October 11, 2000

11:22 PM

The Internet caused the Columbine massacre,according to George W. Bush in Wednesday night's presidential debate. Maybe Al Gore shouldn't have been so quick to claim that he took the initiative in creating the Internet.
posted by rcade (13 comments total)

I heard GWB make that comment tonight and cringed. When he said, of the Colmbine killers: "... a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet ". It just seemed so inane, so aggravating, so much evidence of him "not getting it". It's like GWB internalized every scary Internet story ever run in People magazine and USA Today, waiting to unleash it on a public looking for a scapegoat. I'm pissed. I only wish Gore wasn't so gung-ho on imposing morality on free speech. Sigh.
posted by kokogiak at 11:32 PM on October 11, 2000

The sad part is that there were talking about American culture, but instead of criticism jock or gang school cultures, blame gets placed on the internet. The fact that Gore didn't jump all over that is pretty depressing, do they both sit around mulling over what the internet has become? Probably not, Gorebot had a list of things he had to say and no one put in the Columbine punchcard.

Maybe next time they should let some real opinioned people duke it out along with them, like Nader, Browne, McReynolds and Buchanan.




posted by skallas at 12:00 AM on October 12, 2000

err pardon my shitty grammer, I didn't proofread.

First sentance should be "The sad part is that they were talking about American culture, but instead of criticizing..."


posted by skallas at 12:02 AM on October 12, 2000

Politicians were against telephones at first as smugglers could use them to organise themselves.

Infernal contraptions!
posted by holloway at 1:07 AM on October 12, 2000

sign this, then, children of darkness. (via backup brain)

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:13 AM on October 12, 2000

Hey, I'm not going to ask everyone to stop going on about the American elections, but please, please, please could we not have any more on Al Gore inventing the internet?
posted by Mocata at 3:06 AM on October 12, 2000

Faithful holloway is correct -- the telephone is an infernal contraption that spoils the minds of our precious precious children. Telephones do not require trained operators, so anyone no matter how low-born can use it!

Someone must protect our Righteous White Society from the depraved rogues who, this very moment, are wandering the streets looking for ways to make telephone calls into your very home!

Witchcraft and villainy! I call upon all God-fearing White Peoples to throw down this deviltry! Tear down the telephone wires, lest they be used by rogues and coloreds! Take this opportunity to reject Godless Technology -- the Bible does not mention telephones, does it?

Thank you, and God Bless White America! Reject technology, lest your children be perverted by it! Act now, before the scheming carpet-baggers destroy us all!
posted by aramaic at 6:55 AM on October 12, 2000

Bush's attitude terrifies me, but I find myself at a loss trying to argue against it. I don't agree, but I can't seem to articulate my disagreement.
posted by harmful at 6:56 AM on October 12, 2000

Brent, it's like this: Did the child's "heart turn dark" as a result of the internet, any more than it turned dark as a result of The Matrix, or Quake, or comic books, or thrasher magazines, or the nastier parts of the Bible? The worldview that proclaims the importance of keeping the government out of our noses while simultaneously imagining that we are so malleable that mere exposure to objectionable material would "turn our heart dark" is preposterous and circular in the extreme.

Naturally, I'm just as angry about the Gore-Lieberman defamation of "Hollywood trash". On the whole, there's a whole lotta "I do not understand it, therefore I fear it" flying through the fan blades.
posted by dhartung at 7:13 AM on October 12, 2000

Aramaic, I love you. Will you be my Short Duration Personal Savior for the next half-hour?
posted by solistrato at 7:41 AM on October 12, 2000

Well, heck.

Never mind about the parents' responsibilities. Never mind that they should have been a little bit more watchful about the boys' activities online or off. Never mind that they never worried about the boys' obsession with juiced-up violent computer games (by "juiced-up", I mean "infinite lives for the game-player so he can kill more people"). Never mind that those disturbing home videos for classroom show-and-tell never concerned them. Never mind that they let the boys see movies not rated for kids their age anyway. Never mind that they never noticed the boys were doing research on how to make bombs. And never mind that they didn't see or comment on the sawed-off shotguns hidden in plain sight in the boys' bedrooms.

It's not the boys' fault. It's not the parents' fault. It's society!

And as they say in a Monty Python skit, "Alright, then. Let's arrest society!"

Aramaic, I love you too.
posted by aprilgem at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2000

actually, I saw the comment about the internet as a dig at gore, proponent of new technologies.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 11:20 AM on October 12, 2000

I myself am partial to the "Hillary did it!" school of thought.

No, seriously, that's DeVoon's conclusion. It's all the way at the bottom, past the holier-than-thou and in amongst the macho posturing.
posted by dcehr at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2000