I have no issue with hunting those species of whale and dolphin that are not endangered for meat. I love horses but I have managed to get past the fact that some people eat them, I wouldn't, but hey we eat cows and meat is meat. If you are not a vegetarian then eating one animal is no different to eating another animal getting hung up on the aesthetics of some animals is irrational.

However, I had my position somewhat challenged today.

My 8 year old daughter has for a long time wanted a pet guinea pig. As our rabbit died of old age recently we had an empty cage, so I took her to the pet shop a couple of weeks ago and we bought two guinea pigs "Abe" and "Pamarello." Ever since, she dotes and and delights on the guinea pigs and when she is not feeding them treats and changing their water she is drawing pictures and writing stories about them. Today she got on Google images and typed in "guinea pigs" so she could create a file of guinea pig pictures.

We have google set to "strict safe search" and we run Blue Coat K9 Web Protection. I knew it wasn't fool proof but to date nothing "bad" has gotten through, if anything it is ridiculously over-sensitive and blocks sites and images we have no issue with. Anyway, you have probably worked out where this is leading, check out the first pic that came up on her search - roasted guinea pig complete with two roast spuds. (Out of respect for my daughter I won't display it here)

Needless to say you can imagine her reaction. Matt found her crying and upset. She was worried her guinea pigs were not ok, she was greatly disturbed and took some calming down.

When I came home from work and heard about this all my sentiments about meat being meat went out the window. Parental protection kicked in to full mode. I too became angry that people ate guinea pigs and that they would put pictures like that on the net and that our filters had failed to screen that picture out and that we had been in the practice of allowing our kids to google pictures.

As I have thought about it since I have considered changing the passwords so that our kids can only run google image searchs with us present but then that wouldn't have changed anything in this instance as we probably would have run the search with her next to us and it was the first image.

My thoughts went on to the fact that the person who posted that picture would probably speak to their freedom to put pictures on their site and my objection to it being unjustified on the basis of their right to free speech. The old slogan, 'don't like it? don't look' came to mind.

But I couldn't get past the fact that there was still something wrong here. We have done what we can to ensure our kids are not exposed to things they are not ready to handle (obviously there comes an age where children have to understand that people eat animals that are the same species as their pets) yet this image came into our home.

So what is the solution? Censorship of the offending site? Changing passwords? Using the off switch? I am not happy with any of those. As a libertarian, I am uncomfortable with censorship. Further, I want my kids to learn how to use a computer and how to find information on topics they are interested in. However, as a parent I want to ensure they are protected.

Putting aside the legal questions, this incident does highlight the moral point, which is sometimes articulated poorly with slogans such as "with freedom of speech comes responsibility". The point is that just as I must respect the fact that other people have a right to express their opinion, I too have a right to not listen if I do not wish to and others need to respect that. If I decide I do not want to hear something, I shouldn't be forced to extremes to have that right respected, especially if they do not have to run to extremes to exercise their right. In this instance I had said no on behalf of my daughter and my anger is about the fact that my choice to not have my sensitive, gentle, animal-loving 8 year old exposed to something upsetting was not respected.

Of course the owner of the offending site never envisaged upsetting my daughter and is not culpable for what happened but rights can be inadvertently and non-culpably violated (the insanity defence is an example). There really isn't a good solution to the problem of the clash between the freedom to speak and the freedom to not hear - I have no idea how to solve it without raising other problems - but the problem does exist and this of course is one of the places I part ways with (big L) Libertarians.

Imagine coming home to this on your lawn: it's 1000 knives!


No this isn't something from the "only in America" files it is Bob McCoskrie's front lawn covered in knives, complete with threatening note related to Bob's political activities! How did they get his address? Compliments of the Electoral Finance Act; law abiding critics of the govt have to give their addresses, anonymous thugs then take advantage and attack.

When we were prominent in student politics we had to have unlisted addresses and scrape together funds to pay for PO Boxes after Madeleine received a newspaper cut-out message threatening her to shut up or else for speaking up for freedom of association. But thanks to Labour, gone is the luxury of keeping your home safe if you want to speak up politically.

We have these strict privacy laws, so strict we can't even get each other's details from government departments despite the fact we are married, but the minute you want to criticise the government you have to give your details out to the whole world!

Bob sent us the following email outlining an attack on his home:

Reality of Battle Hits Home

Events over the past weekend have reminded me of just how important it is to speak up on family issues.

Last Saturday night, four women dressed in black came to our family home in South Auckland and placed almost 1,000 plastic knives into our front lawn. They also taped an intimidating note on our front door relating to the knives (anonymous of course!).

I am very thankful that my family and I were in Tauranga over the weekend and my children didn’t stumble across the display. The police have taken away evidence and are testing for fingerprints etc. and our neighbours kindly helped removed the offending items. My neighbours are wondering what sort of friends I have!!

