China Rewards Porn Snitches

MinimeMongo writes that the "Associated Press reports that China's police ministry on Sunday handed out rewards of up to $240 to people who reported pornographic Web sites in a campaign to stamp out online smut...The online crackdown is part of a sweeping official morality campaign launched this year on orders from communist leaders."

Comments

RIP Christopher Reeve

[Anonymous Coward]

From Drudge Report:

Report: Christopher Reeve is dead

Veteran Hollywood reporter Nikki Finke has learned that actor Christopher Reeve is dead, according to sources close to the actor. He died suddenly Sunday. News of his death has not been reported publicly yet. His family will make an announcement Monday at the earliest. Reeve was just mentioned Friday in the second live presidential debate by John Kerry. Noting he was a friend of the paralysed Reeve, Kerry said he was in favor of further stem cell research because Reeve could walk again one day thanks to such science....

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly an American Icon.

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[NanoGator]

I know I'm risking karma here, but the above statement is true. (unlike those "stephen king is dead" trolls.) My local news station just broke in to announce it. As of the time of posting, I couldn't find any info on the net yet.

No hard feelings for modding me off-topic.

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[MmmDee]

Sadly true, here's a link: Reeve dead at 52

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[Ziest]

Yep, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting this.

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess he wasn't so super afterall.

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[mikeage]

It's true.
Google News

Re:RIP Christopher Reeve

[rev_sanchez]

Thanks for the info but I'm not sure the former man of steel would be that thrilled with news of his death coming up in a discussion of Chinese porn bounties.
I don't claim to know his feelings on spam in New England but maybe that would have been a better choice.

control

[seanadams.com]

Thanks to the net, as an American am acutely aware of some heinous problems with our government and our economy. The worst of the dangers (govt spin pro-war 1984-style, Patriot Act, outsourcing, horrific public education system) are largely ignored or spinfully reported by mainstream media and these crooks, but I can see for myself online. Hopefully there is a trend here towards more awareness, even though so much is still hidden from us.

What the Chinese govt seems to understand, and what I fear most for their subjects, is that sniffing, blocking, filtering, and controlling the Internet is the most important means of keeping power from the people in the future. How will they do it? Is it possible? I fear that it IS possible. If you control all the fiber coming into the country, and you control everything published inside the country, then you can just keep on governing the old-fashioned way.

Re:control

[imthatguy]

Perhaps America will awaken before we slip down this slippery slope and another revolution is necessary. It is apalling that the herds buy into the bullshit so easily and cant read between, under, and within the lines. Corporations are not more important than people, politicians work for the people, the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is not some club or god that was given the power to decide whats good for us. Legislating morality is a bunk idea to begin with; values change with the times. Remember that once upon a time, sacrificing people to the gods was A-OK. I fear that we are now sacrificing things that are more valuable than just lives because lives purchased the things we are losing.

Re:control

[VicStar]

While total control is a bad thing the general argument on slahdot seems to be that if it was uncensored the Chinese would revolt. I know two people working in china my dad and one of my friends dad they both went over as supervisors to monitor mine safty in china and help them improve the working conditions. I get to talk to my dad every few days and he comes home every few months or we go to Japan to meet him ( Travel expenses are covered by the Chinese goverment for 1 trip every 2 months) Anyway, the people they work with know there goverment is not the best but they still generly support that and thats the view I have heard from many others that have been over there and students at my school which has a large chinese grad student population. Many can't wait to get back to China even after spending time in the US. There goverment may not be the best but it does have the support from many people even after they are exposed to western views. China has always had a strong goverment the people there are used to it and accept it. sorry im tired its almost 2am and im writing a paper from class ugg I will probly fail it since it looks like this post hahaha

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

no porn, mean me need more sucky sucky!

Re:control

[Lancaibheal]

From what I hear from friends in China, the Great Firewall is a bit of a sad joke. It only blocks the most obvious sites, but anyone with even the tiniest bit of will to get through it will find a way. So, lets just laugh at the funny backwards communists in China and their hilariously outdated sense of morality!

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

In Saudi, all Web traffic from all ISPs are forwarded through central array of proxy servers, which is then censored to "preserve their Islamic values" by "filtering the Internet content to prevent the materials that contradict with our beliefs or may influence our culture."

Re:control

[karmatic]

The problem is, it only takes one site being blocked by the firewall to log an alert. If they want, they can monitor you a little more closely.

Then they proceed to arrest you, try you, and do other things you probably would prefer they didn't.

Re:control

[autopr0n]

Never underestimate the will of the people in stifling themselves.

The CCP isn't doing this because they care, they're doing it because they are afraid if they don't the people will get upset, and it will undermine them.

"Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture, as much as in early puritan America, earlier Europe, and the modern middle east (complete with killing adulterers)

Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.

The internet is not a magic bullet that routs around all 'censorship'. It's a constant battle, and requires education. Unfortunately in "communist" China the government has decided to try to stamp out porn rather then try to err on the side of freedom (not particularly suprising).

Anyway, I'm off to China for my new bussness venture of anonymously setting up porn sites and then turning them in for a reward. Zai Zhen, bai bai le~.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

there goverment is not the best
There goverment may not be the best

"their" and "Their".

Re:control

[zoloto]

this is the only form of control I can get behind. and no, none of that "slippery slope" talk doesn't hold any water in regards with treating men/women in a dignified manor. get rid of the smut. it sucks.

