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Internet Censorship in Australia?
Enaku writes "Right wing Australian Christian political party Family First wants an annual levy of $7 to $10 on all internet users in Australia to fund a $45 million mandatory national internet filtering scheme aimed at blocking pornographic and offensive content at server level. (Read Family First's Policy Statement on Internet Pornography and Children (pdf) ) Great firewall of Australia, here we come!"
These people are fascists and need to be marginalized. They want to take away our freedoms. Fuck them.
Am I the only one to think that there are two contradictions in that sentence? If not, Ausse politics has got to be a confusing system...
What about the children? WHO WILL SAVE THE CHILDREN?
:) )
"Why is the Internet Industry allowed to avoid their responsibilities on this?"
Why the hell aren't you watching your kids? What the hell ever happened to active parenting? If you don't want your kids to see such content then keep them off the damn internet,or at least monitor what they do online.....Furthermore, filtering may do more harm than good by keeping useful information blocked anyway............The "internet industry" is composed of a hell of a lot of people, and there is no one person to lay such responsibility on anyway.....The internet is not a cable tv show or a movie - it wasn't designed with a ratings system in mind.........
I found it odd that they cite plenty of numbers on how often kids had accessed pornography, the survey simply stated -
In November last year Dr Michael Flood of the Australia Institute cited a new study showing that concerns about pornography and children were warranted: "Children who regularly see violent pornography are more likely to be sexually aggressive and to believe that sexual abuse is normal".
What study? What percentages? What numbers?
Finally, From TFA -
"This may have the result of putting cost pressures on some of the smaller ISPs, but there are arguably too many of these at the moment, and adequate competition could be maintained with 30 ISPs rather than the hundreds in existence now," it said.
Screw the small guys, huh?
(Sorry bout the long rant, can't sleep
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
Hey Pharmboy, get it now?
free speech
real democracy
respect for other people
This is a new form of "left wing" that I was previously unaware of.
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"Male masturbation is a personal turn off for me. As a single woman, I'm especially looking for a man who doesn't masturbate, even while he's single."
:)
;)
::cough::
<factorial_nine> GOOD LUCK, BITCH.
I think that it's applicable
I know people..::cough:: that wouldn't use the internet if they couldn't get pr0n off it
Error 407 - No creative sig found
Fundamentalist anything is bad. I don't care what these people beleive, just so long as they don't force me to do anything.
A conservative christian party in australian politics would be a right wing party according to the convention.
Official GOD FAQ.
family first are not left wing! they are right wing!
From the article:
Family First admitted the cost of the filtering scheme could be prohibitive for small ISPs, but said the scheme should proceed regardless.
We wish to practice futility at the cost of other families' livelihood?
But seriously, is this possible? Is it even legal under current law?
The party wants the internet filtered at server level, warning that children exposed to online pornography could exhibit "disturbed, aggressive or sexualised behaviour".
i 100% agree. we should start by blocking the bible. it's full of obscene, graphically explicit sexual passages and extreme violence.
there's plenty of examples of people exhibiting disturbed, aggressive and sexualized behaviour after reading the bible.
if porn is going to be filtered, there can be no exceptions. no online bible for you!
umm try again..
A religous group wants force its delusions on the rest of the world by passing restrictive laws.
All in the name of family and children, of course.
This must be some of the same parents that are so restrictive with computer usage that all their children ends up as low-level gamers instead of tech-heads. They seem to know so little, yet they feel in position to restrict their childrens use of the computer.
Dvorak on Doomtech
It'd be interesting to see whether or not this would gain government backing.... I'm not sure of the laws, but I don't think a 'Family Group' can do this by themselves.... I'm in Oz... if this goes ahead, who overseas wants to run a VPN so i can still surf pr0n?
...My Sig Sucks...
What the fuck is the Internet ?
:
This is the problem we got here
Internet has a reputation of raw unfiltered contents, which is what makes it so interesting, IMHO.
Now, people want to see it tamed for God's sake.
As Zappa wrote, "Jesus think (they)'re jerk(s)".
They'd rather take care personally of their children instead of giving them yet another reason to fight their regulation once they reach adolescence.
It's not the Goatse which is offending, it's the fact that people have been taught to take it personally as an offence.
Now, you might force people to pay to finance your censorship but its return-effect will be much more painful than the Aussies' boomerangs.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Andrea Mason looks like a crack addict?
:)
Fuck politics, and politicians.
Leftwing christians is something of an oxymoron to me.
Real leftwings are atheists, not some crazy christians. Many parties in the world say they are leftwing and have a profile that looks like its leftwing - but in reality they work for rightwing ideals (like religion, capitalism, etc) - its a way of gaining votes. In their proposal of internet-filtering I say it is their conservative christian ideas you are witnessing, and the leftwing part beeing "offtopic".
this mob is getting 'signed agreements' with mainstream candidates to direct preferences. .. and you thought democracy was flawed in florida...
...is that this group will do a preference deal with the Liberals (our mainstream right wing party) in return for the Libs trying to implement some of their policies.
None of this will affect my vote. John Howard lost my vote when David Hicks went on "trial"
http://michaelsmith.id.au
A group of fundamentalist Christians dislike pornography and want censorship. Well duh. That's what fundie politicos do, they try and impose their beliefs on others.
However, they're not expected to win very many (if any) seats in the Senate. (They've got exactly *one* elected representative anywhere at the moment, a member of the South Australian Legislative Council.
It's a fringe policy of a fringe party, who are going to have zero power in the forseeable future. Why is this considered newsworthy?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Family First are not left-wing. They've simply allied themselves with the Liberal Party. Why? Well, because the Liberal Party are a bunch of right-wing conservatives.
Yes, it's all tremendously silly.
Censoring the Internet is like censoring the telephone system.
Both are information tools, use them with care.
I doubt it may not be as good as the Great (Fire)wall of China ;)
Somebody probably noticed that 'Family First' are allied with the Liberal Party.
;)
In Australia, the 'Liberals' are the right-wing party, something that confuses many septics (not that that's difficult
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
As an Australian, I have one thing to say;
/.
Fuck the children.
This is the job of the parents, and the blame for any problems due to lack of supervision lie squarely with them. I'm not paying a red cent for anyone elses irresponsibility.
Thankfully, Fundies like this dont really have much of a say in politics down here, so hopefully this wont really be heard anywhere outside of
..was not standing in front of the "left wing" I wrote. I am referring to respectable left-wing parties with an open view on society. Not .KP or .CN 'left-wing'...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I remember attending a Protest in Melbourne a few years ago, at the State Library, when the "Liberal Party" wanted to introduce the GST. An Independent "Brian Harradine" held the Balance of Power and in order to get his Vote, they tried to put through Internet Censorship Legislation. .au TLD to Host Pornography of any kind. So much for supporting Locally Produced Content. IIRC, ISPs are by Law still required to have Filters on their Proxy Servers which Block any Offensive Material, or ensure that all Customers have Software Installed and Enabled on their Computers. I don't know of a Single Person, here in Australia, who uses NetNanny or CyberSitter to Censor their Internet Experience.
It is still currently Illegal for an Australian Hosted Webserver, or one with the
I'd be more than happy to help you off your cross.
See here's the thing about your bogus framing of the debate. There has never been an example of an atheist (outside of a Stalinist country) demanding a plaque declaring "There is NO god." be hung in every school. No children have been asked to declare God dead as part of a loyalty oath, in a political effort for immoral politicians to attempt to appear moral.
So give it a rest, Christ could use a day off from your imaginined persecution.
#1 - Family First are a RIGHT-WING neo-christian fringe party, playing the percentages in the bible belt suburbs of the major cities ( cf http://www.hillsong.com/) - they'll poll +/-5% in those areas, not a real threat in the lower house, although they may get some sway if they get the balance of power in upper house, but I doubt it and) , it's anti-competitive, hard to maintain and largely ineffective.
#2 - they'll get this past on a cold day in hell, read their comments about smaller ISPs for instance (eg they're expendable - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/27/net_levy/
It's an attention seeking episode imho
<? include ('signature.inc'); ?>
"The current system of optional filtering had a poor take-up rate, the party said."
I think the party speaks for itself. It's clear that content filtering is only seen as an issue but an amazingly small fraction of internet users. Maybe people actually think they can think for themselves or something.
Just because some nutter right wing Christian party says something doesn't mean it's gonna happen folks! Ignore these twits! VOTE LATHAM!
In Australia since everyone is upside down anyway, the right becomes the left, just like toilets swirl the other way too. G'day mate.
Wait a minute....
How are real leftwings atheists? That's just like saying all Christians are fundamentalist. Just because someone doesn't believe in god/s, doesn't mean they necessarily believe in government-sponsored healthcare and that which makes up leftist ideology.
There is no reason an atheist cannot believe in a small government that likes to promote a large military and whatnot.
Much of politics has little to do with religion at all. Sure, politicians love to speak of God and such to keep most of the electorate happy, but I'm pretty sure that atheists (myself included) look beyond such infantile pleas for votes and look at issues that actually affect their lives instead.
