Hillary Clinton turns prude!

Let's all shriek together... "But what about the children?"

That's what Hillary is doing and the New Democrats are backing her. See, she's worried that the V-Chip isn't enough anymore (heh, did anybody ever actually use that turkey?) and Hill, priming for a centrist position so she can run for president in 2008, wants to do something about... well, in her words, here's the problem: "Just a decade ago, we made great strides to keep children away from inappropriate material. But we face a complex new world. All across our country, kids today are playing increasingly violent video games while sending instant messages to friends and strangers online and listening to music they've downloaded on their I-Pods. How does a parent today who wants to protect their child from violent or explicit content have a chance?"

Here's the answer, Hillary -- access to greater amount of content will make the kids in, what you guys are lamely calling "Generation M(edia)," more savvy, more mature, smarter and more interesting than generations prior.

Information fights to be free, folks. Even to minors. But, the thing is, information isn't warping, it's enlightening. Sheltering a young generation isn't the answer. Let them see what they want. Parents are just going to have to make time to dicsuss what's been seen.

I know that a lot of free speech advocates (and I'm worse, I'm a free speech absolutist) say it's okay to protect minors. But, in the end, there's no real way to protect minors without limiting the content available to adults. Look at the movie industry. The MPAA rates movies and, unfairly, only has parents on the ratings committee, as if the views of people without kids don't matter. The natural market response, in Hollywood, is to tone down content in movies. Why? Because a PG movie is acceptable for a much larger audience than an R-rated movie is. The decisions made by directors and writers -- actual artists -- wind up being second-guessed by non-artists and the money issue creates an incentive for producers to give in to non-artist pressure, often against the wishes of the people who actually made the movie.

Is that right? I say it's "soft censorship." It's not compulsory by law, but it is compelled by a market manipulated by prudes. And... that sucks.

Stop making this kind of thing an issue, Hillary. What kids download on their iPods is not a matter for the federal government to be concerned with. Get back to the real issues like Social Security, the deficit and our messed up foreign policy.