Posts by BenWilson
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Paul, does that mean your X is "people"? We'd have too many people? Geez that would make a change for NZ, for sure.
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Isn't that an argument to make immigration policy from a libertarian perspective? If it's the only non-racist one?
It would be interesting to hear what massive social implications people are really afraid of. Spell it out. We'd have too many ... X. Fill in the X, everyone who wants to have a policy.
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Surprised I've got no bites on my no-immigration-policy-policy. I wasn't kidding on that one. Can anyone who doesn't like to think of themselves as a racist give me a clear description of the kind of people we don't want in this country?
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"we could begin to gather some kind of consensus around a coherent and workable immigration system"
I'm backing cold fusion will happen first. We could get coherence and workability, but consensus is a pipedream.
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Then again I did have coffee, porridge and grapefruit juice for breakfast.
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I personally think brown, yellow, and white substances are all equally funny. My serious policy is to never let them in, but letting them out is not really a matter for debate.
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I don't know why we need an immigration policy *at all*. It can never be anything but racist. If people want to come here, let them.
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Porn is always cheesy, so I guess porny cheese is only fair. "Like a genius, I swallowed every drop..."
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"OTOH, I'm still inclined to shelter them from more significant sexual content."
Children are the exception to every social rule. I think making an effort to shield kids from porn is sensible, but you needn't take it too far. If the kids are trying to see porn, then they probably will. When I was a ten year old, it was an interest of every boy I knew, and most of us had seen some porn, and I don't think any of us were 'damaged' by it.
The stories in Playboy were as explicit, or often more so, than the bulk of porn movies. Also just as unrealistic. We knew they were fantasies then. We were also aware that girls didn't like it anywhere near as much, with rare exceptions. OTOH they loved Mills and Boon which struck me as equally fantastic.
You don't have to be a child prodigy to see that most guys don't have 10 inch dicks, most girls haven't got gigantic tits, that random hot strangers don't offer you sex (unless you are hot yourself), that coming on someone's face is more likely to piss them off than excite them, that threesomes are probably a bit more complicated to set up than just sitting down on a couch with a sleazy smile or a bullshit line. That doesn't mean that all of those ideas aren't appealing.
Of course every parent has a duty to shield their kids from harm. With respect to sex, I would think the main way to achieve that would be to give them the facts. The fantasies that kids get from stories that their mates tell them (and this happens from a really young age, I think I heard my first bawdy joke at about 5), from dirty magazine stories, from porno movies, and from many mainstream films too, are obviously mostly bullshit. If you don't know the facts then you could think pretty much anything. At least if you watch a porn you'll have a vague idea of some of the real mechanics. But the parent's duty surely has to be to explain about the entire sexual process in a factual way so that kids know about the risks as well as the rewards.
This should be done in much the same way that violence is explained. Children are patently aware that violence does happen, since fighting innate in humans and most kids have had a fight before they've learned to speak. They have felt the pain, the humiliation, the elation, and the consequences of it. Most children have been manhandled (if not actually struck) by an adult and they can clearly see the power and control it brings, along with the anger and hurt they feel. It's patronizing bullshit to suggest that children learn violence from TV. They learn it in the playground, and they recognize it on TV. Of course it is a subject of great interest - to be beaten up is one of the most unpleasant things a person can experience. They can also see that it's fantasy, that it's escapist. In reality, the good guy usually doesn't win, it's the cheap shot bully who throws the first punch, backed up by his mates. That's why kids like violent films, because they are a fantasy that shows what the child would like to see, the small guy beating the big, the good beating the bad, the outnumbered beating the gang. I think it helps them cope with the reality that they are already accustomed to.
Again, I think there are some kinds of violent depictions kids should be shielded from. Paradoxically, the more realistic kinds are probably the most likely to upset them.
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"Spielberg filmed Schindlers List in good old fashioned black & white :)"
Gawd, the fact I didn't even realize is kinda scary - I just thought it had a bumout mood through clever coloring...but I never did finish watching it. But the fact that I didn't like to see that, doesn't mean I don't think anyone else should. It may very well give neonazis sick ideas, but that's not a good enough reason to condemn it.
"some would assert that schindler's list is holocaust porn."
All art is porn if you want to look at it like that. Unless you adopt a definition of porn that excludes it from being art, then it pretty much just is another form of art.
Business-as-usual violence is just the same. I don't condemn it because I don't think it promotes violence. It just hooks into the violent streak latent in many of us, and titivates it. Violence is interesting, as is sex, and people want to see it, realistic or unrealistic. Actually, most people prefer to see the unrealistic - one of the things almost everyone I've ever talked to about Once Were Warriors has said is that they found the violence disturbing because it was realistic.
Just because some people are not titivated by violence or sex doesn't mean that what they like is superior in some way. They might really like NZ Idol. Personally I can't stand it, but I'm not going to say it shouldn't be allowed.
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