Blows lots of money down the drain. 45 million for a system that will be easily circumvented by kids who are more tech savvy then their parents. If China, a nation dependant on controlling all media, can't stop people from getting around their internal content firewall, what do these christian wack jobs think 45 million dollars will get them?
"How funny that a nation of criminals cares about pornography."
"Some people are utter morons."
I find these two statements from your post highly enlightening.
They want us to pay so that we can help them in preventing us watching porn??
They must be nuts
Adam and Eve... who were butt nakied and loved it. Adam soon got a woody whilst watching Eve picking up the forbidden fruits which had fallen from the trees.. .. so God created Squid filtering proxy server, with Dans Guardian to filter out these grotesque images from Adams vision.
And how Adam cried. Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord.. Whyyyy... didn't you creat pr0n on the Sunday whilst you had nothing better to do!?
... now where did I put my lions?
I grew up in the days before the Internet. Was I exposed to pornography? Yes. In fact most, if not all, of my contemporaries were exposed to pornography. Where did this pornography come from? Well believe it or not, there was a time when pornographic material came in these things called magazines. That's right - magazines!
What used to happen is that one kid would nick one of these magazines and bring it to school. Everyone else would borrow said magazines (the rest is left as an exercise for the reader).
The interesting point is where these magazines came from. Strangers on the streets? No. Mad pornographers trying to hook impressionable kids on their filthy wares? No. Evil devil worshippers and socialists trying to destroy the fabric of society? No. The magazines were nicked from - you guessed it - parents.
Teenagers and adults have always sought out erotic material. It was magazines in my day, the Internet today. Family First, nor any other right wing party, are not going to be changing that fact of life too soon.
One last thing - if you are Australian and interested in IT related policy issues (mandating open file formats, IT procurement policies, censorship etc) please consider voting for the Australian Democrats - if not for the House of Reps then the Senate. Yes they've taken a pounding, but they remain the only party in Australian politics that are dedicated to ensuring accountability in Government and the only party that has aggresively pursued IT policy. Yes some of the others are trying to jump on board the OSS bandwagon (Greens, ALP etc), however the only party to have looked at these issues seriously, and proposed legislation are the Democrats. When they go - so will an accountable Senate.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
The filtering is already working...just look at the title, they filtered out "right wing" and the poor editors being tired and/or stoned said 'well if its not right, its left, eh whats the difference?'
Either that or in the land downunder, they are really upside down and see our right as thier left, i mean come'on their toliets go assbackwards down there!!!!
I guess you are a Democrat?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Well it should be very simple.
If they want to filter stuff they should simply get together and build a server/server(s) with the requisite filtering tools in place. If no current tools are available they can either write their own or pay someone else to do it for them.
All those who wish to can then use said server(s) as a proxy for their internet access which will block anything demmed "adult" or offensive. Hell they can even pay for the pleasure (thereby funding said server farm/coders etc.)
The rest of us can then carry on looking at porn etc. as normal.
As for the idea of making a state tax other people to fund this crap... Get fucking real !
If they are Christians then it even gives them some good advice in their own good book:
"If thine eye offends thee pluck it out"
Get plucking retards.
Flame on !!!
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Why isn't this modded as a troll? While there is truth in the statement that theocratic methods of governance oppose democracy, such an outburst doesn't make sense.
;-)
How are you not the fascist for wanting to marginalise a group you (I assume) don't agree with?
Take care.
Ken.
moron. only 10% of the population can even trace a single ancestor who was a convict.
I lost count of the instances of 'fuck' in this poll, after reading this poll... Ermm ahemm.. *cough*
Yes here Liberal is the far right....
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
I don't think it's such a strange idea, pornography is sinful. But this is not the way to go about it, blocking content does not take away the sinful nature of people. I got my dose of pornography at the early years of the www, and it got boring pretty quickly. But i can see how i would've been trying to see it much more if it was blocked back then.
Whenever i hear fanatic Christians speak about the 'evil' that's internet i think they don't have a clue what they are talking about. I have to be on the internet for my job all day long and i rarely see any pornographic images on my screen. And even if there is the occasional bare breast in some banner i don't even notice it. Get over it, people will have to decide for themselves what they want to see and what not. You can easily block these images and such on the local computer. Overcoming sin isn't supposed to be easy anyway i think. And parents, get a clue.
Sample this!
These people need to get laid.
Why not buy their own Internet filth protective equipment? A blindfold and earmuffs can't cost that much after all.
I hate these high minded religious nuts determined you must live by their rules. Like those nuts in America who fined that TV station for showing J Jackson's breast. I've yet to see a scientific study showing how a glimpse of a mammary gland corrupts the mind of youth. With me, it was the bra / shower section in Mum's catalogues.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I thought only countries like china do these kinda things !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
but these are the same guys running the anti-greens ads on Australian TV at the moment. They come across as a bunch of extremist nuts, damn christians.
and: wtf is with bashing the greens party? They're the good guys in this election.
Down-Under your rights take away the fundamentalists!!
Of blankness, I know nothing.
church censors speach while claiming to provide freedom...
church exiles people 'different from them'...
take care.
love ken.
I live in Australia and have watched this "political party" grow. They are not left wing, they are right wing fundamentalists. There is a real chance they will win seats in the upper house or senate which is important in Australia because the two main political parties are nearly balanced in senators and the smaller parties can gain the balance of power. They have some very scary "politics".. and separation of church and state isn't one of them.
Not all christians are american right wing fundamentalists.
Christians in the rest of the world are generally much more liberal.
It would appear that Family First can't wait to get their censorship system started.
The website of their backers - the Assemblies of God -- has mysteriously become 'under construction' after being available and full of content only a few days ago.
http://www.aogaustralia.com.au/
A sign of things to come?
At 7$ a pop even a small ISP would be able to lease the equipment to setup a content filtering system.
While we are on the tax subject, why not charge plumbers also. There are a lot of children who get hurt playing with water. Is this not a concern?
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I have good reason to believe that Australian Government people are not only stalking the net, watching for suspicious activity and monitoring the net behavior of what they consider to be suspicious people, but they will actively interrupt and subvert an individual's net access if they think it's in their interest. So far I haven't seen any evidence of identity theft from these clowns - they don't seem to be forging emails from me or anything. They have gone so far as to deny me free access to the net when they feel uncomfortable about what I'm doing. Perhaps this is their idea of a hint that what I'm doing is potentially dangerous, but these shadowy puppeteers are unwilling to come out into the light and have a meaningful conversation. Sneaky bastards!
I recently tried to change ISPs but found that my dialup connections were not even reaching the servers of the new, local ISP. My guess is that the phone calls were diverted to a dummy system.
My current ISP - the one I am trying to ditch - is several states away, or at least their mail servers are, which gives the powers that be plenty of opportunities to intercept my logins. Getting an ISP that will supply me with an account that will give me secure authentication for both dialup and email seems to be a difficult proposition. Any fellow Aussies know of a good ISP that does this?
One would hope that they are doing all this for what they consider to be good reasons, but if they're the crowd I think they are, they're serving the government of the day, which I consider to be - what's a good way to put it? - "a bunch of power-hungry, lying, short-sighted morons" - yeah, that about covers it. (Not that I have much faith in the current opposition, but maybe they can be reasoned with.)
Six boxes to use in the defense of liberty: letter, soap, ballot, witness, jury, ammo.
apologies then dood ;) i see that so often though, had to respond.
the irony is that australia only became a penal colony when the US kicked the english out and they needed to find somewhere new :D
Australia is a very secular country, so Christian parties are notable. Also notable is that they are conservative. This is something that consistently baffles me. The New Testament's doctrine is patently pacifistic and egalitarian (as opposed to that of the Old Testament, which was superseded by this). Neither of these are traits of conservatism as a political ideology. Christ didn't kill anyone in response to their wrongdoing. Christ didn't brand people as irrevocably and unequivocally evil, either; he said anyone could come to God. If you try to create a political ideology out of Christianity, its ideas are radically anti-establishment. That Christianity became associated with maintaining a repressive status quo (often brutally) all the way through history after Constantine is a travesty. It proves that if you mix Christianity with centres of power (be they states or churches), religion tends to be thoroughly misrepresented (scapegoated, typically). Basically, leaders who base their leadership on religion have either set out to misuse religion as a means of repressive enforcement or have been corrupted by a serious conflict of interest along the way. Christianity should not be politicized.
Which brings us to the present day. You can disagree with my theology if you want, but flipping back to Genesis, wasn't the fundamental idea that God gave Adam and Eve freedom, freedom to do wrong and make errors, so that they would love Him for Him, not out of necessity? There were certainly consequences of wrongdoing, but the role of punisher was God's and God's only and fundamentally, humankind was given the freedom to choose (we chose poorly). Isn't it yet another misrepresentation of Christianity to associate it with repression? Not only is personal morality God's business, He has decided that it is wrong to stifle choice because it doesn't inspire true faith.
Of course, Christianity holds that pornography is wrong. But to politicize its message has only ever messed it up.
These religious nutters are all hard right wing!
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I'm a political activist for the Greens, Australia's main left wing progressive party.
Family first is a FAR RIGHT party!
Not left!
David
stuff
That's because the liberal party _is_ liberal.
If it's right at all, it's centre right - with labour being centre left.
