Maybe politicians should start working to develop resources to help parents raise their children. Preventing access to social networking sites is not the answer. It is time for us to start understanding the internet and online living. Once we do, we can raise our children in a way that will help them function in the online world. This new world isn’t going to go away. We need to understand it and develop ways to survive in that world, just as we do in the “real” world. This includes teaching our kids how to interact and behave in cyberspace. We can’t pretend it is a virtual world. Parents need to parent in cyberspace just as they should in society. The problem is in the parenting and supervision, not the technology.

I think we should take politicians away from the government, honestly. Well, we should take the government away from the government. And run a real democracy, not a frikken limited democratic republic thats slowly turning into a fascist state. Haha, taking away these internet sites is a clear violation of the bill of rights, so yeah. Duh.

Z

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

What makes a successful politician in our system does not make a good law maker or an productive leader. We need to fix this disconnect soon before it all goes (even farther) to hell.

I agree to the laser nattering and un-nattering (if you will) after passing the parenting tests. It sounds really fun and it should fall right between the lines of limiting our liberties and increasing national control, which is the main goal of this government for the next decade, and therefore it should be passed immediately into a law. Brillinat!

I want to be your partner for selling the vasectomy kits on myspace and ebay. =)

Also the Bill of Rights comment is absolutely true. Isn’t myspace a place of free, peaceful assembly? Soon anything without nationalistic overtone will be prohibited and we will start coming out at night to form big, marching swastikas and raid homes of immigrants – they are to blame for our children! Those Mexicans and their degrading morale, bean burritos!

I can understand blocking sites such as myspace from schools etc. because that is not the purpose for computers in school. I’m kind of for that.

Parents need to spend more time with their kids. Take them to a ballgame. Get them involved in things outside of the home that they are interested in. Do things with them. The more time you spend with your children and stay busy doing things with them the less time they will have to wind up in some type of trouble . I know you can’t watch every move your child makes but you can at least put forth the effort to spend as much time with them as possible.

As long as there’s internet access kids will find out alternatives to post their pictures/movies all over the net.

Look at youtube.com– it’s starting to get worst than myspace.

Young kids shakin’ their ass on cam, in there room while their parents are probably watching tv in the living room.

Go away congress. Turn off the internet if you want to solve problems… Better yet, send out packets to parents in the mail lol.

We always say, “Well those yahoos up in Congress are screwing us yet again, blah, blah, blah, well why don’t we, the citizens do something about it, the Declaration of Independence says :

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

Why don’t we follow the advice, if the government is becoming destructive, then isn’t it time that we do something about it?

Once again Congress has found another Target to blame…
Why does seem like every time something bad happens to a child it happens at school?

Why can’t teachers and parents keep control of our children while they are and home or school?

Computers at school should be used for educational purposes only! There should not be access to chat programs, cell phones, pagers, or other wireless devices connected to the Internet. Children are in school to learn.

Willingness to learn in school should be a priority, after certain age if a child is unwilling to learn or is disruptive in class they should be removed from the school. On the other hand teachers unwilling to teach should also be removed from the schools, if teachers feel they’re being underpaid for the work they do “WE” should setup a system for teachers to get discounts in the cities or towns that they teach in. (Not to say that we should GIVE things away to them, but discounted to help them out)


Schools should be a privilege.

I feel there are much better ways to keep their children safe, keeping them active in school as well as church should keep them too busy to get into serious trouble.

The best way but not necessarily the easiest way is to have the parents state involved with their children from the beginning. By removing discipline and replacing it with timeouts is not working. Children these days have not learned the key aspects of respect, by calling their teachers by their first name for that fact other adult?s buy their first name has not taught them the level of respect that’s needed.

If everything bad happens at school shouldn’t schools be to blame should we pass legislation against the schools to shut them down?

In Michigan in order to help keep our children safer from pedophiles are required to live more than 1,000 feet from school property, why can’t we do the same for convicted drug dealers, convicted drunk drivers, and other people convicted of heinous crimes?

There is a side note in this article from the
Detroit Free Press from June 30, 2006

It is not the fault of MySpace.com the problem starts at HOME.

I admit I’m not the best father, but I will not be asking a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Sponge Bob Square Pants…

My Children will not be watching that show or others like it?

If con is the opposite of pro, what is the opposite of progress?

Vote for people who make Government smaller and weaker, and return the power of choice to the individual, local, and state levels.

Then Congress can become a harmless circus instead of the dangerous comedy of errors it is today.

