Kat, I think my response about the Internet was a muddy way of saying that although there is much more of it, we are already learning to cope. It is a pretty ugly sight, but we are. People thought that television was going to destroy us, beaming into our homes. They were completely right, but we go on. We bounce around for awhile, but then the safety nets of sense and tolerance get woven around a new set of boundaries. Democracies do that -- we assume that most people will cope, or look at the stuff once and move on -- the important thing (if you buy this) is that things are challenged (with which we all seem to agree here), and put in their rightful place as irritants. One tough part (of course) is that all this is based on a bunch of reasonably strong, well-adjusted people (Mill's Victorians), when we know that there is at least a minority that isn't (anywhere), with (in your country) easy access to handguns. Do we change the rules to protect ourselves against the thoughts that they might have, and the things that they might do, or not? Is the tradeoff worth it? And is the assumption that all citizens are able to make up their own minds independendtly worth hanging on to, even if we all know that that isn't true?
I have an Internet pornography story which exemplifies this. I was talking to one of my male students about pornography on the Internet, and he said, "I expect that after the ten thousandth picture of a naked woman, you might begin to lose interest.""Yes?" I said. "Naaaah", he said.
A good story, but it has nothing to do with the disgusting child pornography, etc., you can find easily on the Web. We could joke about it.
As I said, deep questions. yours, Peter T.