Also, the Liberal party has allied itself with left wing parties in the past - afterall, in the Liberal / National / Democrat coallition the only truly right wing party is the National Party.
The Democrats are probably the most left mainstream party next to the Greens.
I've never understood why they're part of the Coalition - their extra numbers do more harm than good - just look at the mess they made of GST in a misguided effort to protect those on lower incomes.
*nt*
IMO a leftwing party is a party striving for the stateless communism utopia in some way or another. (like the socialist and communist parties in europe) These parties are often atheists since they think that religion is originally a tool for the upper class to control the working class.
You are correct that it can be leftist politicans / people that vote left, that believe in a god - but IMO they are not "real" leftiest - since they do not agree on the "religion is a form of control".
I did not say that all atheists are leftist though - of course the conservatives/pro-capitalism parties can also be atheists. I said A => B, wich does not mean B => A. (where A beeing leftwing and B beeing atheist)
Another aspect: every outspoken christian party I have heard about is conservative/rightwing. Except for, of course, this australian leftist christian party; which I believe is not real leftist, but only "popular-leftist"; a way of gaining votes from both camps.
so if they really care about family values, will they then also prohibit pornography being sold in stores and adult shops? its possible the hired demon lobbyist only want to narrow the market's grab in where you can only buy porn. Heck i never buy porn when there's lots of free sites.
Watch this world turn to shit, right before your eyes. Good thing they're not yOURS.
People often complain that Howard's new conservative brand of the Liberal Party is pulling this country as far right as the americans.
Well, he can't have been doing such a great job if the Family First party popped up. Ignore the submitter's insistance they're left wing - they're far from it. In fact, their main political rival is the Australian Greens, for their support of gay marriage.
The thought of equity in Australian society scares the shit out of these christian extremists. That's probably why they want to censor the internet now - god help us if a 15 year old sees some porn, it's going to unravel the very fabric of our "christian" society!
Just because a group tends toward something doesn't mean it always has to be associated with it. There are loads of left wing Christians, and loads of athiest right wingers.
You're just idealizing the left wing in your own mind and shoving everything you don't like into the right wing.
Ignorant fool.
Why don't they just cut the wires off and
let internet go away. Jesus won't need internet.
I find it a little disturbing that the first I hear out about this is on /. and not as part of their election campaign!
:)
I think they need to make their policies a little more well known! They're not getting my vote now
Maybe I should watch more TV.
The Democrats and Family First have done a preference deal ensuring that Democrats have preferenced Family First above most other parties.
A vote for the Democrats in the Senate is a vote for the Family First party.
Voting "above the line" for the Democrats will help get Family First elected.
In .au, Family First is tiny. In some states, they don't even hold 1 seat, and in others, they hold 1 or 2 at best. I just hope none of the other political parties in .au say "wait, this is a great idea!" and copy them. What happened to "supervision"?
I just hope people don't vote for them.
"With Microsoft, you get Windows. With Linux, you get the full house" - unknown
Here's the rest of George Carlin's rant about "protect the children":
Today's kids are way too soft. : : : For one thing, there's too much emphasis on safety and safety equipment: childproof medicine bottles, fireproof pajamas, child restraints, car seats. And helmets! Bicycle, baseball, skateboard, scooter helmets. Kids have to wear helmets now for everything but jerking off. Grown-ups have taken all the fun out of being a kid. : : : What's happened is, these baby boomers, these soft, fruity baby boomers, have raised an entire generation of soft, fruity kids who aren't
even allowed hazardous toys, for Chrissakes! What ever happened to natural selection? Survival of the fittest? The kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own. Simple stuff. Nature knows best!
Another bunch of ignorant bullshit about your children: school uniforms. Bad theory! The idea that if kids wear uniforms to school, it helps keep order. Hey! Don't these schools do enough damage makin' all these children think
alike? Now they're gonna get 'em to look alike, too? : : : And it's not even a new idea; I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand, because the narration was in German! But the uniforms looked beautiful. And the children did everything they were told and never questioned authority. Gee, I wonder why someone would want to put our children in uniforms. Can't imagine.
And one more item about children: this superstitous nonsense of blaming tobacco companies for kids who smoke. Listem! Kids don't smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to. They smoke for the same reasons adults do, because it's an enjoyable activity that relieves anxiety and depression.
And you'd be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with these pathetic, insecure, yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you've figured out which side of the playpen smells the worst and then fill you with Ritalin to get you in a mood they approve of, and drag you all over town in search of empty, meaningless structure: Little League, Cub Scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, bagpipes, watercolors, witchcraft, glass blowing, and dildo practice. It's absurd. : : : They even have "play dates", for Christ sake! Playing is now done by appointment! But it's true. A lot of these striving, and parents are burning their kids out on structure. I think what every child needs and ought to have every day is two hours of daydreaming. Plain old daydreaming.
Turn off the internet, the CD-ROMS, and the computer games and let them stare at a tree for a couple of hours. Every now and then they actually come up with one of their own ideas.
You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone.
Thanks George!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
'Hey, look what I found. It's German Scheisse Fetisch Movie'
:)
'It's Cartman's mom!'
'What are they doing?!'
*sounds of disgust. Kyle vomits*
'What's wrong with these Germans?'
South Park lives forever.
--
I refuse to use
They don't advertise it obviously but this party has huge ties to the Assemblies of God religion so they aren't simply a party for family's. They are foolishly trying to get a few seats this election with an anti-Greens scare campaign so they won't get any/many seats, definately not enough to pass something like this. I doubt any major party will support this move either - despite the preference deals with the Liberal party.
Living your own life is different than running a country. Just because a conservative Christian doesn't want to pay more taxes in the name of welfare doesn't mean that they aren't donating to charity. Most churches (I would say all good churches) help people in need (regardless of faith), for example.
Does Australia have a Libertarian party? I'm thinking that one would come in handy right about now--it would give the aussies a chance to vote into office someone who actually cares about their freedoms.
"Feel a glory in so rolling / on the human heart a stone" --E. A. Poe, "The Bells"
People who believe that censorship will solve problems are regularly also idiots.
Do an NMAP scan of their server to see what I mean!
"what happens if we get a hung parliment? we don't want a bunch of political deal makers running the show!"
"can you imagine extreme greens running the show? it'd be chaos!"
gee, I dunno which would be worse, people making deals to save the old growth forests in Tasmania, or people making deals to censor freely available information.
'no political dealmakers' indeed!
Obviously a lot of people letting their bias interfere with moding. If anything this article reinforces pharboy's posting.
His main point was: Intolerence to others is bad.
Just because one group does something you don't like, doesn't give you an excuse to be intolerent to them.
The family first party is targeting a single seat in the senate, and are fighting against the greens.
The political compass separates the traditional left/right line into a plane -- the horizontal axis is left/right which indicates to what extent you believe government should control/regulate the economy, and the vertical axis is authoritarian/libertarian which indicates to what extent you believe governement should control people's behaviour.
It seems to me (I Am Not An American) that Americans regard their left/right line as running from top-left to bottom-right (left is authoritarian, right is libertarian), whereas in many other countries, the line is seen to run from bottom-left to top-right.
Obviously I've exaggerated the slope of the lines somewhat!
(None of which explains what religion has to do with it.)
Disclaimer: Slightly left of center, libertarian, atheist, British.
I've always associated Christian party with right wing. Maybe the concepts of left and right wing politics are reversed in Australia.
Sindri Traustason.
article on BT filtering
Only there's no levy on UK residents direct. One might argue that BT massages costs into it's charges *shrug*
Meanwhile, SpaceShip one landing has been on CNN for 2 hours, but slashdot editors are asleep. Maybe VA Software isn't paying them enough.
I dare ya
These loons can make nutty policy like this because they'll never be in a position to implement it anyhow. They get to rant a lot, saps like us give them media exposure, and their deluded constituency get to feel good about it.
The last batch of net censorship only went in because the dude pushing itt had a deciding vote on privatising our telco, by the time it was "applied", it was completely watered down and ineffective.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Yea that's right - you might not like what pedophiles do but you should still tolerate it.
You are a fucking idiot and I claim my prize.
Australia is south of the Equator.
It's the opposite, just like the seasons and the water in the drain thing.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
-- My Weblog.
>but flipping back to Genesis
Why? Wasn't that obsoleted?!
No wait, I know: it's only "superseded" when it suitable. When you want to talk about the evils of homosexuallity, to take but one example, then it's not.
>, wasn't the fundamental idea that God gave Adam and Eve freedom
No actually, I think that the lesson was that you should: obey your leader(s), not seek knowledge that isn't handed down from them, OR YOU WILL BE PUNISHED!.
So maybe christianity and right-wing politics isn't such an odd match, after all?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
no, no, no, you obviously don't understand...;-)
Yes, children do get hurt by water...heck, some are even KILLED! They actually DROWN! Hence, something must immediately be done to protect the children. Australia needs to set up large, filtering nets or walls all along the coastline to prevent children from accidentally wandering into the ocean where they might get hurt or even KILLED! So, I expect all good Christians to get to work on that right away. Get those "children protection filters" constructed along your coastlines right NOW!