Re:control

[metlin]

Not as long as we have good crypto.

That is WHY we need good crypto -- if we ever hope of having true freedom of speech, crypto is the key.

You might be interested in this - Meta-Net. There's a lot of these networks out there and they are growing. And there are people out there who realize that it is important to do this before it's too late.

Welcome to paranoia, albeit justified.

Re:control

[Jeff Benjamin]

"Never underestimate the will of the people in stifling themselves. "

Well, now anyone in china caught stifling themselves or someone else can turn themselves in for a $240 reward!

Re:control

[Plaid Phantom]

I don't agree with your laughing at their "outdated sense of morality." Their morality may have been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean that it is outdated. Many Christians share a similar sense of morality. What should be laughed at is the attempts by the Chinese Communists to impart their own morality on the rest of the Chinese people which are astoundingly futile.

Re:control

[Citizen of Earth]

If you control all the fiber coming into the country, and you control everything published inside the country, then you can just keep on governing the old-fashioned way.

I simply don't understand why they would have any connection at all to the outside Internet or why they would let anyone but a few elite use it.

Re:control

[jandersen]

Wow, what a fat lot you know about China and the CCP. I think what you say is mostly bullshit. Morality is actually important to most Chinese, though I suspect that as an American you are not able to recognise it as such; the way you jeer at the notion suggests that you don't really have much idea about what morality is.

Let me explain, then - morality to most people has little to do with religion, since most people in the world aren't very religious. Instead it is all about such things as honesty, reliability and caring about others. I sometimes get the feeling that this is different in America, since Americans so often seem to assume that morality more or less equals religion, particularly Christianity. In my opinion this is one of the most disturbing aspects of American culture. Look at a person like Bush - apparently his thinking has been something like this:

Get baptised or 'born again' or whatever is the cheap and easy way. Now you're a good person - a 'Christian' full of the Holy Ghost. Since you're now God's Child, he will provide for you and give all good things, eg. money. In fact you now have a right to get rich - this is called 'Faith'. The more you demand to get rich, the more Faith you have. And the more Faith, the better your morality, that goes without saying, right?

As I said, I sometimes get the feeling that all you guys have lost the plot when it comes to the basic things like simple, plain morality. It is actually possible to be a non-Christian and higly moral. You can be a hedonist and highly moral, you can be a Muslem or a Communist and highly moral; whether you can be a Christian and highly moral is another question, which I can't answer, since I'm not one.

However, you're right when you say 'Never underestimate the will of the people in stifling themselves'. Most people are not interested in lofty nonsense about 'freedom', they just want a daily life that works without too many problems; and I think that is quite good. And when it comes to pornography I don't think freedom has much to do with it. Porn, for those who want it, is simply either a way to lure money out of fools, or something to stimulate your fantasy when you masturbate. For those of who don't want it, it's simply a load of crap.

BTW, if you want to impress everybody with your command of the Chinese language, perhaps you ought to learn it first. 'Goodbye' (which is what you seem to try to say) is not 'zai zhen', but 'zaijian', at least in pinyin notation.

Re:control

[cm5oom]

morality doesn't get updated evey few years.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

According to which standards are you judging morality?

Re:control

[cduffy]

Morality is actually important to most Chinese, though I suspect that as an American you are not able to recognise it as such; the way you jeer at the notion suggests that you don't really have much idea about what morality is.

I didn't read the parent post as jeering. Early puritan America, earlier Europe, and the middle East are all examples of societies with a genuine respect for moral behaviour, and likening China to them struck me as not meant as a slight. Likewise, he said nothing about religion -- why do you bring it up?

That said, I agree that he's full of bullshit re the main gist -- oppression as a means of societal release isn't a concept I'm willing to buy.

Re:control

[jrockway]

It is a slippery slope. First you decide you don't want us looking at child porn. Then it's regular porn. Then it's anime that might contain nudity. Then it's all anime. Then it's cartoons. Then it's DVDs from Asia. Then it's all DVDs. Then it's movies. Then it's TV. Then it's radio. Then it's newspapers. Then it's freedom of speech.

Welcome to the Police State, zoloto.

Look, I can see the logic behind outlawing child porn. I don't really agree with it being illegal. Abusing children, that's illegal. Downloading a picture of it, I don't see anything wrong with that. Note that I never intend to do that myself, but it's not my job to tell other people what's right and wrong. If you want to look at 17-year-olds fuck, great. I don't really care. I do care that people try to take away the rights of my fellow man, though.

Outlawing regular porn, porn made by consenting ADULTS, is the first step on a very slippery slope. When you tell adults what they can and cannot see, you are taking away a very important right. When you take away one thing, it only gets easier to take more. Slippery slope.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

they make a lot of money spamming?

Re:control

[Trailwalker]

controlling the Internet is the most important means of keeping power from the people in the future

The Chinese people have as little interest in government as do the American People.

What the Chinese government is trying to do is to keep the small group of educated, politically aware people from gaining any strength. Peasants and working class people don't make revolutions. They support those begun by an educated, self appointed elite.

As in America and the rest of the world, politics is a career for only a small number of individuals. These are the ones governments try to control.

