Who is responsible?

I said the parents one. I think parents have a HUGE responsibility to teach these children. The government, the teachers, educators, etc DO NOT raise our children, PARENTS do! There are studies that show cities where it's legal to carry firearms, lowers the crime rates. I think TV and Media are TERRIBLE.

I heard that the one kid who actually shot at people only shot at the girls, but that might just be a rumor.

One of my favorite phrases for this is Nanny Government. I think it's ridiculous, but I think it's unlikely to change any time soon. American attitudes are highly litiginous and the government and corporate powers have to deal with the expectation that everything will be clean & safe for us and for our children. I think parents need to be more involved in their children's lives, but I've thought that since elementary school and it's only gotten worse. ***elijahblue: MOR? Artemis: it's true that only girls were shot--what's in question is whether this was intentional, or merely an effect of the first class out the door being a music class of all (or mostly all) girls. And this is only in the one (Jonesboro) case.

Education is mainly a parents task. So, educate first the adults...

Parents should... but when they don't what do we do? ** Yeah, what Jen said. How about "The Government should control who can have children" Well, I guess that's evil (eugenics?) but it could help (no, not really). *** EB, what's "MOR"

Er... where did you get the statistics for the question? It sounds fishy to me, but I've not done the research.

this is far too complicated an issue to be dealt with in a multiple choice manner, thinking it can be is part of the problem *** lisashea: I was in a Bell Atlantic Mobile store yesterday getting a new cell phone and in fact there was a guy who came in to return the phone he bought cause it didn't work for his wife while she was hiking in the White Mountains, which is the reason they bought it

I agree with four out of those five answers.

I think john said it well, that part of the problem is thinking it's an easy or simple problem. I've always believed that "education" would be a solution, but understanding that that brings up 'who educates the educators?' What do you teach people? What is it "they" don't know, and what is it "we" do know that's going to be so useful?

Parents reflect most upon their children. But there have to be other safety nets.

I try to refrain from asking loaded and slanted questions so that I can use them as soapboxes, and I think you should, too.

This is not a survey question, it's a platform for someone's campaign speech. None of the above.

I believe that any law abiding adult citizen of the U.S. should be able to own the exact same weapons as the gov't.

How can ANYONE say this is Darwinism? If someone kills your kid, then himself, fine, HIS OWN death is Darwinism, but when he takes out innocent people, that's not Darwinism. In my opinion, anyone who does a murder/suicide should first do the suicide, THEN do the murder(s)! It would save society a lot of grief!

it means the media is controlled by corporations

I go with it being the parent's responsibility, which is why my kids'll be raised in Maine in a log cabin, away from the seductions of civilization.

none of the above works for me; i'll try to get in here... no govt involvement. parenting is important, but where parenting breaks down, support webs need to help out. we have high alienation and few support webs (extended family; actually knowing our neighbors; community feeling) nowadays. screw societal/cultural oppression. there's something to the 'darwinism' approach, but intra-species co-operation is a major force in evolution, so it is a specious argument. isolationism is a losing policy; didn't watching _casablanca_ teach you anything?

Parents need to keep their children under control, not tell me what I can have access to. Give the government that power, and you lose your rights, more and more. Which decade and which part of the world are we in, anyway?

Parents should not only teach right from wrong, but take more steps to ensure safety

No one wants to take personal responsibility in this country at this point in time. People blame TV for the violence of their children, but they never remember that they never turned the TV off to read to their kid or take them to the park. I'll give a season of Seinfeld for the five minutes in the park watching my daughter play on the swings and slide.

It is hard to define such things. Whew! Tough question. I don't think people should be "saved from themselves". If they want to be foolish, that is fine. I think the only time any of us can say "this IS wrong" is when it begins to impose on our own freedoms. Will there ever be a right way of going about it, I doubt it.. but lets face it someone who watches a movie and thinks it is real needs some serious therapy, don't prevent others from seeing it just because some people have no concept of reality..

Wait.... Are we talking about the shootings or the cleansing of the net....? I thought that the net was international.... How can this apply to a single govt or society..... I went with the Laws limit opition, but I am not sure what this means... As for the shootings.... each case is different and I think that it is not the childrens fault all the time... If they are abused then how can we tag the "it is the parents responibility" onto those people... They are warped in the first place so that is not the way out... In general I agree with paraent having to teach their children right and wrong, but it is not these children that turn out bad.... Too complex question....

Question seems confused. I don't think censorship is necessarily bad. Your individual rights to freedom are not more important than other people's rights. Children have the right to not see graphic sex or violence plastered all over their environment.

