There's an interesting case up for review by the Supreme Court this week. I think it's called the "Children's Internet Protection Act" that was signed into law a couple of years ago. (It's always interesting how they name these things, to make it seem completely one-sided. "How can you be against this? Are you against children? Are you against protecting them??")
This law requires that all libraries have software on their computers that filters out "adult" sites, or be denied and federal funding. This doesn't necessarily sound like a bad idea on the surface, but I've been reading about it and discovered a few disturbing things.
1) Librarians are nearly unanimously against it. That should say something. And it's not just the splinter group "Librarians for Porn", either. Why are politicians so quick to ignore the people who should be the experts, and have to deal with the ramifications every day?
2) All the filtering software in use is pretty bad. It's just not any easy problem to solve. They use crude methods that end up blocking out a lot of legitimate stuff. This is the basis for the constitutionality appeal.
3) It's an extreme approach. All libraries must have filters, or be denied funding. It's not like they can't already do it if they want to/need to. Why not leave it up to them? What are you risking?
4) Is this really such a huge problem that legislators needed to spend the time and effort it takes to get a bill passed to fix it? Who's exactly is checking out porn at the library? Somehow I have to believe that there are more important issues facing our country.

The whole idea of "one size fits all", and "we know best, you must comply" is really quite galling and incredibly arrogant. It's the same issue with the "English Immersion" ballot question that passed in MA last week. It's not like everyone doesn't have the same goals - all kids in public schools need to learn english - got it, we're all on board, not a problem. However, the idea of strictly mandating exactly how things can be taught is preposterous, especially when it's clear that most experts can't agree what is best. Instead we will now have a law that if you as a teacher speak a word of spanish to a native spanish speaking kid under the age of 11, you can be sued for it. English Immersion isn't necessarily a bad thing - from what I've read it's been reasonably successful in California with kids up to about the 1st grade, and has had mixed sucess with kids older than that. But a rational approach to it would be a nice thing.

I really don't know why this ballot initiative passed so strongly, but I suspect that the opposition was misrepresented. The alternative was certainly not "teach everything in whatever language the kids already know and skip english". Sadly, there was probably some degree of anti-immigrant bias at work here. And also maybe the votes of some thoughtful individuals who's worldview consists of "my grandparents got off the boat from Slokovanopotamia not knowing a word of english, and they didn't get any bilingual education. They had to figure it all out on their own, so that's how everyone else should have it." The argument that "Things were once very hard, so let's not try to do any better" is indisputable.