Re:control

[gl4ss]

autopr0n was referring to china HAVING "morality", he didn't feel like he was saying that they didn't have any.

though, if you have not been following(i would find it hard that you hadnt), chinese 'morality' has gone down down down..(or you're comparing some farm town to vegas..) drugs, whores, you name it, it's in use with the people who got access and time. corruption within some officials you wouldn't like. not caring if you end up giving twenty million the short end of the stick. uncertain future, which breeds "everything now" partying(with drugs, whores and fast cars, sometimes even mixed) with those who can. living like your life didn't matter all that much(driving recklessly or just plain speeding on roads not suitable for it - just mentioning this because I used to have a chinese flatmate).

not to mention the ticking time bomb that is the pampered down only childs who are used to getting everything(in short, they're not any 'moralistic' than western nations anymore..).

officially of course, there is no problem(which is just the kind of moral values problem with chinese, they will lie to save their faces if they feel it's necessary, or continue on a path that they know will lead to destruction or famine, though the same goes to a certain degree to americans as well).

two-faced "display" morality is the worst kind of morality there is(as used by politicians).

Re:control

[salvorHardin]

Well said!

However... the government would have too much to lose if it were to outlaw all TV/Radio/films/newspapers/et cetera, as they can be very useful for spin/propaganda.

Re:control

[RobotRunAmok]

So, lets just laugh at the funny backwards communists in China and their hilariously outdated sense of morality!

What an odd statement. How does morality become "outdated?" Are the Asians running a beta while the rest of the world have 2.0?

Did the article define what constitutes "obscenity" in that country (I did not RTFA)? As I'm sure you are aware, here in the US what constitutes obscenity is determined locally, not federally. Are the sites the Chinese are sensoring less explicit than the community standards in Salt Lake City? More explicit than West Hollywood's? (Having spent some time in both neighborhoods, I assure you that each cities' respective populaces find the other's standards equally "hilarious.")

"Kiddie Porn" is a federal crime here, however. Is that a valid standard, or "hilarious" to you? Depicting sex with minors is pretty standard in "mainstream" Japanese porn, as is rape in many Latin American countries. Yet both are considered "taboo" subjects in the multi-billion dollar US porn industry. Are we "behind" Japan and Latin America in this respect? Do the schoolgirl-rape film producers find us "hilarious?"

Consider hard your true feelings on the topic. I suspect you may be more "outdated" than you think.

Re:control

[pnatural]

Look at a person like Bush - apparently his thinking has been something like this:

Get baptised [sic] or 'born again' or whatever is the cheap and easy way. Now you're a good person - a 'Christian' full of the Holy Ghost.

It sounds to me like you hate Bush and are working backwards from that to deem his faith lacking or in some way not sincere. You also seem to be working from the specific to the general, which is sometimes called a Fallacy.

My guess is that you already hate Christians or Christianity, because later you say this:

you can be a hedonist and highly moral, you can be a Muslem [sic] or a Communist and highly moral; whether you can be a Christian and highly moral is another question, which I can't answer, since I'm not one.

So your logic is:

hedonist == Potentially Moral
Muslim == Potentially Moral
Communist == Potentially Moral
Christian == Unknown because you're not one

So either you actually are a hedonist-Muslim-Communist and you can attest to all of them, or (perhaps more likely) you don't really understand Christianity, but realize full well that it's okay to vilify and hate the religion in the USA. My guess is the later, but either way... whatever... your assertions are baseless. But don't let logic stop you from posting to ./ !!

Re:control

[pnatural]

It is a slippery slope. First you decide you don't want us looking at child porn.

Actually, IIRC, the logical fallacy is to argue that there is a slippery slope instead of defeating the original argument. (My formal logic is very rusty, please forgive me if I've misspoken on this).

Downloading a picture of it, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Hogwash. It's illegal because it's participating in another crime -- namely the production of child porn. It's no different from taking the picture yourself, or no different than seeing it take place and doing nothing to stop it -- in all cases you're an accomplice (IMO, IANAL, etc.)

but it's not my job to tell other people what's right and wrong.

Really? So it's okay if I murder you, because it's not your job to tell me not to? Or if I rob your house, it's okay if I really need the money? My word, that's why we *have* laws -- to tell people what we (society) will not accept certain behavior.

Re:control

[3arwax]

In my personal opinion the slippery slope arguemnt is nonsense. Your arguement is one of the dumbest that I have heard for a while. If then ban murder then they will ban assault and then they will ban name calling and then they will ban looking bad at people and then they will ban thinking bad thoughts The slippery slope is just a bunch of nonsense. It attempts to predict the future and assign people motives. Now in some cases you can accurately predict peoples motives such as the movie and porn industry want to do whatever it takes to make money at any cost to the consumer just as the cigarette and alcohol companies do. Do people have a choice? Maybe, these companies don't want you to have one. They just want your money. What do you mean by "consenting"? Suicide is "consenting" but it is a decision made when your deck isn't full. How about being in a porn video? How can you ensure that the decision is informed and isn't made under duress? There are whole other sides to the everybody look at porn arguement. It destroys people but do you care?

Re:control

[kilgortrout]

Great name for a porn movie - Down the Slippery Slope.

Re:control

[danwiz]

If then ban murder then they will ban assault and then they will ban name calling and then they will ban looking bad at people and then they will ban thinking bad thoughts

Sounds similar to the premise for the movie Equilibrium, where all emotions were forbidden.

Suicide is "consenting" but it is a decision made when your deck isn't full.

I disagree. A "do not recussitate" decision is quite rational, and legally enforcable. Does this also count as suicide?

How about being in a porn video? How can you ensure that the decision is informed and isn't made under duress?