It shouldn't come as a surprise to slashdot readers ... the two organizations that are down on violent video games (both often mentioned here) are the Lion and the Lamb project (left-leaning outfit) and the National Institute on Media and the Family (right-leaning outfit). Guess which one supports (unconstitutional) legislation limiting sales of violent videogames? I'll give you a hint : it's not the right-leaning one.
Also, the US is probably one of the most right-leaning industrialized nations, and also has the best free speech protections of all of them.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
We levy $7 so that all indignant persons with fringe religious beliefs can have their eyes and ears sealed with superglue, lest they see something that offends their narrow world view.
I can not view some parts of ebay, I may want to buy an old army uniform or a compass or something...and start a war or...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
This has been discussed time and time again.. Imagine, getting spam with horny as the title, and being unable to access hotmail.
Its no big issue. Its implausible for ISP's to implement, and even if they do, everyone will just use proxies anyway..
Its actually kind of old news. I heard stuff like this discussed on the radio years ago, and everyone agreed it wont work
In other countries there are extremist parties that will commit to all kinds of nasty shit but dont stand a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected.
and then nix your freedom. no way punk! howard burns in hell, the answer all lazy governments have - cant solve problems, ban 'em. once they get you support, no saying to what extent they'd go to!
http://www.jesusradicals.org/
And we all know what good that was. Playboy Bunnys will be wandering around Australia looking for holes to get through and show off their suitability for breeding. And all the other people that are showing themselves f**king like bunnies will be trying to get through as well and I think that they will probably be successful.
"Godless" communism really was a clever way to turn as many people against the communists as possible. If it wasn't bad enough that they suppressed free speech/press, and had unelected officials running the whole show for the powerful to stay powerful and the powerless to stay that way (as opposed to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer...), these folks also didn't believe in God. This added another degree of evilness to them.
But what utopian communism was really striving for was not atheism, but a freedom from the church, which was another form of power. There is nothing inherently wrong with someone believing in a higher being in a communistic society. The problem is organized religion with a hierarchy and special rules. It would be foolish to think that no one in the Soviet Union believed in God.
So the real leftists, the ones who want state control of everything (yet, strangely, no state at all), actually want to do away with all systems of power. Since religion is a system of power, it needs to be done away with. Granted, a lack of churchgoing will make people less likely to believe in God, but that is not necessarily the goal of the leftwingers.
People should have the right to rot their minds and destroy their families with porn and other morally bankrupt materials. And if inhaling modelling glue floats your boat, give'r.
That's what life is about: making choices and accepting the consequences. Just keep in mind that some consequences can be eternal.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
>If anything this article reinforces pharboy's posting.
Your sentence got cut off, here let me help you:
"If anything this article reinforces pharboy's[sic] posting, assuming you've got the reasoning skills of a retard."
HTH. HAND.
Just spam me if you seen to care about it.
Oh, wait...
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
1. Scare the majority by using a zealot minority
2. Put some tax or increase deficit spending
3. Claim the revenue/allocation will defend people from intolerable evil
4. Accuse the zealot minority of being terrorists, kick them out of the scheme
5. Rename the tax
6. ???
7. Profit !
8. Visit local brothel
Idiot. Everything that isn't exactly the same as you is at the opposite extreme, right?
People like you are the cause of most violence in the world.
Fucking idiot.
Know.
*KNOW* they're intolerant.
How do you feel about self-confessed pedophiles?
(Yeah, that was a rethorical question)
Omfg, I'm australian, and I watch porn! Goddamnit, whose safety are they looking after here, definitely not their own if this gets passed.
Doesn't anybody else find the drivel that these people come up with somewhat amusing? Come on; they're trying to censor the Internet, and they think that they have some hope of succeeding! They actually think that they have a chance at infringing on our freedom from censorship! What's next; eliminating the need for warrants when raiding properties? Oh, wait...
Invisible to moderators.
Wow. Well thought out rebuttal.
(Actually, no, it's not. I'm explaining this because you're a complete idiot. Here goes: what you just said translates roughly into, "I'm too dumb to think of any argument at all, let alone an intelligent or logical one.")
Other country laws.. Looks like many of the countries have already realized or are in the way to realizing that censoring the net is going to be an impossible task.
I couldn't agree more.
....pre-Constantine, as you noted.
...Now that is pro-Life!
There's a strain of Christian thought that through history has emphasized a distinction between Christianity and Religion, per se. Of course, we don't hear this emphasized by the religious Christian groups today as it has generally been championed by those who have resisted the status quo (Of more recent note, cf. Karl Barth and other Neo-orthodox who rallied against old Christian Liberalism that clung to the state and endorsed pretty much anything that came from it, including horrid old doctrines like Eugenics; or cf. the whole Liberation Theology movement in present day Latin America and elsewhere).
It's so ironic that theological conservatives are today the ones who are quickly willing to side with big government and do things like try to legislate rules on marriage to push their own moral world view on others. The earliest Christians, renowned for their anti-establishment conservativism (no Ceasar worship?! Gasp!!) were pacifists in the truest sense.
When the early Christians had a problem with abortion (contemporary forms of the practice), they didn't kill people for it, they waited at the dumps and adopted what children they could.
And now, I sit in Sunday School, and listen to people who honestly believe that if Jesus were here today, he would be writing his senators and politicking on trendy moral issues. It burns me the hell up to have Jesus rendered so trite and tied entirely to local drama. Have they ever even read the damn book they talk about so much?
So, instead of just complaining and throwing in the towel, I now teach Sunday School, and I teach about Jesus and use his words which sound oddly out of place in my Baptist church. It gets me in trouble, and some days I really really want to quit, but also on rare occassions, it turns on lights and people begin to see that there is a difference between Christianity (following Christ) and Religion (the polical, moral, and pop psychology package) and maybe the world is a little better place.
What else would a Geek with a degree in theology do? There's an itch; it needs to be scratched.
"Man has always been his own most vexing problem." --Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Nature and Destiny of Man"
>It is generally considered that Labor is "left" in Australia whilst the coalition (liberal and national parties) are the "right".
An important point here - the primary party of The Coalition is the Liberal Party, not the liberal party.
The Liberal Party are *not* liberal in the true sense of the word - they are on the conservative end of the political spectrum.
This has lead to Australians referring to "small L liberals" and "big L liberals", to differeiante between the two.
> The family first party is clearly a right wing party and is identified locally as such.
Yep, they're religious zealots of the worst kind. The only parties worse than them are One Nation and the Citizen's Electoral Council.
Well all i can say is bugger off if parents wasnt to use such software they can go and buy it for there computers the idear of making a nation wide thing is just plain stupid. This election is bringing up some of the wierdest idears in a long time. Hell this along with the labor Medicare Gold idear was probley thought up at the local pub the night before when they were all offf there faces. If you want to stop your kids looking up stuff they shoulden't try http://www.netnanny.com/ and shelf this idear before you look even more stupid
If anyone in Aus finds one of these Family First people, ask if they believe in higher taxes to help the world's poor. If people have control of their web habits, they will be tempted to look at porn. Likewise if people have control of their money, they will be tempted to sin by spending it selfishly. If the government should remove the temptation of porn, shouldn't it also remove the temptation of money?
As an Australian and a somewhat intelligent one at that, it baffles me the kind of things we do internationally or leak internationally to make us look like fucking buffoons.
Seriously the level of stupidity in this country is sometimes astounding.
It tires me that Crocodile Dundee to that moronic Crocodile hunter (WE ALL FUCKING HATE HIM ONLY YOU FOREIGNERS LIKE HIM) to constant "internet censorship" and rumours of us having poisonous animals in our loungeroom's is all people know about us!
Incase some of you aren't aware of this, about the only 2 generalisations about us that are completely true is 1, the "g'day" thing - we say it, I don't know why but we do and the beer drinking - all the other stuff is just by the REALLY stupid people in far north Queensland (and it's actually where we ship the legally braindead once pronounced at the hospitals)
Sigh.
(I wonder if this will get through the "great aussie firewall!")
I'm a fairly politically aware Australian, and I have only heard of this party a couple of times in the last few years.
.. but it's rarely anything to worry about.
They aren't exactly a major force in Australian politics.
As both a percentage of the population and on plain numbers, most of the rest of the world has a bigger chance of having this particular type of censorship imposed than we do.
Australians are pretty passive politically on the whole, and it's mostly those with extremist views to whom the politicians are pandering. This coupled with the fact that our right wing government is happily passing laws which directly contradict all other facets of our legal system mean that it's not hard to find a big article about some bunch of nutters trying to turn off the internet, but it's only in the most easily regulated media industries (eg TV) where any changes can be seen.
A couple of years ago the Australian government passed a law permitting all kinds of mandatory firewalling for reasons as vaguely explained as "containing innappropriate content" but there's not a spot of firewalling actually happening, and if anybody tried to enforce it the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) would undoubtedly completely overturn the law, just like they did with DVD Regions.
Mainstream Australia is layed-back and unconcerned with the mad rantings of the social and economic right wing, but when they start crowding us they don't usually last long.
It's good that these issues are in the news, as it keeps the public aware of general goings-on
Well read the new testament pretty much closer if you think.
