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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!"
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!
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)
This is actually a mistake. I can assure you, as an Australian going trying to endure the election campaign, that Family First are verrrrry far-Right.
If not, Ausse politics has got to be a confusing system...
Well yeah, one of their right wing parties (the one currently in power federally) is called "The Liberal Party". Go figure.
It is generally considered that Labor is "left" in Australia whilst the coalition (liberal and national parties) are the "right".
The family first party is clearly a right wing party and is identified locally as such.
This party has been clearly shown to be essentially a front for the "Assemblies of God" church. See one of Australia's most popular political sites for an article on them
They're right-wingers guys!
#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
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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 !
Same here in Canada, except our Liberal party's orientation occasionally varies wildly by party leader and member. Lately their policy seems to be to preach the left-wing NDP's platform, only less convincingly, and then promptly implement the right-wing Conservative platform, only less competently. Most Canadians see this as balancing out into being centrist, which is what the Liberals claim to be.
I'm represented by Liberals at the provincial and federal levels. The former loudly proclaimed during an all-candidates meeting that homosexual relationships are an "affront to God." The latter promised to champion against pro-choice bills, no matter what party policy might dictate.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
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?
I think it's refering to this document
I for one would much prefer a user paid system. (Damn, had to stretch the budget just to get ADSL. now to have this on top)
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
I assume that you are confused how a christian party can be leftwing.
Well, that obviously depends on what right/left scale you measure it on. If it is the "All things good are left-wing"-scale, and you believe that non-secular political organisations are evil, well, then they are clearly right-wing.
Another often used scale (in european politics, at least) is the "more/less immigration-friendly". This is not a fully conscious use, but more of a consequence of the lefts need to group everybody immigration-sceptic or worse with the nazists (whom, it's been established, are the extreme right. Probably due to them being racist.). I don't know where Family first stands, but they probably don't like moslems.
Then there is personal/political freedoms vs. security. It is ideologically close to the following scale, but in reality this is more often a function of popularism. On this scale this initiative is truly right wing. As are both Bush and Kerry.
A more classic scale: more/less economic freedom. Socialist economy (high taxes, government owned production) is left wing, Adam Smith's invisible hand is right wing. On this scale Family first is somewhat leftwing. And I think this might be the scale the poster had in mind.
The very classic scale is from the french parliament in 1700-1800-something. The revolutionists sat on the left side and the government-bearing sat on the right. The reason for the rise of the alternative scales is the absense of serious revolutionaries in modern politics.
My point? It makes no sense to talk about right and left wing for any other purpose than to distance your own political platform from that of those you don't like.
I am a conservative in the classic, british sense. Which is liberalism (again, in the classic sense, ie. Adam Smith, forget that Berkeley-liberalism) with a touch of government to protect the weakest. I consider myself very rightwing, but then again I consider the nazis very leftwing. So call me what you want.
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
Don't forget that this already HAS government support, in theory: John Howard has personnally made a deal with the head of family first for preferences, and has has said in public that he will "consult" with them on all policy matters.
9 61847842.html?oneclick=true
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/24/1095
---- Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
Just for the record, Australia, or at least Western Australia, has mandatory helmet laws.. for bicycles!
Well, yeah, but was the editor at Slashdot asleep? The story begins:
... whereas the original, article (to which Enaku links!) begins:
(Capitalisation in original story too)
I know almost no-one on Slashdot bothers to RTFA any more, but please credit some of us with an ounce of brain.
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.
>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.
This entire thread should be slapped as "TROLL" - none of you READ THE FSCKING ARTICLE.
CONSERVATIVE political newcomer Family First wants an annual levy of $7 to $10 on all internet users to fund a $45 million mandatory national internet filtering scheme aimed at blocking pornographic and offensive content at server level.
"CONSERVATIVE" and "LEFT WING" are antithetical.
Actually, I have some good news for you. My brother in law is one of the candidates for these god-botherers, and he's always been one of those "Your body is the lord's temple, put down that beer and repent." kind of guys.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, one of his daughters got old enough to fly from the family nest, and moved from her home state to WA, where I live. A few weeks later I get a phone call from the in-laws because daughter has stopped phoning home and they're worried, would I drop by her place and see that she was OK.
So I did the right thing and drove over the next Saturday about middday and knocked on the door. It took a while for the door to open, and when it did, I was just about knocked over by the fumes. The quiet little daughter was about as hung over as I've seen anyone, and there were empty Southern Comfort bottles all over the floor, an ashtray full of roaches on the lounge and masculine snoring in the bedroom.
I suggested that she give daddy a call occasionally and left without waking the boyfriend. If she had as much taste in blokes as she did in booze, I didn't want to know him.
So I don't think you have a lot to worry about. Kids'll route their own way around parental roadblocks.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
I think Australians and the Australian media consider Labor close to the center of politics, the Coalition right and the Greens left. The democrates can be left, right, up or down depending or what year your talking about.
m s .html
- Lower Excise Fuel And Beer Partyi sarmame nt/
The family first party can be thrown in with all the minor, minor parties that manage only to achieve the votes of those that are a member. So policy they have is really non news here in Australia. Here is a list of other useless parties to vote for this coming election that I grabbed off a quick google search:
- Australian Progressive Alliance
I've always admired Meg Lees, so I'm thinking about this one.
http://www.progressivealliance.org.au/ www.megsdesk.com/home/index.php
- Australians Against Further Immigration
http://www.users.bigpond.com/AAFI.ht
- Christian Democratic Party
http://www.christiandemocratic.org.au/
- Citizens Electoral Council
- Family First Party
http://www.familyfirst.org.au/index.php
- Help End Marijuana Prohibition [with a very appropriate acronym!]
