Who will protect our children …?

… from that pernicious and evil corrupter of youth and destroyer of all upright values?

I speak, of course, of the waltz:

“The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced … at the English Court on Friday last … It is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous inter­twining of the limbs, and close com­pressure of the bodies … to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was con­fined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is … forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”
– The Times of London, 1816

Or, perhaps, movie theaters:

“This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood … Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the ‘moving pictures.'”
– The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1909

Some perspective on the “Video Games are teh Evil!” meme promulgated by politicians, pundits, and concerned citizenry.

(via GeekPress)