He did say people are bad.
He
A) showed the requirements of LAW was so much bigger than what the letter said and no man could fulfill it fully, so that EVERYONE was bad.
B) He did say that MOST people will do bad thing. Wide is the road to hell and many will go it, and narrow way to salvation and few will go through it.
The theology should not be just anti change, but instead of change for correct direction. And he gave us the law. Which was in the mathew 5 said that nothing will be removed from it. Now if the law of God that israelites lived was a LAW that limited the freedoms, so did the choise of not taking apple did also, there where limits that you where not supposed to go over or get punished, and at that time those punishments where for cheating was death by stoning etc... Ant that law didn't stop people from doing such acts, but it's more or less deterrant. Anyway this is probably not the best forum for these discussions as there are plenty of fundamentalist atheists here doing the moderation and others for answering. Don't let politics come in to christianity, let christianity come in politics. If we shut up we let others do the decisions for us, same is for ALL groups. If no-one except facist politize then facists will make the decisions. If no-one except commies same thing, if facists and some other party makes decisions and others won't say anyting about it then those two parties will make decisions. We should just take active political role, and stop just talking about how things change to bad direction. We can make difference to that. People can take passive role or active role, and new testament says nothing about taking passive role of things...
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Australia has preferential voting (i.e., instant runoff voting) and proportional representation in the Senate (i.e., parties get representation according to the proportion of the vote they got). Family First just did a deal with all major parties to get their preferences; the parties signed up for this largely to eliminate the Greens, a minor party which has been gaining in influence, though the conservative party (i.e., the very much misnamed Liberal Party) shares some of FF's ideology. On the strength of preferences (automatically distributed according to the party's specification, except for the few political enthusiasts who fill their own in, which involves filling in about 50 boxes), FF are likely to take over the Greens' position in the Senate, which would give them the balance of power.
As a rabid left wing christian fundimentalist I wholeheartadly agree.
Howard and Costello may go to church, but their oppression of the poor and their warmongering is against my personal morality. I am voting Labour this coming election because that is what God would want me to do
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
we do insist that our schools cover a concept called 'evolution' in biology lessons, sometimes even hypothesis of galaxy and solar system formation in physics lessons, and generally encourage a form of thinking called 'the scientific process', in which only observable and repeatable experiments/data are to be treated with any regard.
One could argue therefore that we do persecute certain people who choose not to believe in the scientific process and its implications.
What we dont ever do is knock on people's doors to bring "the truth" to them. Which is something to think about it. Should we become door to door atheists? I can imagine it now:
us: "hello, we are here to talk to you about god"
them#1: "go away, there is no god"
us: "thank you, that was what we wanted to verify"
or
us: "hello, we are here to talk to you about the fishes and the ocean"
them: yes?
us: "you see, the fishes, they walked up on their little fins, out of the ocean"
them: "did they?"
us: "yes, they walked out of the ocean onto dry land. And they did it for us".
them: "yes, I see it now, let us go spread the word!"
And together we could bring the happy truth about the fishes that walked to the world.
Let me just clarify their logic:
- 93% of parents support automatic filtering of net access.
- Uptake of ISP parental control features has been low.
Solution: Because people want censorship but can't be assed to pick up the phone and ask their ISP to enable it on their account, the entire country must be censored and everyone must pay a fee.
Lets see..
- 93% of people aged 18 - 25 would like to have pizza delivered on a thursday night.
- The uptake of pizza delivery on a thursday night has been low.
Solution:
Because people can't be assed to order the pizza, everyone will have mandatory pizza on thursday nights (you don't have to eat it but all other restaurants and supermarkets will be closed) and everyone will pay for it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Why, just the other day I was looking at pr0n, and saw a naked chick fueling her little car with petrol. Walked in a paid for it. The license tag read "Western Australia", so I figure it was like France and everyone just walks around naked?
They don't?
*cancels trip to Australia*
Now you can correct me if I'm wrong but children do not go in search of child pornography on the internet. The people that do prey on children pose as children in chat rooms to acheive their goals.
.... "Would you leave your child alone with 100+ strangers who you've never met before?"
....
How will the blocking of content stop this from occuring?
Shouldn't money be spent no on educating parents and NOT filtering content at the ISP level. It actually doesn't cost much to pose the question to parents
Please email these people and let them know this.
The head office email is:
admin@familyfirst.org.au
and candadies can be found here
http://familyfirst.org.au/candidates.php/
-=+ Remember George Bush gives us all hope
-=+ If he can be President the I can sure get through the day!
This is the political party that has decided to not give preferences to the Liberal party candidate in my electorate, despite supporting the Liberals in other electorates, merely because she has made it known that she is a lesbian.
Not a group that I would be voting for anytime soon.
In fact, in Holland, the VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie / People's party for freedom and democracy) is considered "liberal". And it's a centre-right-wing party.
In Belgium (VLD) and Germany, this is no different.
Liberal = right-wing in most of Europe.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
1) Right wing not left.
2) They get less than 5% of the vote.
Net effect: 300 mindless stupid posts on slashdot.
In the US, Left/Right is basically evangelical+orthodox religious + people who make more than $200K/ann. / traditional Catholic + non-evangelical + reform Jewish + non-Judaeo-Christian + non-theist. It's purely a religious distinction now, and has been since about 1994. Polarization over "Christian" issues has taken over completely. Speaking as a left of center, liberal progressive, non-theist, American. But none of this matters, because the poster of the story got it wrong: Family First is a conservative party in Australia. RTFA.
that if you murder around 20 million people for political purposes, a certain amount of "terror" is envolved. And in the case of Stalin, please see the bullshit autobiographical film he commisioned. In the case of Mao, please see how he comported himself while in his struggle for power with Chang Kia Shek.
Moron. What, you think they just magic'd their asses into power?
I consider myself to be quite conservative but I am opposed to this forced solution. I believe that something should be done but there is a better way to do it. The problem is that people consider pornography to be different things. My wife would probably get upset if I was looking at Victorias Secret but for her it could be considered OK. I propose that an open source bayesian type filter be created. This way people can block the types of things they don't like to see. I would like to hear peoples opinion on this.
An alternate mail: mredirect@list.ru
How about this.
Problem: The Internet as it stands today is not a safe or suitable place for children.
I think we agree on that. Now, there are two possible solutions to this problem.
Solution 1: Somehow make the Internet -- a nebulous entity beyond the control of any individual or organisation, no respector of imaginary lines and specifically equipped to deal with sabotage -- safe and suitable for children.
Solution 2: Recognise that the Internet is first and foremost an adult phenomenon, and ban children from using it.
Hint: Bet on the even number.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Family First Party,
I was horrified to read in the news today details of your misguided
policy on instituting a Internet filtering system to block
pornographic and other offensive material on the Internet.
This policy is blatant pandering to lazy parents who wish others to
take the responsibility of properly supervising and raising their
children. I don't deny that pornographic material can be accessed on
the Internet, but having been an active Internet user for many years,
there have been only two occasions where I have accidentally
encountered advertisements for pornographic material. Hardly "easy to
stumble across".
Furthermore, I was flabbergasted at your easy dismissal of the burden
that would be faced by many smaller ISP's and that it doesn't matter
if you drive them out of business, because there "too many of these at
the moment". Never mind that this would negatively impact hundreds or
thousands of families (who I thought you were about putting "first"?).
It could perhaps be argued that Australia has too many political
parties, and that "competition could be maintained" with a lesser
number (like Family First, for example).
You quote figures that 73% of boys and 11% of girls have watched
X-Rated videos, but only 38% and 2% have deliberately sought out sites
on the Internet. So, according to these figures, MORE teenagers have
seen an X-rated video than have sought out Internet pornography.
Surely then your policy should be addressing the alarming numbers of
teenagers viewing these pornographic videos! Or then again, it's
quite possible that teenagers will view pornography any way they can.
You also note that poor uptake of end user filtering. Were there
reasons for this poor uptake? If it's lack of knowledge of the option
then you should perhaps be concentrating on educating the public to
use an existing system.
The policy also states we "acknowledge the need to regulate other
media". Regulation and censorship are two completely different things
- at least with regulation adults can still access legal pornography.
I dislike censorship; because you do not want "the" children to see
pornography does not make it right for you to restrict adults from
this. If parents do not want their children to access pornography,
they can take the appropriate steps. I do not believe it is the right
policy to inflict your censorship on everyone in Australia, whilst
increasing their tax burden (on those poor families again!)
If you are determined to provide an Internet without pornographic and
offensive material, an alternative, cheaper and far more preferable
solution would be for you to either set up, or arrange to set up, your
own ISP. Families would be free to use your ISP, knowing that their
Internet access it is filtered at ISP level, and the rest of us can
use the Internet free of your odious attempts at censorship.
Yours faithfully
I think the reason many religious authorities seek to ban or strongly restrict pornography is because it is a very strong competitor for some of the same feelings that drive religious worship. :)
Pornography allows individuals to worship the human body as the perfect form instead of a god who is supposed to be the only form of perfection.