I just think that the “dysfunctional family” has entered the computer age….the kids that find trouble on MySpace probably would find it some other way if it were available… I heard that there is now concern over gang activity on myspace and online..that they do not actively recruit online, but invite to parties where drugs and recruitment occur…25 years ago…my parents had concerns about gangs and my exposure to them…but then it had to do with where we hung out, who our friends were. yes, it is probably easier for predators to get online and lure children (the ones who are seeking something like acceptance and caring that they probably arent getting at home) than it used to be, but heck, I am near Seattle and in the last month we have had a pedophile arrested while practicing with his churce choir (a licensed foster parent by the way) and another that was a boy scout leader.

I have an 11 year old daughter and her internet access at home is restricted and supervised, but she also understands why and I am scared to death that there are pedophiles on every corner, but I am not going to keep her out of activities because of it….but her dad chaperones school events and carnivals and camps with her…at this point she doens’t mind, in fact she is proud of having an active parent. We try to give her the tools she needs to use her own judgement and no topic is too taboo to discuss at home so she knows she can always ask questions.

Parenting is not a job for everyone, but it is a job and I agree that there should be mandatory birth control until you can prove you are ready to be a parent!

“Just to be picky

Your parents didn’t teach you good

They taught you well.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s somebody trying to insult somebody for spelling, and screwing up themselves.”

You’re a moron. How did you not see the inherent sarcasm in replacing the word well, with the word good so that the original author could make light of the fact that you do not have proper grammatical skills? You are the poster child for someone who needs to get out more. ‘Tard.

Of course it’s an election year, and the politicians are pandering to their “base”. Apparently their “base” prefers to let the govt do all of their thinking for them rather than have the freedom to make their own choices. They claim they are not for big-govt, but then they bloat the govt with these unnecessary “protections”. I for one would prefer it if they would focus their efforts on guarding our borders, enforcing our existing laws, and improving our relationships with foreign govts. I’ll parent my own children according to my family’s values and beliefs. The govt should stick to it’s REAL job of managing national resources and representing We the People (rather than the Corporations).

Any legislation related to this is just an exercise to see how much they can censor and control the internet. The internet scares them for a number of reasons, and they would do anything to kill it or scare people away from it. The govt is only interested in squashing our civil liberties with all of these “security” actions. If they’re not using terrorism as the excuse, then they change the tune to “save the children”.

Here’s a project I could endorse, how about “saving the children” from all the aggressive advertising which comes with any children’s television, movies, even clothes? How about making certain that ALL public school curriculums include Life Skills (banking, credit, health, nutrition, etc) lessons to prepare them for adult life (unfortunately, many parents won’t teach these to their children, and more often than not, the parents themselves don’t know anything about these areas and can’t teach their children)?

MySpace is not the cause, it’s merely the currently selected medium. I’m sure most remember when AOL was the center of the Internet Universe and people were in an outrage over their chatrooms and message communities. MySpace is simply the new “local hangout.”

The problem isn’t with technology; it’s with the lack of discipline from the parents. If parents were more mindful of what their children are doing, on and offline, we’d have far less problems. I don’t believe for a second that the parents of Columbine had “no idea” anything was wrong with their children and the shooting occurred because of a movie. I watch horror/action movies and play Grand Theft Auto all the time, and you don’t see me driving my car through parks and burning people alive.

It’s absurd and irresponsible to post blame on entertainment and technology for the bad, and often criminal, behavior of kids. When did we stop holding parents responsible for what their children do?

It’s really sad that these stupid old men regulate what they do not understand.

i’m not much of a wordsmythe today, but i’d like to add that i do not let my 12yr old son use the internet whatsoever, i see no reason for it.

if he needs something looked up for his homework, i will do that, but really, libraries are best used for that.

I, as a fully-capable free thinking MALE SIXTEEN year old, have to say that this is all wrong. Parents, leave your kids alone. Just be there for them when they want to talk and provide the roof and food and electronic devices along with the accessories that goes along with them. Let them be happy. Let them pick their path down the nasty road called ‘Life’. They want a mohawk and multi-colored hair and tattoos and piercings, let them do it. They want to dress like a person from a prep school, let them. They want to be INDEPENDENT. Stop bugging them and annoying them. I don’t mean take away chores from them, by all means, give them chores. Just say it in a calm, friendly matter, and tell them before they start doing their own things that they do during the day. I mean let them be who they want to be. I’m sorry you are a power hungry ‘What I say goes’ parent. But if you let them look the way they want to look, they’ll be happy. Let them go on the internet where they want to go. Just make sure you meet the person that they are going to meet beforehand, but of course they could just put on a facade and pretend to be a nice person. Put a filter on the internet. Only block PORNOGRAPHY. As for the filter in school, I have already bypassed that. Silly people, you can’t keep determined teenagers away from what they want, even if it means jumping through some hoops. Bottom line is, let the teenagers be independant, congress has failed to see that it is truly the parents’ fault for bad parenting, not music or myspace.