There hasn't exactly been flood of ex-porn stars screaming duress. Of course there's the story of Tracy Lords who claimed she was kept drugged the entire time during her three year career as porn star. Yes she was underage when she started, but kept drugged for three years ...

Re:control

[Yartrebo]

Downloading a picture of it, I don't see anything wrong with that. Hogwash. It's illegal because it's participating in another crime -- namely the production of child porn. It's no different from taking the picture yourself, or no different than seeing it take place and doing nothing to stop it -- in all cases you're an accomplice (IMO, IANAL, etc.)

What about computer generated picture of kiddie porn that looks just like the real thing. It's very revolting, but not a single kid was hurt in the process. Personally, I think that the first amendment should protect that as free speech, and it would be hard to argue against it when Nazis and KKK members can legally spew their hate speech (which can cause society a lot more harm).

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that something needs to be done about this epidemic. The porn industry now accounts for more annual revenue than all professional sports combined, all major tv networks combined. It is the number one reason families are being destroyed. This has affected many of my friends, family, clients, co-workers. It is a silent desease. Psychologist are seeing sharp increases in addiction equal or worse than the most addictive drugs. For 25% of males it only takes one image to be hooked and set on a path for very difficult relationships, which would otherwise be beautiful.

I'm not for taking away someone's rights. But I would like some FREE and EASY to use way to use the internet that I am paying for and NEVER have to see porn unless I reach for a credit card, call my ISP to turn on the allow adult content switch. Compare to cable, if I order porn, I have to pay for it, I have to subsribe to premium channels that offer it. My cable bill holds me accountable. But the internet I am constantly bombarded with it. My basic cable and a few deleted channels my family is safe. But I cannot allow free reighn on the internet. My 8 year old nephew tried to look up Teen Titans and was upset to find very hard core porn popping up all over the screen.
I was really hoping that the government would force all porn sites to have an easy to filter domain like .sex or .xxx that could be blocked at the ISP level if requested by the subscriber.

Society has laws and rules to keep society civilized. There are white and orange lines painted on the roads, there are stop signs and stop lights which have rules and meaning. Even though 99% of the time we could run through a red light late at night when there is no one there and not get caught, we don't. The harm that can happen from a car accident probably keeps us responsible here. But for some reason everyone turns a blind eye to the ruined lives a porn addicted father does to their family. Or the warped preception of women it gives a young boy and the difficult relationships he will need to endure for the rest of his life and spread to his family and so on.

I feel that if something is not done about this silent epidemic, society as we know it will fail along with freedom.

I know most on this board are pro porn, pro freedom, but are you really pro anarchy?

I am not for the Chinese Government blocking this like they do, but it is interesting that they recognize the danger of this garbage while we as a nation do not.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really believed in freedom of speech and the goodness of pornography you'd fix your site you hypocritical bastard!

:P

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a slippery slope. First you decide you don't want us looking at child porn. Then it's regular porn. Then it's anime that might contain nudity. Then it's all anime. Then it's cartoons. Then it's DVDs from Asia. Then it's all DVDs. Then it's movies. Then it's TV. Then it's radio. Then it's newspapers. Then it's freedom of speech.

You obviously haven't been paying attention to the Bush Regime... you should have put the last statement first. It would have saved you some typing.

Re:control

[master_p]

When a government makes laws about morality issues, then we should all be worried.

Look, I can see the logic behind outlawing child porn. I don't really agree with it being illegal.

The problem with child porn is that that children are not mature enough to know that what they are doing is wrong and may have consequences in their psychology. So downloading an erotic picture of a child contributes to child exploitation. To put it otherwise, if child abusers don't have customers, they will not abuse children.

Adult porn is another thing though, and I agree with you on that.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

"Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture

Are you sure you don't mean immorality? I didn't know torture, thought control and infanticide were moral pursuits?

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

So which set of morales are you going to subscribe to that are universally accepted and not under attack by the current society of "free thinkers"?

Free from responsibility.

Take drugs, become unproductive, lose your job, leech off the government for rehab or more drugs, or just take from that greedy SOB that has more than you do because you are an unproductive SOB.

Have sex with anyone, pretend that jealousy issues, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc are not going to happen to you .. never mind how they trash the lives of your partner.

Use abortion as birth control and pretend that choice starts AFTER conception. Instead of when you chose to/not to use contraception, and chose who to sleep with.

I have a morale stance against all of these issues and I am not a Christian. I really hate seeing a society that is so self destructive with everyone screaming about how much pain they are in and how hard life is, but they continue to not accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

We have enetertained a society where help is defined as what you give someone, instead of defining help as enabling someone to stand on their own feet and make the right decisions.

As far as I can tell, Christianity is the only benchmark in American society willing to define morality and take a stand. The rebellion against Christianity is not about the message, its about being told what to do. People can't believe that they are stupid enough to make mistakes that following a few simple principles could have prevented. UNTIL they make the mistake and are awash with the consequences.

So by all means push for morality, but please... define what you think morality is before you push on.

Bush has made mistakes and may have done immoral things in the name of Christianity... but that portrays one persons application of the morales, not the intent of the morales to start with.

But I can guarantee you from my perspective (with several poor Christians in my family), Christianity is NOT defined by how rich you are, and your faith is most certainly not...

Re:control

[bnenning]

In my personal opinion the slippery slope arguemnt is nonsense.