Unfortunately, under the Electoral Finance Act, any material put out by Family First has to have an ‘Authorisation Statement’ which contains the residential address of the person authorising the material. Therefore, because of our VALUE YOUR VOTE campaign, it is fairly easy to figure out where we live.

BUT

… the need to publish important information relating to these family issues and the upcoming General Election is too important to stay silent on. (We are aware of other groups who have had second thoughts on speaking up because of this requirement.)

I knew that ’speaking out’ would draw criticism and labelling (and we have been certainly called a number of ‘colourful’ terms!) rather than debating the actual issues being raised - but I always hoped that the debate wouldn’t hit home as it has.THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS-we will not be silenced.

Whenever we speak up on issues like marriage, the breakdown of family, the anti-smacking law and the role of parents, the pornography industry and public nudity, prostitution, pro-life issues including abortion and euthanasia, and many other topics that families are concerned about, we are going to make enemies . I’m the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, but we cannot afford towalk away from the opportunity. We have to speak up from a family perspective on these crucial issues.

What keeps us going is knowing that there are many many of you who are standing with us on these issues.

Events like this remind me of how much we value your support, words of encouragement (and correction!), financial and moral support, and prayers. (And I would especially ask at this time that you would pray for my family’ protection.)

William Booth - founder of the Salvation Army - said “50 years hence it will matter very little indeed how these people treated us. It will matter a great deal how we dealt with the work of God.”

Once again, thanks for standing with us.

It is your support and encouragement that keeps us going!

Now we don't agree with everything Bob stands for but we do agree with a lot and we certainly admire and respect Bob for standing for what he believes in and we absolutely think he should be able to do that without telling the whole world where he and his family live and without being subject to attacks on his home and personal threats.

Doesn't he rock though? He and his family are subjected to this and the first sentence he writes speaks of his increased resolve continue speaking out.

UPDATE - Another email from Bob:

Another anonymous note..

This time an apology !

We have just received this note - from 'anonymous'.

I see you didn't take our little prank as it was intended, just as a little
bit of harmless fun, just some plastic and spare time, I hope you could see the funny side of it... Never-the-less were truly sorry if this has in
anyway, offended or scared you emotionally physically or mentally... Were Sorry, We're very thankful that this seems to be a very badly thought out prank - especially in the light of all the concerns about knife attacks recently.

Thank you to the hundreds of you who emailed words of encouragement . I t has been very humbling to know the level of support for Family First .

Fortunately we can smile at this one. But we do ask for your continued prayer as we speak out on sometimes controversial issues affecting families.

UPDATE: Media are picking up the story everywhere:

Herald
DominionPost
ODT
Stuff
Nine News
Yahoo
Info News
AngloINFO Singapore have the unfortunate title: "Knives Stabbed into Family First Leader"

One irritating feature of the contemporary media is the credence they give to the views of celebrities. There is often a kind of unwritten assumption that because a person is a good actor or singer, his or her views on politics, morality and ethics somehow carry more weight.
Case in point is the enthusiastic reporting of the Dixie Chicks at the Grammy awards. The ODT triumphantly records them as saying, "I think people are using their freedom of speech with these awards. We get the message."

A few years ago, the Dixie Chicks made critical comments about George W Bush. As a result numerous radio stations and other people decided to stop playing and listening to their records. At that time, the complaint was made that this violated the Dixie Chicks right to freedom of speech.

The reference to ‘freedom of speech’ is of course an allusion to this complaint. In reality, the Dixie Chicks rights were not violated. The clause, ‘freedom’ in freedom of speech at most refers to freedom from coercion either from the state or from individuals. It forbids people being prevented by force and coercion from expressing their opinion. It does not mean that everyone has a duty to buy your tapes or play your records when you ask them to. To require this would, in fact, be forcing people to express the Dixie Chicks opinions either in their homes or on their privately owned radio stations. It would be coerced speech.

Suppose one puts this to the side, suppose one grants that the Dixie chicks won a Grammy because now more people agree with their ‘message’ than previously. So what exactly? If a statement I make is true, then it is true even if every other person disagrees with me. If its false, it does not become true because other people start believing in it.

Victoria University recently ran an ad claiming that in the 14th century people believed the world was flat. This claim is false, medieval scholars almost unanimously taught that the world was round. However, suppose that Victoria University were correct and 14th century people did widely believe this does that mean that the world was in fact flat in the 14 century and if later the consensus changed and people believed the world was round. Did the world suddenly change shape? Of course not.

Now if the Dixie Chicks or anyone for that matter, had a well thought out case against the invasion of Iraq then by all means report it so ethicists like myself can consider it. However, simply telling me that this country singer thinks this, her music sells well when a few years ago it did not tells me nothing. One suspects some left wing media commentators never grew out of their teenage years. "Hey you should hold these opinions because these three attractive chicks hold it and they are really popular right now."

When peoples support for life and death decisions (like war) are based on banalities like this there is good reason to be concerned.