You could also argue that the meaning of life is not what various religions teach but to procreate,
making pornography a form of "religious study"
After all as long as you have descendants a part of you (though probably not a soul) will live after you die, and it is a lot easier and (much more fun!, I think) to bring this about than going through a lifetime of religious worship and devotion.
They aren't part of the Coalition, which may explain you lack of understanding.
Interesting? What the fuck is interesting about someone demonstrating they know neither what irony is, or the difference between hating dissenters and hating intolerance?
Can anyone taste the bile? A good portion of their articles are about how bad the greens and the democrats are, how well they are polling when nobody's ever bloody heard of them and how fast they are growing.
Drugs are bad mmmkay, we like to put the family first.
Abortion is bad mmmkay, we like to put the family first.
homosexuality is bad mmmkay, we like to put the family first.
Euthanasia is bad mmmkay, we like to put the family first.
Prostitution is bad mmmkay, we like to put the family first.
Family First are trying to rest the balance of power in the senate from the democrats and the greens. They have provided little evidence of where their funding comes from and will most probably have members of the congregations ordered to man polling booths throughout the country.
Try these guysinstead.
Left wing Australian Christian political party
If THIS is not a multioxymoron, who are the right wing on australian political scene then? Cthulhu believers?
Great firewall of Australia, here we come!
Well, Holy Great Firewall of Australia, now that sounds much better.
There you are, staring at me again.
Why dont we just add .xxx or .sex to the ridiculous list of domains out there and restrict all pornographic material to those sections. If you think of newsgroups, you *generally* only get porn if youre looking for it. This way people who dont want porn could avoid it, and those who do could get to it more easily. Parental controls would be more effective as well. Many sites now do not venture from .com because it doesnt look professional. I dont think a site devoted to asian girls in pantyhose has to worry about creating a diginified look.
Thank you. For myself, I know my toilet was terribly confused.
Sorry just can't pass up a chance to poke fun at a typo.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
I guess this is the correct one:
Evidence on the extent of exposure and likely effects
Other than for protection of minors censorship is not usually a good thing. To do it along religious lines gets mad.
eg - Should you block sites selling or advising on the use of condoms? For some Christian faiths the answer would be yes.
Or Pork products - for some other faiths yes. Sunday working / trading, yes this too.
Alchohol - Some christian and Muslim faiths don't like this either.
The real danger is the creep of censoship from protecting the vulnerable into just preeching ideas onto others.
Don't do it.
The Christian Peoples Party in Norway gained power with only 8% of the votes. They got the prime minister of norway and several other ministers, all with just 8% of the votes.. Hurray for democracy..
Why are Christians conservative? The answer, it turns out, is not a matter of religion or theology, but instead sociology and psychology.
Basically put: It's not the christians as individuals that are perpetuating the conservative line, but the organizations that are in power.
It turns out that an organization's level of conservatism is usually related to how large/powerful the group is. Playing it conservative helps preserve things the way they are now, which is beneficial to the people on top.
Think about this: At the height of Christianity, the church was as strong as the government (Or was an integral part of the government). That's also when things were so conservative that speaking out in the wrong ways could get you killed.
As always, there are exceptions to the rule, but generally it goes like this: The people in power want to preserve their power. They will write policies and teach conservative views to make sure most people view the world the same way they do. The ones with liberal views are then going to be (generally) those who have the least power.
Interestingly, there comes a time when the conservative line takes away too much power from your average Joe, and they join the liberal ranks. The liberals overthrow the conservatives, and the cycle continues.
It's not about Jesus and his teachings, it's about the church having had large amounts of power. As Christianity is in the decline you will find there will be a higher ratio of Christians who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, instead of those who profess to follow Jesus but do what they want anyway.
Don't really know what the next conservative religious group may be. My colleagues say it'll be the pagans, which (as a pagan leader) scares me. Why? Simply put: To organize and make powerful paganism would be to remove what I consider to be it's greatest benefits: The power given to individuals through self-discovery.
~D
http://www.modernwiccan.com
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
... which is the, often misunderstood, message in the great Life Of Brian.
"E's not the Messiah, e's a very naughty boy."
Thanks slashdot, now I know who to put
last on by ballot. I hope you got the
story straight, because I didn't RTFA.
BT only filters illegal content. It does not filter porn in general.
When I was a kid, our church would sponsor a recycling day once a month or so - a large open container would be dropped off in the parking lot and people would bring their newspapers and magazines on their way to service.
One time, I think I was about 12, I saw my friend Dave sitting on top of the pile, reading. When I asked what he was doing, he said, "There's a whole bunch of dirty magazines up here." He packed a grocery bag with about 30 magazines, told his parents he had found a ton of comic books, stuck them in the back of the family station wagon and took them home. Recycling day was our source of porn for years.
So, I was first exposed to pornography by our church, and our church supplied me with free porn throughout my adolescence. Yay God!
"Can I finish? Can I finish?
'septic tank' is rhyming slang used to describe someone from the USA.
Why they're at it, why don't they ban all non-Christian sites. I think that's a great idea, because after all, those sites are offensive to non-Christians. Oh, and political debate is offensive too. Once a country starts arbitrarily determining, what is and is not offensive, it can only go downhill from there.
IMHO it's wrong to judge Christianity based on the Assembly of God, as I don't believe they are Christian. They claim to be but in fact they seem to be following their own wacked out rules. They are more accuratly be compared to the Pharisees.
Every morning your email box would still be stuffed with 100 emails promising "Y0U G0TTA 5EE TH1S UND3RAG3 5LUT5 WAN7 Y0UR C0X C0ME 5EE N0W 4 FR33!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It won't do anything for the people who engage in child porn or who plague the internet with popups and such trying to snare people who aren't even LOOKING for porn. They will get through the firewall because, like spammers, they don't care about the law and will work hard to circumvent it.
However, this law would keep honest, and (otherwise) law-abiding citizens from getting their hands on porno that they DO want, in the privacy of their own home.
I feel safer already.
The only thing worse than a rights-infringing law is a rights-infringing law that doesn't even accomplish the goal for which it was created.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
It really shits me when people equate Greens with luddites.
The Greens have never planned to ban electricity or transport OR meat eating. It will take some serious technological advances to maintain our current standard of living whilst minimising our impact on the environment.
Not to mention the new technology we will need to create to reverse the damage already done by humans such as weeds, ferals and wasteful agricultural practices.
I'm terrified by the prospect of religious extremists gaining a balance of power in the Australian senate. These guys are never going to rule the country, but they could end up being in a position where the Government has to deal with them in order to get their legislation through the upper house.
The current censorship/ratings/whatever mess that exists in Australia now was introduced to appease Brian Harradine, a senator who held such a balance of power in the senate a few years ago. The Government did it so he'd pass their telecommunications privatisation legislation.
These guys would be worse.
As with many of these fundaementalist parties in australia the reality is that they wont get very many votes. If they do they are more than likely to be 18-24year olds doing the donkey vote and not realising that its a serious issue. Good thing its compulsory to vote in australia so people are less likely to get into power through donkey votes.
I'm sick and tired of these "porn sites" and they're ingenious sales tactics! I mean seriously what kind of sicko would post an ad that has a jpeg image of a microsoft window asking me if I like saucy young teens (yes | no) I almost thought microsoft was advertiseing to me (thats just stupid I know). fortunatly my themes were turned off and the xp theme of the window was a dead give away. Thanks microsoft!!
... because it has one major flaw: they want you to pay to *NOT* get porn???? Which numbnut came up with that?
Family First as a political party sit only slightly to the right of the Taliban.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
This reminds me of the bit in Jonathan Lethem's book "Gun, With Occasional Music" where a pair of nicely dressed people are going up the street knocking on peoples doors to proselytize Freud's
"Civilization and its Discontents". Funny bit in a very fun book.
Why? Because it's rhyming slang {septic tank == yank}, or because they're both full of shit?
Personally, I think having a well-hung parliment is -essential-, which is why I've decided to run for office. ;)
Everyone knows that if you build a firewall around Australia, you'll only attract thousands of Mongolians, who'll come tear it down.
I believe the people in charge of such a harebrained scheme underestimate their children. If a thing exists, and a person knows what they want, it can be found on the Internet. It may not be easy or direct, but there are any number of roundabout ways to find it; for example Google cache and the internet arcive spring to mind. Not to mention the countless mirrors usually made of particularly interesting tidbits. And that's when searching for a specific document -- how hard will it be to find porn? Not very. So the tightasses will ask for stricter laws and higher fines, maybe even jail time for the people they're trying to "protect"...
I had heard this joke.
When people were emigrating from England, Australia
& the USA were given a choice. They could either
take in the "Religious Nuts" or the Criminals.
Australia were given first choice & they chose the
criminals.
What happened? Did Christopher Columbus sail to Australia & think he was in the USA?
From "Family First's Policy Statement on Internet Pornography and Children":
... say they have deliberately sought out sex sites on the Internet.
- 38% of boys
- Around 4-5% of boys identify as frequent (weekly) users of pornography.
These numbers seem extremely low. Based on this alone, I'm not we can trust anything in their literature.