Not always; see this paper. What can happen is that once the infrastructure is established for "mild" surveillance or censorship, the cost to implement more invasive control is now lessened, which may cause people to now support it whereas they wouldn't before. (That's not a good explanation, the article is much better).

Now in some cases you can accurately predict peoples motives such as the movie and porn industry want to do whatever it takes to make money at any cost to the consumer just as the cigarette and alcohol companies do.

Gosh, just like the computer, telephone, and ball bearing companies.

Do people have a choice?

Yes.

What do you mean by "consenting"?

Chosen freely when one is in a sound mental state.

Suicide is "consenting" but it is a decision made when your deck isn't full.

Always? What about someone with a terminal disease in a great deal of pain?

How about being in a porn video? How can you ensure that the decision is informed and isn't made under duress?

How do you ensure that anything anybody does isn't being done under duress?

There are whole other sides to the everybody look at porn arguement. It destroys people but do you care?

I care about preserving the freedom to pursue goals that others may disapprove of, provided they don't harm anyone else. I also care about preventing moral busybodies from enforcing their personal beliefs at gunpoint.

Re:control

[bnenning]

To put it otherwise, if child abusers don't have customers, they will not abuse children.

I agree that child porn should be illegal, but I doubt this is true.

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[bnenning]

You can be a hedonist and highly moral, you can be a Muslem or a Communist and highly moral; whether you can be a Christian and highly moral is another question, which I can't answer, since I'm not one.

So we're to understand that you're a hedonistic Muslim communist? And you haven't met a single Christian whom you consider moral? Quite odd.

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[Nephaestous]

Depicting sex with minors is pretty standard in "mainstream" Japanese porn, as is rape in many Latin American countries .

That's pure BS, even though there are several rape cases in Latin America no one considers them 'normal' or 'hilarious' it is a crime to rape someone in every country in Latin America.

Perhaps the law enforcement is not as good as in other countries, but it doesn't mean that people find rape morally acceptable

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[mochan_s]

Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.

That is wrong wrong wrong. Society is NOT like a living organism. In a living organism, the cells all work together selflessly to form the organism and for the benefit of the organism. In a society, selflessness and sharing is only limited to family and loved ones, not to the entire society as a whole. Each person is infinitely selfish and only does better for the society given a system where he can rewarded for such. People don't revolt because they're annoyed!!! They revolt because it's personally better for them to revolt that to live without revolting.

Re:control

[CustomDesigned]

Get baptised or 'born again' or whatever is the cheap and easy way. Now you're a good person - a 'Christian' full of the Holy Ghost.

Actually, this is a key difference between Christianity and both Islam and Communism. Both of the latter two religions (yes, Communism is a religion) promise world peace once the entire world is subjugated and morality externally imposed. The word 'Islam' is the name for the promised peace that will result once all the earth is subject to Sharia law. The word 'Communism' is the name of that state of peace and well being that is promised once all of the old capitalist systems have been overthrown and replaced with a world wide commune.

Christianity, on the other hand, while sharing the goal of promoting morality, dismisses the possibility of achieving true morality by external control as impossible. Consider the strong willed child whose parents make him sit down: "I'm may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside." For Christians, true morality begins when God changes the heart, and transforms from the inside, and finally manifests itself in external behaviour. World peace will never be achieved until Christ returns to destroy this universe and move all those who have been internally transformed to a new heavens and a new earth. (In some interpretations, there is first a period of 1000 years of externally enforced peace on this Earth with Christ as the ruler - which ultimately fails, proving the need to destroy this world and start over).

Christians who think that true morality can be externally imposed are heretics. The heresy is called "legalism" or "phariseeism" after the Jewish sect prominent in the New Testament. A more subtle mistake Christians make is to think that they, as an individual, can transform their own lives by imposing a set of rules on themselves. This is no more effective than having the government do it - the result is an annoying "holier than thou" attitude. In Christian doctrine, the process of becoming truly righteous must begin with a supernatural internal change initiated by God Himself.

The use of external force is reserved for Secular Government. The specific example Paul points to was the secular Roman government - but this does not mean that officials of the government cannot be religious. The purpose of government is to externally impose morality - for example, "do not murder" is a moral principle which the government attempts to enforce. ("Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.") It is supposed to be understood, however, that this external enforcement does not produce true righteousness, but only enables the society to survive.

Attempts to externally enforce sexual morality are similarly founded on the survival of society. The healthy growth and development of children is best promoted by a stable two parent family. This principle is the basis on which the government claims the authority to take children away from a clearly disfunctional family (locking kids in closets, etc). It used to be the principle on which our government implemented sanctions against adultery. It used to be the principle on which premarital sex was sanctioned - it tends to create children in need of a home. It is also the principle on which gay marriage should not be allowed. It is one thing for people who will never raise children to fool around and cut their own lives short. It is a more serious matter to bring children (e.g. adopted) into that environment.

Re:control

[rebel47]

That has to be one of the dumbest statements I have ever read, even on /. There have always been child abusers and there always will be. Sad fact but true, there have been sickos like this since time immemorial and whether people look at it or not these sickos will continue with their perversions. What it may stop, thought I doubt it, is the scum who make money from child abuse and exploitation.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they won't abuse children *as much*. People don't do that sort of thing just for the money. You have to be a particular subspecies of degenerate to really enjoy pedophelia. People will still practice it even if it is completely illegal. It's just a question of ``will certain moral cretins avoid making child porn if there is no demand''. Unfortunately, there will always *be* demand. So, it's a losing battle, but one that should be fought, given assumptions regarding morality today.

