Most of my day job is spent talking on the phone.

Occasionally, as with most phone calls, I get put on hold while I wait for people to get their shit together (I’m a ninja like that. People never expect a scheduled phone call to happen on time.).
Today, I happened to be sitting on hold and the client’s phone system was apparently jacked into right-wing ultra-conservative talk radio.
During my few moments waiting for them to get said shit together, I heard what sounded like a helicopter mom screaming about the internet. Apparently, this retard wrote a book about internet safety for kids. While I can’t really be opposed to internet safety for kids, it was the screaming, belligerent, paranoid attitude about her which really turned me on this woman. With the cautionary tone in which she spoke, you would have thought that every website in the universe was showing live abortions in streaming video.
“9 out of 10 kids will find pornography just while researching their homework!” the crazy bitch screamed.
Really? Really. So, 9 out of 10 kids looking up Abraham Lincoln will find the Abe Lincoln Cosplay Porn Extravaganza website? You know, the one where him and Grant double-team General Lee’s wife? Can they legally call it an Eiffel Tower if there was no actual Eiffel Tower yet? Maybe the kid should write a paper on that instead.

Sigh. Deep breaths, Bidula, deep breaths.

People, please. The internet may be for porn, according to Avenue Q, but seriously, not every single word in the English vocabulary is going to hit on thousands of porn sites before you get any kind of tangible, usable results.
Helicopter parents need to realize that people in the world, generally, are not that evil. There aren’t people out there linking porn sites to random search terms hoping that some fourth grader doing a report on photosynthesis is going to wind up looking at a gigantic cock. Now, if they’re doing a report on, say… I dunno… “Why I Love Megan Fox”, they’re going to turn up a lot more risqué coverage than tame biography.
If 9 out of 10 children are finding porn when they’re doing their homework, then 9 out of 10 parents better check in to whatever the fuck 9 out of 10 teachers are asking those 9 out of 10 children to look up on the internet. Either that, or 9 out of 10 parents should hide their downloaded porn for mommy-daddy time somewhere other than a folder on the desk top marked “Adults Only”. If that’s even the case for 1out of 10 parents, then 9 out of 10 parents think their kids are either completely brain dead or delusionally well-behaved.

“We have to take a stand against the internet,” she screamed, “We have to fight back!”
Yes. Let’s.
Let’s fight back against the first amendment, nay, let’s fight back against the world’s right to free speech, not just America’s. Let’s make this whole country like Singapore or China or North Korea, where the internet is watched over carefully by government employees and policed for anything which could potentially cause social deviance. I’m sure that limiting access to the global flow of information would sure as hell make it easier for me to sleep at night. Knowing that my civil liberties are being kept in a jar on someone’s mantle, far out of reach from me, is just like some cookies and a glass of warm milk, don’t you agree?
Exactly how the fuck are you going to fight the internet? Sure, buy a blocking program and install it if you don’t want your kids peeking at boobies and the like. That’s a parent’s prerogative. You don’t want your kids chatting with crazy middle-aged men who own a rusty white panel van? Don’t let them chat with strangers. Keep an eye on what they’re doing. WATCH YOUR DAMN CHILDREN INSTEAD OF HOPING THE WORLD WILL WATCH THEM FOR YOU!!!

The internet isn’t to blame. The same as video games, movies, television, music, or books aren’t to blame. Nothing in the pop-culture mainstream is actively working to corrupt your children into some sort of ultra-violent subspecies. Nothing is telling your children to rape and murder and pillage. There are no subliminal mind tricks subverting the status quo.
The world out there is safe, for the most part. By buying into the hype of people like this lady, people are buying into the sensationalism caused by the very media they’re hoping to police. So, this lady is all anti-internet, but what was she pushing along with her book? A website. Hopefully, someone tagged a shit-ton of nudie pics with this lady’s name (didn’t catch it to remember it, just took some short notes on a sticky while I was on hold) so that the first thing which pops up when you’re looking for her “expert” testimony on internet safety, the first thing that pops up is a giant floppy cock.

I realized, going over my back catalogue of blog entries, that I hadn’t done a really angry rant in a while. I do some of my best comedic writing when I do it. I’m actually glad I found something to get mad about. Yeah. This was a good workout.

Keep fighting the good fight.

—end transmission—