> Yep, they're religious zealots of the worst kind. The only parties worse than them are One Nation and the Citizen's Electoral Council. Actually, I am disagreement here. You only mentioned the right-wing extremists. The Australian Greens http://www.australiangreenswatch.com/ and the Women's Electoral Lobby are 2 examples of extremist left-wing parties. I reckon they are worse than the Family First. As far as I'm concerned any party that lives on the extremes of the political spectrum is at the very least loopy, and quite often dangerous.
Honestly, I think it has something to do with the idea that "my religion is the Only Correct Way". Word of God and all that.
They're right and everybody else is wrong, which leads naturally to the repression of other ideas and the repression of the people stubbornly holding those other ideas.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything special against the Christian religion (more than organized religion in general, anyway) or live-and-let-live Christians, but this is how I see it.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
According to some scholars Jezus himself was a Communist.
This in the sense of being pro-commune, the Israeli Kibbutz is an expression of such.
Stalinists, although communist, are often refered to as Conservative.
So let's be careful with Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative unless you include a point of reference!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Consider the wording:
"...Left wing Australian Christian political party Family First"...
Question.
1. If there is no 'Right' Wing; Single wing critters have a very diffcult time flying, or walking.
2. 'Family First' implies there's something second. What could that be?
3. 'Christian political party'; This is the first time I've seen an oxymoron using more than 2 words.
I agree so far.
the current situation needs regulation of some sort
Like what? Laws to sweep back the tide never work. And you just gave a major reason why:
any reasonably computer-savvy 10 year old often know a lot more about their computers than their parents
Always have, always will;). Plus, for the interested teenager there's always a friend's computer, and other creative solutions.
Besides, what's wrong with porn? In a society as badly undersexed in actual practice as the US is, apparently "virtual sex" fills a need.
Too Late. Austrialia is essentially this way as it is. Their high-tech computer crime organization blocks (at a network level for the entire continent) any thing that might be illegal/offensive. And let me tell you, its usually a block that prevents any kind of communication to them to get the block removed.
There are days I am glad to live in the hell hole I live vs. austrailia...but other days makes me wish to get the hell outta this place too....[/rant]
Damn Nov. 2 is coming up too fast...and DAMN the two political parties for sucking so much.
This party isn't a big player in Australian politics, so the chance of this even becoming a bill are minimal, let alone making it's way through our constitutional monarchy system to become law.
I.E. No china-like firewalls on Australian internet users anytime soon.
It is a dirty business. I don't care if you want to look at what ever you want to, but keep your porn spam and pop-ups off my computer. You have your rights...I have mine.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Some people are not Christians and are offended by their antics, their ranting and foaming at the mouth and their version of morality.
99% of them are child molesters or some other version of pervert, or adulters or drunks or drug abusers or...... They run around foaming at the mouth about God then run home, get drunk, smoke some dope and poke the little boy next door in the booty while reading a copy of Hustler.
I'm against pornography because it degrades women and I'm 101% against kiddie porn/molesters, child molesters are mentally ill and should be put to death. I'm a parent and grand parent so don't say anything to me about that, I would *kill* anyone that touches my kids or grandkids.
They have ways to detect, track down and arrest child pornographers. Leave that process to the police. But don't dictate with a broad brush what people can and can not see. I find it particularly offensive that a religious organization is allowed the status of a political party. And they find it offensive that I take offense to them. So they will dictate that I am not allowed to view dissenting materials of alternative political parties. It's their TRUE GOAL to convert, my force of law, the country into a religious Garden of Eden, as they see it in their limited minds.
Just like the CDU (Christian Democrats) in Germany or the Christian Family First in Australia or the Christian Neo-con right wingers in America. No religion has the right to impose it's will or morality upon anyone.
When a country seeks to silence dissenters from the approved party line, you have a dictatorship.
give me a break, theres tons of porn in the bible yet I don't see them trying to ban it... fsking hypocrits :]
check out this verse (Ezekiel 23:19-20):
"Yet she multiplied her whoredomes, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein, she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon her paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is as the issue of horses."
I don't think children need to be reading about large genitals and ejaculations.
On a side note, doesn't Andrea Mason (on the right of the website.. apparently the party leader) looks like a tranny?
As a Muslim from an Arab country, I am sort of glad to see this come out from a liberal Western democracy.
All the time, the media in the West portrays Islam and Muslims as the proponents of oppressivness, backwardness, literalism, religious zealotry, intolerance, ..etc.
This shows that extremist thought can happen ANYWHERE, at ANYTIME, within ANY RELIGION.
We have seen Harry Potter books burned in the USA, and now calls for internet filtering in Australia.
I hope that everyone now stops blaming a certain religion or culture as being always 'bad' or 'extremist' and see that this can happen anywhere. If you add political, social and economic factors, then you get more of that than you do in a place where these factors are less.
W: What's so special about cheese makers?
M: It's not meant to be taken literally dear. It could refer to any vendor of dairy products.
Yeah, you got to love how it all gets wedged in somehow or other. If they found hobits in the center of the planet you'd soon see that rationalized by various churches as well.
Another has made the necessary comment, but an elaboration on history that you might understand, intentionally it is simplified to expedite your understanding. Christianity and Catholicism were the same for the majority of the existence of Christianity. Then the fellow by the name of Martin Luther posted some complaints and set off the Protestant Revolution. About a hundred years later many conflicts occurred in the Germanic states and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that are classified collectively as the Thirty Year's War; this was primarily a conflict between Protestant and Catholic groups, the former to survive and the latter to eliminate the former. Before these points in history there were no Protestants and The Church meant the single church of Christian Europe, the Catholic Church. Of course at the time many Muslims were living in Spain and in the Ottoman Empire, neither are encompassed in the above classification of Christian Europe. You may mention the Jewish diaspora, but the Jews had second class or untouchable status to use the Indian caste equivalent. The use of "The Church" is typically used to indicate the relation of the subjects currently under discussion as justified only by authorities who seek to restore or only in that former situation. Unfortunately many Christian Protestants have also taken up the classical conservatism and strict xenophobia against all other humans who do not subscribe to exactly the same understandings as they doe.
This is the same kind of stupidity that prompts Republicans to assume George W. Bush is honest because he's GOP, and Kerry is a liar because he isn't.
Of course, it works the other way around too. Stupidity spans the entire political spectrum.It's easier to go by group names than to actually apply logic.
(For the record, my logic tells me that both major party candidates are asshats.)
The Bible - here is a book that in the first chapter ( genesis ) says that knowledge of good and evil is a sin. If you believe the bible is the ultimate moral authority, then reading the bible is a sin. Preaching from the bible is spreading and inciting sin. If you don't believe the bible has any moral authority, then reading it is not a sin. It's just another ( silly ) book.
Who said that is a stupid response? I believe it was concise and to the point.
Like how the religious right is trying to amend the Oregon constitution (and other states') to outlaw gay marriage.
They just *love* to take our rights away according to what they *think* read in the bible.
Since you really can't think for yourself in a modern society, please fuck off.
See? I *tried* to be nice - and asked politely!
You know, I really have had my fill of right-wing christian fundamentalists telling me that I will go to hell because I've looked at porn and had sex before marriage, etc...
But this post is pretty over-the-top. There really is nothing wrong with people praying and doing whatever religious acts that they want to - as long as it does not harm other people, or force their views onto others.
I particularly dislike converting people to a religion and passing legislation against abortion and gay marriage. Those really irk me. But praying in school? Bible-thumping groups? Please! Go! Have fun! Knock yourselves out. I don't care if its buddhist, hindu, christian, or jews. Well, maybe they won't ALL be thumping bibles. Or just in different ways. =)
And you wanna know the reason why parents pamper their kids so much these days?
Notice that the 'only child' kids are the ones who get spoiled the most?
Propagation of your genes - if you only have 1 or 2 kids instead of 10 or 12, can't leave stuff up to chance. Parents gotta make sure their genes get passed on somehow...
so do several states in the US. Like in Oregon, where I live. But it only applies to 18 & younger.
The left-wing/right-wing thing has been argued to death already, but shouldn't this story be posted in the new(ish) politics section of Slashdot?
The Australian federal election is just over a week away (October 9th), and Family First are just making some noise in order to get votes. It's not like it's ever going to happen. I doubt either a Labor or Liberal government would want to alienate small ISPs or be accused of censorship. Even if Family First do get candidates in and propose the bill, if the House of Reps doesn't kill it, the Senate is more than likely to.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Feed 'em to the lions. Much more productive use for people who didn't use helmets, and lion food for the zoos costs a lot of money, with all the recent budget cuts in the US and all.
This is exactly the reason one should *NEVER* base judgements of what someone stands for merely on the basis of what name or label is attached to them. Like so many people who claim they are Christians and are the most un-Christian people on the face of the earth.
Would someone who truly believes in the Bible honestly be able to stand up and say that a man or group of men in government have the right or ability to legislate away the freedom of conscience that their God saw fit to endow every man, woman and child with? Would they honestly be able to say that they know better than their God what's good for their fellow man? I guess that's something everyone must decide for themselves, but I for one would not be able to do that.
Going to church makes you a Christian about as much as me going to the auto repair shop makes me a mechanic. Saying you're a Christian makes you a Christian about as much as saying you're an astronaut makes you an astronaut. Being labelled left-wing means you stand for free speech, democracy, and respect for other people about as much as being labelled right-wing means you stand for free market, "freedom of religion," or pro-life.