Incidentally, many children *do* know what's going on. Likewise, many adults don't.

Re:control

[Cybrr]

Would you rather have:
Two people who love eachother raising a child.
Two people who don't love eachother raising a child.

What if the people were gay?

Either way, what if they didn't love the child?

Re:control

[drinkypoo]

If crypto becomes a problem then the government creates laws to regulate its use, or laws which mandate back doors in hardware to make it irrelevant. Remember that until recently it was illegal to use any crypto in France without permission from the government. I agree that cryptography is part of the solution but there's larger issues to be addressed as well. One might help with the other but they both have to be dealt with at the same time.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to be cynical about GW's "faith" seeing as he developed it about the time he was getting into politics, and faith is very important to many voters, especially in places like Texas and the midwest. Leads people to believe that his so-called faith is nothing but a ploy to trick naive voters who will vote for whichever canidate is more "Godly". Not saying he doesn't take it seriously, just saying there is plenty of room for doubt.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

The Patriot Act is not about censorship. If you want to make a case about it invading privacy, I can see that. Next you'll be saying it's about legalizing rape or anything that makes it seem worse than it is. While you may be cheered by people with the same emotional opposition to it as you have, you're hurting the people who are trying to make legitimate cases against it by making all who oppose it seem like the same kind of kook that you and your cheerleaders are.

Re:control

[swillden]

Each person is infinitely selfish and only does better for the society given a system where he can rewarded for such. People don't revolt because they're annoyed!!! They revolt because it's personally better for them to revolt that to live without revolting.

If that were true, there would be no revolutions. Participating in a revolution is a good way to get killed. A selfish analysis by nearly any rational person would conclude that living under less than ideal conditions is better than a painful death after living for months in absolutely terrible conditions.

Revolutions are driven by idealism, not by calculations of personal gain/loss.

Re:control

[swillden]

It is a slippery slope.

Slippery slope arguments are, by default, considered to be fallacious. By introducing your argument this way, you're effectively prefacing your comment with the statement "What I'm about to say is misleading and probably wrong".

Why would you do that?

Re:control

[RobotRunAmok]

I did not say it was not a crime. I said it was a staple of their pornography. It's illegal for inter-dimensioanl monsters to have tentacle-sex with minors pretty much everywhere too, but that fact has not made it any less prevalent in Japanese porn.

American pornographers typically don't "do" rape, underage, snuff (c.f. German porn), or monsters cuz it does not sell well here. Consumers generally aren't into it, and the big satellite nets won't buy it.

American morality, circa 2004. Funny to some? Apparently...

Re:control

[ATN]

It could be argued that many of these behaviors indirectly harm people, for example "I can smoke if I want to it doesn't harm anyone but me", well... at least that's what people used to think.
The phsycological impact on society that Porn has could be considerd harmful. The lack of respect for women, the mindset that it puts men into could increase the chances of abuse. Clearly this is not a proven fact but IMHO I think it might be worth while to investigate. I do know for a fact that Porn has ruined marriages, that people get addicted to it, and that it can ruin your life. So I guess now that it's harming someone we can safely ban it.
It is not just about individual people it's also about what's best for society as a whole. I think you'll be hard pressed to find any benefits of Porn besides being a multibillion dollar industry. Of course Porn in itself isn't the real problem, the problem is far deeper then that, but then I'm certain your not interested in my crazy Christian notions about morality. :)

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk about the lack of homes for children and then dismiss the idea of allowing married gay couples to adopt those children? I guess better to keep them eating oatmeal in section 8 housing then being with loving parents because they happen to be the same sex. Wake up.

Bye

Re:control

[crucini]

It's no different from taking the picture yourself, or no different than seeing it take place and doing nothing to stop it -- in all cases you're an accomplice (IMO, IANAL, etc.)

I've watched one of the beheading videos put out by islamic terrorists in Iraq. Does that make me an accomplice to the murder?

Re:control

[dvdeug]

Christians who think that true morality can be externally imposed are heretics.

Yawn. That's a basic logical fallacy, to say that Christians behave this way, and any counterexamples aren't real Christians. In reality, most Christians have tried to force thier morality on everyone else, and this is a consistent pattern throughout history.

It is one thing for people who will never raise children to fool around and cut their own lives short.

Do you have any evidence that a stable gay couple has any shorter lifespan then a stable heterosexual couple? Or are you taking your internal morality and and finding a justification to make it external.

It used to be the principle on which our government implemented sanctions against adultery.

Or is it because, like all male primates, male humans don't like their harem being invaded. Because under your reasoning, you might expect male adultery to be treated the same as female adultery, instead of being basically overlooked.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your reference?

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

Claim: I am a Chinese.

First, it is "Zai Jian", not "Zai Zhan" for bye.

The law related to porn is a little strange in China. It is legal to watch porn in private (at least for married couple), but it is illegal to sell or trade porn at least for profit.

This is because what a married couple is doing to each other in their bedroom is their own bussiness from the point view of the chinese tradition almost two thousand years ago. Selling porn for profit does not belong to the above tradition.

