library clearly is under no obligation to provide Internet access to its patrons at all. Rather Internet access is a privilege, and may be granted or abridged at the will of the grantor.

Think of it this way: A library which for some reason did choose to make Hustler magazine available would clearly have a right to put it behind a counter where adult patrons would have to ask permission to view it. There is no difference between that counter to restrict access to dirty magazines and filtering the Internet to restrict access to pornography.

Patrons needing to access information that is filtered could ask the librarian for assistance. Medical and other appropriate requests could be handled on an individual basis. And libraries which thought it appropriate to stock Hustler magazine could also allow Internet users to cruise the online porn aisle, presumably behind a curtain.

But the fact of the matter is that in most libraries there is no curtain, and there is no restriction.

The American Library Association takes the view that Internet filters are a form of censorship, and thus by definition inherently evil. According to their web page, "Regardless of their methods, filters … all block constitutionally protected speech." As we have already discussed, this presupposes that freedom of "speech" also gives people the right to "hear" whatever they want - wherever and whenever they want. One ALA spokeswoman, Judith Krug, said "Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for pornography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it."

This is the same American Library Association which says, "librarians are partners with parents." Hmmm, that's a strange idea of parenting: "If you don't like it, don't look at it. But if you happen to get a look at it, maybe you will develop a taste for it. And then, we are ready to help. Remember: Anything goes!"

The trouble is that our courts are inclined to agree that people have the right to watch or read anything they want, no matter how offensive it is to traditional values, decency or community standards. Every year, the American Civil Liberties Union pushes one case after another to the Supreme Court to chip away at the right of society to regulate itself. And more often than not, the Supreme Court goes along for the ride.

That's why today in most American libraries, you or your 10-year-old child could be visiting the reference room when you get to be the uninvited bedside guest of an athletic and energetic young couple engaged in the non-Olympic sport of "frisky frolicking."

When I was a kid, that wasn't considered constitutionally protected speech; it was considered obscenity. There were laws against it, and anyone caught exhibiting it in public would probably do a little jail time. But not anymore. Now, if you see this kind of material on a computer in a library and complain, the librarian is supposed to tell you "If you don't like it, don't look at it."

Thanks, American Library Association.

Fortunately, the Flathead County Library System does have a somewhat more traditional approach to decency than the ALA would recommend. In fact, according to Library Director Kim Crowley, there are actually filters on the children's computers.

The library's "Internet Safety and Acceptable Use" policy, however, notes that "although access to filtered search engines will be provided, library staff members will not require that children utilize such filtered search engines for their research." Doesn't exactly sound stringent. Moreover, children have full access to the unfiltered computer terminals elsewhere in the library as well.

Although Crowley says there has not been a big problem with library patrons viewing inappropriate material, it does happen.

"If someone is accessing an inappropriate site, we tell them it is not appropriate here, give them one warning, and ask them to leave the library," Crowley said.

That's a good start. Also, the library's policy clearly states that "Internet computers will not be used by anyone, including minors, for illegal activity, to access illegal materials, or to access materials deemed to be obscene under the definition as stated in the Montana Code Annotated, 45-8-201."

That law is clear. Among other definitions, "A thing is obscene if… it is a patently offensive representation … of normal ultimate sexual acts …; or … it is a patently offensive representation or description of … lewd exhibition of the genitals… and appeals to the prurient interest in sex … and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."

It is interesting to note that the same statute says the offense of obscenity is committed when a person knowingly "sells, delivers, or provides" any picture or other representation of the obscene to anyone under the age of 18. Considering that the Internet is an information "delivery" system, one would think that libraries in Montana would be eager to get those filters up and running to make sure they are not "providing" obscene material to youngsters.

On the other hand, if they don't, who's going to do anything about it?

After all, anything goes.