Congress is threatening the porn industry with mandated ratings systems to help protect children from porn. If content is rated, so the theory goes, filters can weed out any websites with objectionable content.

I have to say I find ratings systems to be patently absurd. Movies, music and video games have all gone down that road and I don’t see fewer kids listening to Eminem, seeing horror movies, or playing Grand Theft Auto. What I see is bureaucrtic measures that do little to actually protect anyone from anything. The problem isn’t whether content is rated, it’s whether parents engage in the fight.

As an example, I went with my cousin to see Underworld on Friday night. Sitting two rows behind us and off to the right was a young couple and their four or five year-old child (who, as expected, kept crying during the movie). Now, what sort of bonehead takes a child that young to see a movie about vampires and werewolves?

Ratings, in that case, did no good at all. The movie was rated R. The ratings clearly indicated that nobody under 17 should see the film. Yet, the Manson family and their soon-to-be-a-serial-killer child sat and watched.

Dennis Miller had the right idea. Years ago he said we don’t need an R rating. We need an IQ-80 rating.

Your IQ should be printed on your driver’s license and you should be prompted at movies, or when buying games or music, to prove your smart enough to handle the content in question.

They should apply that same test to having kids or being a Congressman…