There was a interesting case last year in China. A couple were busted watching porn. They got into trouble because they got caught in the home office of a pharm or a clinic they owned at night. The police claimed that the home office should be considered as public place because anyone can come in as a customer. The couple claimed that they also slept there at night behind the office, so it should be considered as their home. When this was broken out on a newspaper, it invoked a huge debate on this problem. Finally, the traditional side won. After all, you can not argue with a more than one thousand years old tradition, which was written in the history book, and there is a proverb for it.

Just some background.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> in all cases you're an accomplice (IMO, IANAL

No, actually, you are not an accomplice if you see the results years after it happened. You can't make a statement as a fact of law accusing someone of being an accomplice to a crime and then follow it up with "IMO." It's just your opinion of what you think should be. It does not reflect on reality, just yourself.

> My word, that's why we *have* laws -- to tell people what we (society) will not accept certain behavior.

Yes, that's what laws do... well, to tell people what POLITICIANS don't want you doing, but arguably it's the same thing. However, the parent poster said:

> it's not my job to tell other people what's right and wrong.

Laws are not necessarily about right & wrong. I can say it's wrong to steal peoples' money by claiming you'll go to hell if you don't cough it up. In fact, I believe that. However, it is other people making their own decisions and I do not have the right to tell them not to do that.

Murder, theft, etc. are wrong because they infringe on another person's life. That is why making child porn is illegal in the U.S. However, participating an act and witnessing an act are two entirely different things. As much as I dislike rotten.com, they show results of some illegal activities & they have the right to. Same goes for those beheading movies. They are videos of illegal acts, so you are claiming I am implicit in the murder if I watch a video of it (I haven't, but I have the right to if I so wished)? Rotten.com is implicit in all of those cases because they distribute pictures? Where do you draw the line? Just when it involves children? You can probably find pictures of murdered children on the Internet. Are the people hosting the images criminals?

I also liked the other reply to your post: if the action is animated, even if 100% lifelike, no one was hurt in any conceivable way by making it. Should it be illegal to watch?

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect,

Islam is an Arabic word and means "Submission", surrender and obedience. As a Religion Islam means submission and surrender to God alone.

get your facts straight before you post.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> It is not just about individual people it's also about what's best for society as a whole.

Doesn't that just sum up the differences between Democracy and Socialism? I live in the U.S., a represenative republic passed off as a democracy. So individuals' freedoms are supposed to take precedent over socialist ideals. Before you claim that that statement legitimizes murder, the victim has his right to freedom as well -- free to live, to live without being physically attacked.

You even have the right to never be offended, but to exercise it, you must never interact with anyone in any way. But if you choose to go out into the world, you do not have the right to remain unoffended -- I have the right to call your notion of morality wacky and heavyhanded. You have the right to call me a godless sinner condemned to hell. You don't have the right to tell me what I can & cannot do, unless it directly harms another person.

Claiming that pornography affects you mentally & can cause you to lash out at someone or get divorced is complete baloney. If someone is married & still feels the need to look at porn 24/7, they had other problems to begin with & probably weren't ready for marriage.

I live in a democracy so that my personal rights come first. If I wanted everyone else to worry about me & make laws based on what politicians think at the moment would benefit society, I would move to a socialist state. I don't want that. Some do. Good for them.

> I'm certain your not interested in my crazy Christian notions about morality

If your opinion is that your decision of what constitutes morality should be forcefully imposed on me, then no, I don't. That's the craziest thing of all. Absolute morality does not exist in any form other than your God. I believe God is fiction, and therefore does not exist at all. I have to live and let you live with the belief that there is. What gives you the right to say that I can't live without? I know you didn't claim that directly, but that's generally the idea behind "crazy Christian notions about morality" and trying to make them law.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> I would like some FREE and EASY to use way to use the internet that I am paying for and NEVER have to see porn

You know what's on the Internet. If you don't want it, don't subscribe. Better yet, learn how to use a proxy. Start a Christian (or something else if you prefer) organization that offers a free proxy service that blocks out objectional material. Better yet, use one that already exists. I'm sure there's at least one out there.

Freedom comes at a cost: in this case, freedom for me to view porn (or more generally, to say what I want to say) is at the cost of you not having the right to never be offended unless you try (by not interacting with anything potentially offensive). Sorry, that's the way it is and IMO the way it should be.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> n a living organism, the cells all work together selflessly to form the organism and for the benefit of the organism.

You have inactive (and maybe active) cancerous cells in you right now. So cancer is actually a benefit? Who knew...

Re:control

[hesiod]

> Communism is a religion

Riiiight... I'll admit that as soon as you admit that Christianity is nothing more than a political structure.

Re:control

[ATN]

Christianity is not about forcfully imposing morality on others. It's most definitly about free will, choice, and our relationships with God and others. At some point along the way stating our opinions and beliefs started to be considered forcefull imposition of morals. In a sense it is true that everyone can do whatever they want but they must accept the consequence that those choices entail. I personaly may not have the right to tell you what you can and cannot do but the government can in some cases, even in a Democracy. The government tells you what taxes you have to pay, it makes laws about how you can use the road, how much alcohol you can have before you drive, what drugs you can and cannot have/take. Why does the governemt tell you what to do in these cases? Because it believes that it is better for society as a whole, that is the function of a government. It sounds like what your after is anarchy. It's crazy to ask politions to put aside their morals when they're making laws, for many the very fabric of who they are and what they believe is right and wrong, and possibly the reason they were voted into power in the first place. I cannot believe that society is better off with Pornography and as such I will support Politions who wish to ban it. That is my right in a democracy and if such a Government get's into power that is it's right as a Government.