http://www.hempembassy.net/hp2/outcome
- Hope Party Australia
- Liberals for Forests
http://www.liberalsfor.forests.org.au/
- New Country Party
http://www.newcountryparty.org.au/
- No Goods and Services Tax Party
- Non-custodial Parents Party
http://www.ncpp.xisle.info/
- Nuclear Disarmament Party
http://www.nucleardisarmament.org/NuclearD
- Outdoor Recreation Party
http://www.orp.org.au/index1.html
- Pauline Hanson's One Nation
http://www.onenation.com.au/
- Progressive Labour Party
http://www.progressivelabour.org/
- Republican Party
- Socialist Alliance
http://www.socialist-alliance.org/
- The Fishing Party
- The Great Australians
http://www.austand.auz.net/
I know this is noted above, but it is worth restating. Family First are in no way left wing. They are supporting Australia's conservative Government in the upcoming election, and directing their preferences against Australia's main left wing party (under Australia's preferential voting system).
They are socially conservative, being the political arm of one of Australia's largest evangelical groups, and have no real stance on economic issues. Their main aim is to move their evangelism into the political arena, and their political candidates are predominantly drawn from the Christian Right. The party generally agrees with the current conservative government, and they are vehemently opposed to the major left-wing parties in Australian politics (Labor and the Greens).
Luckily, although Australian nominally has a two-thirds Christian population, most people who describe themselves as Christian rarely go to church, and many don't really have any religious beliefs. The average "Christian" Australian only goes to Church for weddings, baptisms and funerals, but describes themself as "Christian" on the census, because they "were baptised that way". Many past Australian Prime Ministers have been atheist, agnostic or followed minor religions (e.g. Alfred Deakin was a "spiritualist"), and very few have professed strong religious convictions.
Politics in Australia have generally been a religion-free zone, apart from a few minor political parties, so the arrival of the cashed-up, conservative Family First party is a real worry. They are currently polling at anywhere from 2-5%, and mainly draw their support from members of Pentecostal chuches.
I really can't see how they could - in any way - be described as left-wing, and I thing the story poster was either: confused, uninformed, or trolling against left-wing Slashdotters. In any case, the story should be corrected. As it is, it implies that Family First have some connection with Labor, when they actually might cost them the election.
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According to the Bible, even Jesus cringes at public grovelling by Christians:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt 6:6)
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.
Well yeah, one of their right wing parties (the one currently in power federally) is called "The Liberal Party". Go figure.
That is because European Liberalism and American Liberalism are two very different, but historically related movements.
European Liberalism is based around the classic liberal philosophies of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other related economists and philosphers. It is very much anti-collectivism, and is often viewed as the antithesis of socialism. The tenets of European Liberalism are: Democracy, Political Freedom, Individualism, the Rule of Law, Capitalism, the Free Market, and Utilitarianism. Liberals of this type believe that the government has little or no role in regulating individual behaviour, and that there should be limits to government power. The closest analogue in the USA would probably be Libertarianism.
This is the predominant liberal philosophy world-wide, and is generally associated with the centre or centre-right. As such, the Australian Liberal Party is a conservative organisation. However, their moves towards more Government intervention in individual affairs is tarnishing their claim to being truly Liberal.
A dissenting form of Liberalism began to take hold in the early 20th century, which takes the view that individual liberty requires a basic level of opportunity, protection and education in order to be free of economic and social coercion. This form of liberalism endorsed government intervention in the economy as a way of protecting individual rights in light of the growing power of corporations. This view took hold to some extent in Liberal movements within Europe and Australasia, and went under the guises of "new liberalism, modern liberalism or social liberalism". The Liberal Democratic party in the UK are an example of a party that has embraced social liberalism.
In the USA, this new form of Liberalism became the predominant philosophy, and is practiced by the Democratic party. Over time, American Liberalism has moved further away from the classic liberal traditions, and embraced some ideas from socialist philosophy. As such, the term "liberal" has become a pseudonym for left-wing, or social democratic politics in the USA, despite classical liberalism being opposed to socialism. It has also been argued that the reason that the term "liberal" was adopted for left-wing politics rather than "socialist" or "social democrat" in the USA was due to the negative connotations of the term "socialist" in the wake of McCarthyism.
While liberal politics in the USA has adopted some socialist philosophies, left-wing politics in the rest of the world has strived to find a "third way" between the European form of liberalism and socialism. Social democratic political parties in Europe and Australasia have hence adopted more liberal philosophies, with the result that the main "liberal" political party in the USA (the Democrats), and "socialist" political parties in the rest of the world now share many of the same beliefs.
Despite the changing face of liberalism, and the different forms it takes worldwide, there is certainly no contradiction in a conservative political party being called the "Liberal Party", as liberalism has historically been the antithesis of socialism.
See here for more on the history of liberalism.
Warning: that plover.com link is definately NSW.
>How do you rectify the Earth revolving around the Sun, something the bible obliquely states it does not do?
.
Well that's not in bible! Thats one of SCIENCE theories that was taken from A greek scientist and rectified as absolute truth by catholic church, and when others proofed it false church kept it, as absolute truth since POPE has said it's the truth.
>When it comes to pointing out sinners, I like to reflect on the teachings of an old Jew. He said, >"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Well why do you stop quotation from there? Lets get little further in the passage "I won't judge you either, go, AND DO NOT SIN AGAIN!"
Now What he says. Hmm. He don't approve her actions, and saves her from death penalty that was coming to her, and according to law was supposed to come for BOTH adulterers, since committing adultery requires more than a single person. And more or so, what many christians there is plenty of difference from saying sin as a sin than. (non topic, but I guess some one would start saying how cruel to punish adultery only a woman in the law;)
And I could start quoting plenty of bible requiring us to warn the sinner. There is plenty of difference saying some actions are sin, than starting to throw stones (literal) at sinners, since thats we all are.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.