Everyone is different. Labels and names only confuse the reality. Does it really matter if someone says they're a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, left-wing or right-wing, Christian or atheist? Or are their actual actions, and the way they live their lives and conduct themselves what actually matters at the end of the day?
Bush is a perfect example of the problem with this. He has a very vocal group who support him blindly, the fundamentalists. But a large portion of the people whom I know who support him don't seem to pay attention to what he actually does or has done, they support him because he has the label of Republican, conservative, right-wing, Christian, President etc. Reality doesn't seem to enter into the equation for these people, so long as he has the requisite names attached to him.
And lest anyone complain that I'm a left-wing nut, Clinton had the same groups of people behind him. It doesn't matter your affiliation or political bent, this is a fact accross the board. Most people want things to be simple, they look at the label on someone and decide if it's a label they like or not. They could give a shit less who the person actually is or what they've actually done or said.
Keith D.
Buddhists have no defined beliefs
No, Buddhists really do have defined beliefs, its just that there's so many slackers here in the US calling themselves buddhists, you wouldn't know it. Buddhist beliefs are very defined, as for
mahayana buddism.
The thing with buddhism as in all the faiths with reincarnation type doctrine is the idea of inevitability of conversion. You don't need to be converted now, because you won't get it. Wait a few lifetimes and you'll come here on your own.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
It's not the scientists who think the Bible is a text to be taken literally.
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
[Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813.]
Check Out The Cobra For Spam Fighting!
Well most days of months man are no better than woman in making the decisions. ;)
But go look at some school yard, and see how boys solve when they disagree heavily, and you probably remember how girls handle disagreaments. Now you have a background on instruction. Besides you should be more than adequate persuade a husband to do it your way, just be smart at it, use your method, but if arguments don't take you anything back off, and let husband have his way, and let HIM take his responcibility. Of course you can try to find a man who doesn't consider himself responcible of his family and lets a wife has her head in a matter that IS important to family even if he believes his way is best for family. So that should work just fine for you
Power=>responcibility. Men are considered accountable in front of God for what they do, so don't take it so that men could do anything they please with their families.
Thats one bible tells. Men should take responcibility of their families and love their wife beyond what is possible, (as much as christ loves us) thats what bible teaches us. Hey bible won't let men do as their please either, see what is required from men. A husband shouldn't just dismiss his wife in making decisions. But in the end, husband is responcible for his family, and he should just have his way. Let him have power, and he grows to responcibility OR take it all off by using your superiour skills at winning arguments, and he starts consider himself not anymore responcible of his family.
Its your choise what kind of husband you want! And no-one forces you to take one anyway if thats your choise.
BTW: If someone claims that women should not go to work, then: proverbs 31 should be good enough for them. [Well thats description of God wife for a husband so, its not a requirement or anything.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
The so-called 'Christian Right' is an irrelevant force in Australian politics. Even the last bit of Internet Censorship legistlation was inacted only to buy the vote of a single Tasmanina Senator who held the balance of power. It certainly hasn't affected *my* browsing habits.
With a (possible) change of government imminent here in Australia, to a less conservative party, this idea will die the quick and quiet death it deserves.
*starts downloading now*
Now, they're changing most of the signs to read "School Zone: Speed Limit 20 MPH At All Times". Hmm. I guess schools are magnets for kids. It's okay to speed around kids in any situation where there isn't a school.
What are they trying to do? Was there a recent rash of kids getting killed outside schools by speeding drivers? Or could this just be another "Protect my BABIES at all costs" type of overprotecting security blanket a lot of self-absorbed parents bundle up their kids in these days?
Oh, and the fines are doubled in those areas, too. So, going 30MPH in a 20MPH zone could net you a ticket for around $240. Hmm, I guess it also could be a fantastic way to play off the fears of parents and make a little money on the side for the local police force.
Yes, it's the Fun Factory, where the Fun never stops!
That's always the way the Bible has worked. Just pick the parts you like best, emphasize that the parts "came from the Bible!" and that's all you need. Hell, look at the snake handlers.
No, only by the religious Buddhist groups.
"Family First" is a fringe party in Australia, with the same sort of support as "the fishing party", the pro-marijana party, the "party harder party" etc.
It is *EXTREMELY* unlikely that they'll get a seat in either house of parliament, and are polling at less than 1% of the vote.
I suspect they only made this policy for publicity. They are not taken seriously, and are considered by a lot of people to be nutcases up there with the anti-immigration (racist) parties.
So we're all going to pay a levy because these people are incapable of overseeing what their children surf?
Makes sense.
It seems that you have a misunderstanding of natural selection as a whole. Natural selection is a conservative process (information is lost not gained) and was developed by a creation scientist Edward Blyth before Darwins time.
Natural selection never introduces more information and in terms of bateria developing immunity to anti-biotics, this is actually caused by a loss of information, (ie. bacteria loosing the abitility to control growth of things to fight the penicillin to an extent where they put 90% of their energy into this production.
Educated evolutionists tend to realise this and claim that mutations account for this information that needs to be produced (in the pondscum to you evolutionary model). The fact remains that there has never been a signal observable mutation that adds more information to a system. This is to be expected since a simple deduction from the axioms of information science is that information cannot be generated by random processes.
So in summary, Creationists believe in natural selection, but since this is a conservative process not a creative one, the information must have existed there to begin with. Instead of blindly throwing stones at them maybe people should apply a scientific mind to the matter of origions and investigate it for themselves.
You might want to ask yourself if God really did create everything what evidence would I expect to find, and if there really was a global flood what evidence would I expect to find.
I've rarely read such garbled nonsense (and the garbled spelling certainly doesn't help). You may like to think through this whole information thing again as you are so far off-beam it is hard to know where to start setting you right.
As for your suggestion about trying to find the evidence you would expect to find if there was a god and if there had been a flood, it is a reasonable suggestion only if you thought there was enough prima facie evidence to make such an investigation worthwhile. Otherwise why not ask yourself what evidence you'd expect to find if pixies really did hoard gold, or if Zeus really had mated with humans, or the Earth really was sitting on the back of a big turtle?
stFuck the children.
So have the cops come around to seize your computer yet?
Hey, where's my fridge magnet? I thought Alston had quit, why do we have to have more internet blocking blah blah.
I mean seriously, if the set this thing up, how are we going to catch those those that are actually nonces (I've been watching the Bill)? And why should Christians decide what is and isn't appropriate for a country where less than half the population is christian. And in any case 39.2% are Catholic and 30.4% are Anglican (see nice graphs here). The churches are in Abbott's back pocket anyway.
Fundies like this dont really have much of a say in politics down here
Sure, they probably won't win a lot of seats, so it doesn't really matter. Unless there's a hung parliment (which let's face facts, it's so close it could be) then Family First could become a bit of a problem. Oh... they're only going for the senate... hmmm... they will get killed by the Democrats and Greens... I'm no longer worried... Aww... they've got a geek (sorta) running in Victoria. I might have to vote below the line...
Can't wait till the Jedi population increases (2001 0.37%). Then we can get goverment funded lightsaber grants.
Any comments about online pornography should not be taken seriously by the owners of the ".cx" domain.
At the same time the suspected paedophiles arrested in Australia have apparently committed vile offences against children.
The only sensible compromise seems to be shutdown of child pr0n sites, charges against their users, etc. Basically what is being done. There is no sensible defense of such material. It exploits children for much more capable and powerful adults, and it causes much distress for generations.
Server-level filtration is going to be a tremendous burden upon ISP's. the Fundamentalists don't care what happens to smaller ISPs (I wouldn't mind betting most are on huge ISP's like bigpond.com). A service to Mammon as well as God?
The worst thing is that some will take this as an excuse to censor ALL content they disapprove of: adult porn where at least there may be some consent, eroticism, maybe even more. One only has to look at some net filtration software sites: They won't reveal their listings, and one censors out even such things as communal living! (that'd cut out the apostles, for one thing).
Unfortunately, in Australia there is not a Bill of Rights, there is not a strong constitutional guarantee of free speech and some other rights. But at the same time we seem to be getting a christian right a la the US! Recently the treasurer was guest of honour at a large church service in a blue-ribbon Gov't seat. (BTW, not all Christians are right-wingers). So, the current government will be tempted to listen to their demands for electoral reasons. They have previously been so influenced on matters of censorship. Also, the the current goverment has actually curtailed other rights; viz its drafting of laws against gay marriage (with the connivance of a supposedly more progressive opposition in this case).
So by all means stop paedophiles, but don't throw other rights away.
Howard and Costello may go to church, but their oppression of the poor and their warmongering is against my personal morality.
Excellently put.
...as long as the FF party are charged $50 million per year to help distribute pornography to the masses. And by the masses, I mean me.
People are talking about left/right wing being reversed in Australia. There's a bigger issue here though.
Left wing at least in the US generally means change, where Right wing means lack of change. A more realistic evaluation of "Left wing" would be:
*Make new laws
*Raise taxes for new government programs
*Trust bruacracy over people
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14