SHUSH–for the Conservative Librarian

Re:why is this moderated as flamebait?

Quick answer: frankly, I don’t personally know any other librarians I am certain are conservative, so I can’t say.

As for my own views, they are rather complex (probably a euphemism for “confused”). I am still trying to think through my politics and economics more fully, but I am generally an anti-statist conservative, and hence I have a pretty fair libertarian streak. (It gets even more complex when we mix in my theology, but we won’t go there just now.) By “anti-statist” I do not mean that I think there should be no state, just that it should be minimal. As for the CIPA, my concern with it is that it asks the government to stand in loco parentis, which in my view is a very, very bad thing. Parents, not the state, are ultimately responsible for their children’s education, and hence they are responsible for overseeing their children’s use of the Internet. I agree with those who point out that there are many things on the ‘Net that no child should be shown. However, I still think that ceding ultimate responsibility and authority to the state in education matters is more dangerous.

As for the Patriot Act, my views are less well-defined. I am a strong believer in personal privacy, and so I am initially inclined to be skeptical about the Patriot Act. However, I don’t know enough about its practical consequences to judge it well. I need to be better informed about exactly what it entails, and I’d like to hear the strongest arguments pro and con. (Let me note that I haven’t been working as a librarian for over three years now.)

The upshot is that I probably don’t agree with everything at S*, but I only discovered the site today and so haven’t read much of it.

BTW, your questions seem perfectly appropriate to me.