Cyberspace Censorship

It always fascinates me how people invariably want to censor only the other guy’s free speech. Rabbi Abraham Cooper in his column, “Cyberspace Bigots Getting a Free Ride” (Opinion, April 16), correctly points out that “few Americans want to be the thought police,” but he then proceeds to advocate the muzzling of groups and causes with which he does not agree. Is he really serious when he suggests that attorneys from the Federal Trade Commission monitor cyberspace?

I spend hours cruising the Internet; it is the granddaddy of all libraries, complete with speaking rooms for everyone who holds an opinion on anything. Unfettered by political correctness and the fear of physical retaliation, people say exactly what they think. Their comments and ideologies are often shocking and offensive to many of us, but we must remind ourselves it is we who usually seek out their addresses in cyberspace, not the other way around.

Offensive speech in cyberspace must be opposed in the same way that it’s opposed in person--with factual counterargument. We need not fear free speech; it is the suppression of free speech that should frighten us.

IRWIN W. FISK

Pasadena

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If we are to believe Tom Soto, the information superhighway is the “magic bullet” that will eliminate poverty in America (Commentary, April 18). It’s a pity that Soto and others like him who believe technology is the cure-all for society’s ills miss the real solution that costs less and is far easier to achieve.

Today we spend billions on education, only to produce students whose skills in math and English are inferior to the generations before them. Our state-run schools, even after expanding their inflated budgets for technology, are still outscored by their private counterparts operating at a fraction of the cost. Could it be that instead of experimental education programs, what we need is a return to the basics of math and literary competency, parental involvement and discipline?

Now Soto wants to spend billions more on newer technology in the interest of “information justice.” How are students going to traverse the information superhighway when they can’t even read the road map?

ROBERT SCHULTZ

Fullerton