The slant of the question bugs me. It is obvious where the person who wrote it stands, and that they are trying to convince us of their opinion rather than find out our opinions. I didn't check any of the options. I am pretty MOR on censorship. I do believe there are things kids shouldn't see (graphic sex, gory violence), and that it is worth some inconvenience for adults to ensure that kids aren't exposed to these things. ***MOR = middle-of-the-road. ***lisashea: you may have friends that hold all these attitudes, but there are many attitudes that are not encompassed by these answers. An "other" option would have been nice. Also, the phrasing of the question implies that you believe the internet should not be cleansed, that guns should not be banned, etc. ***lisa again: SIGH. don't you see that some people don't view all government regulation of private life as "parentalism," and that by starting out with that assumption you are slanting the question??*** lisa again: I think you don't. My Webster's unabridged international dictionary defines parentalism as "An attitude or the assumption of an attitude of superior authority." Sure, this can apply to the government. Or many, many other things. And the government becoming involved in private life does *not* have to be viewed as parentalism. ***lisa once again: I'm not "flaming" you. I'm just saying your understanding of the word "parentalism" is quite incomplete. No, your credentials don't make your opinion more valid, so why did you start including them in the first place? ***lisa: I am baffled by your definition of my understanding of the word "parentalism" as narrow. My understanding of the word is that it can be used in many different contexts, whereas in a comment you have since deleted you said "parentalism *is* government control." The fact that you got an A on a paper about parentalism in government shows that you had good ideas and/or did good research on political science, not that you are good at English and have a full understanding of the meaning of the term "parentalism". And it certainly seems as though you mentioned the paper in order to quell further discussion, not to invite it. I will attempt one last time to clarify: The word "parentalism" has a negative connotation. By conceiving of governmental involvement as negative, you also chose a lot of other language for your survey which was slanted. Many people do not see all governmental involvement in private life as negative. One less-controversial example would be environmental regulations to help avoid the tragedy of the commons. This is not "parentalism," it is a practical and realistic way of achieving something almost all citizens want (a cleaner environment), but which is difficult if not impossible to achieve on an individual basis. ***LISA: gee, it seems to me we've been talking about "parentalism," not "paternalism." Your interchanging of the two words just helps to prove my point about your competency in English. The word "parentalism" does indeed have a negative connotation. And the wording of this survey (as well as the wording of your subsequent comments) does indeed imply that you view government involvement in private matters such as gun ownership or tv content as bad. *** lisashea: I consider the word meaning and the fact that you interchanged the two words to be part of the "real issue." The two words do not mean the same thing, they mean similar things. Your interchanging of the two speaks to the general carelessness with which you approached this survey. I consider the question slanted, as did at least several other people. I do not consider senators to be the arbiters of the English language, nor do I consider most of them to be particularly intelligent. Parentalism has a negative connotation, but it's not hard to imagine a senator saying that s/he believes in it. I think it's funny that you mentioned such things as receiving an A on a paper or debating senators, which are irrelevant, yet want me to "debate you on the real issue." I am surprised to hear your views on censorship. Regardless of these views, however, the wording of the question implies that censorship is bad, for example through word choices such as "threatening." I have said what I had to say, and it is obvious that trying to explain it in different ways won't help. I give up. *** I disagree with the "if we track backwards" part, but then that's hard to prove, since you keep erasing your previous comments. I cannot answer the question about paternalism as you posed it. But if you will look at my previous comments on television content and on environmental regulations, you will see that I believe some governmental regulation is necessary. It is exactly because I believe that governmental regulation can be a good thing that I find fault with the implication that it is negative. At first I simply pointed out that the question was flawed. And I would like to get the message across about the negative connotation of paternalism. I understand your interest in debate. Whether or not governmental control is generally good or bad, and if it can be good, how much is needed, is entirely up for debate. Word meanings, however, are not, and it frustrates me when people use words inexactly. A discussion, and especially a survey's results, will not be meaningful if words are being used ambiguously or incorrectly. I'm sorry if you don't see this is part of the real issue. For me, clear language it is the sine qua non of a debate. I have created flawed surveys before too. It is hard enough to create even a simple factual survey.

It seems like people *want* to be protected. People file lawsuits if the coffee is too hot, and bring cell phones instead of flashlights when they go hiking. *** I do not believe any choice to be right. The stats came from recent congressional hearings and bill debates. *** I apologize for the lack of an "other". This was not a soapbox, I truly wanted to know how others felt. This was basically a (very poorly constructed) question about "paternalism in the govt": should *it* be responsible for society's actions? Or parents, or individuals?

EB: Thanks!! :) My mother has a Masters in English and is a VP of Communication so I was yelled at constantly by her. My life was one sea of her correcting my spelling and language. You think I'd be better by now; maybe I rebel against her. Anyway, this survey came from me watching govt tv and I strung together many things they said - it wasn't all my "own point of view". And obviously I strung it together poorly. :) I was just curious how 'other people' felt about these things the government always debates amongst themselves (those 'caretakers of the rest of us'). They do have quite a different point of view than us "being cared for" do, many times. I'll try to think up a new survey that is worded more clearly now that I've gotten some practice at it.

As I said, I do believe government has to codify things for us people to work together smoothly. There are too many different points of view for us to do it "naturally". Guns should be licensed because there are people who don't respect human life. TV should be rated so people know *before a show starts* what they might be seeing. Chasms (a la Purgatory) should have signs out front warning that the climb is a tough one (it does). But beyond that, people should take responsibility to read the signs, heed the warnings, and only do what they feel is proper for them. If someone gets licensed for a gun and then shoots someone, that person is responsible. If someone hikes the Chasm in slippers carrying a child and falls, that person is responsible.

Wow. Look, it's a question that doesn't even pretend to veil its political agenda. I'll pass, thanks.

Now that the cold war is over the TV news needs something to attract viewers, so they're latching on to crime. Because of this popular perception in the US is that crime is going up when in fact it is going down. This misperception in turn leads to paternalism in government, which I thinks is a bad thing. Imagine that! A knee-jerk liberal like me blaming the media!

I'll have to go with the parents need to teach their kids right from wrong. The problem is, people think the government should be parents to the whole nation. This takes responsibility from the individual. which is one of the reasons why I think the nation is going down the tubes

I cannot tick any of the above. We are all victims of our environment (conditioning), genes, and self thought! 'What does this mean?'
It means mankind is a dynamic entity and will constantly evolve, hopefully for the good whatever that may be, however we could evolve for the bad and that would be the end of the human race.
e.g. We all become homosexuals. End of the human race QED.

Responsible people shouldn't have to give up freedoms that irresponsible people can't handle.