Re:control

[mochan_s]

If that were true, there would be no revolutions. Participating in a revolution is a good way to get killed. A selfish analysis by nearly any rational person would conclude that living under less than ideal conditions is better than a painful death after living for months in absolutely terrible conditions. Revolutions are driven by idealism, not by calculations of personal gain/loss. Duh, it's not. There is a probability that you will get killed but there's also the probability of benefit if the revolution succeeds. It's not like you're surely going to die when you partake a revolution.

Re:control

[mochan_s]

Cancer cells are broken cells. They're not doing stuff they're designed to. So, it doesn't count. That's a really lame way to try and counter my point! Every cell is an inactive cancer cell. A lot of active cancer cells are taken care of the immune system.

Re:control

[Lancaibheal]

You humour gland seems to be ruptured. I believe that they have a pill you can take for that, now. ... Although, yes, I do believe that any sort of morality which frowns upon consenting adults doing what they want is backward. This even includes consenting adults appearing in bizarro-fetish films. I do not agree on moral grounds with censorship, no matter what is being censored, so long as it meets the above criteria. Kiddie porn is different though, in that it does not merely include willing adult participants. For the same reason, I think there are valid reasons to censor video of people getting killed (well, unless it is consensual), people or animals being brutalised, etc. But regular garden-variety porno? Nope, no real moral reason to restrict that, as far as I'm concerned. Hence my snigger at the CCP's expense.

Re:control

[swillden]

Duh, it's not. There is a probability that you will get killed but there's also the probability of benefit if the revolution succeeds. It's not like you're surely going to die when you partake a revolution.

No, but you're surely going to go through hell for a few months, or years, and there's a very good chance you might die. For what? So you can pay less in taxes?

Tell me what personal calculation would motivate someone to say "Give me Liberty or give me death!". What would motivate someone to go through the pure hell that was Valley Forge?

Nope, it's not about cost/benefit, it's about ideas and ideals.

Re:control

[Anonymous Coward]

> Communism is a religion

Riiiight... I'll admit that as soon as you admit that Christianity is nothing more than a political structure.

In what way is communism not a religion? It is a system of belief based on the sacred texts written by prophets (Marx, Lenin, Mao), rather than empirical evidence; its followers seek to convert others to their cause and spread the truth; it preaches morality and argues that following the principles it sets forth will produce a paradise.

The only sense in which it is not a conventional religion is that it is normally atheist, but then so are belief systems like humanism and strict Dawkins-ite evolutionarism.

Re:control

[mochan_s]

No, but you're surely going to go through hell for a few months, or years, and there's a very good chance you might die. For what? So you can pay less in taxes? Tell me what personal calculation would motivate someone to say "Give me Liberty or give me death!". What would motivate someone to go through the pure hell that was Valley Forge? Nope, it's not about cost/benefit, it's about ideas and ideals. I don't mean people bring out their actuarial tables and calculate the probabilies to the best they can. People see things being beneficial for them and thus, join a cause. Plus, I don't know which revolution you're using a reference as but it can be exciting times socially for young mens to improve their status quickly. The personal calculations aren't as I said done on a spreadsheet but done on what our human brain can compute. For hundreds of thousands of years in human history we didn't have societies this large. Thus, the human brain isn't really meant to tackle thinking in terms of large socities and that kind of problems implicitly (I mean without a lot of rigious training). The implications to society might be large but personal confidence (however misguided) might be a factor in all of this. What I'm saying is on a small scale very dependent on the small set of people we know well we act in definite ways that is driven my personal selfishness. On a big scale it might all wrong and all but as humans who have lived most of our existence in small groups can't really comprehend the large modern societial implications. I'm sleepy. I hope I made some sense in trying to get what I'm saying.

Re:control

[swillden]

You don't know what Valley Forge was? If your lack of historical knowledge is that profound, there's clearly no point in discussing this with you.

Read some history, think about it and then come back.

What I'm saying is on a small scale very dependent on the small set of people we know well we act in definite ways that is driven my personal selfishness.

And I say you're projecting your own attitude on others. Either that or reading too much Ayn Rand.

Re:control

[joggle]

There were many people like you back at the turn of the 19th century. They believed society would be better off with out alcohol. While they may have been correct in theory it was impossible to enforce, leading to a significant rise in organized crime and a general disrespect for the law and authority.

Especially in this age of a free exchange of ideas through the Internet it would be hopelessly impossible to ban pornography as a whole. Even banning tiny portions of pornography (child porn) is fairly difficult to enforce since the porn can come from anywhere that's connected to the Internet.

So while you could argue that, in theory, society is better off without porn, I think you'll find it totally impossible to enforce, resulting in the same results (to a lesser extent) as the roaring twenties. The government simply can't legislate morality (at least not in cases where a sizable portion of the population would be opposed to it); even a totalitarian government like China is having some difficulty doing that (banning pornography, Christianity, etc.) and anything less than their efforts wouldn't stand a chance.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> Christianity is not about forcfully imposing morality on others.

Then why can I not purchase alcohol on Sundays?

> It sounds like what your after is anarchy.

Not exactly, but compared to what we have now, anarchy is closer.

> I cannot believe that society is better off with Pornography and as such I will support Politions who wish to ban it. That is my right in a democracy and if such a Government get's into power that is it's right as a Government.

Not when it is DIRECT VIOLATION of the FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL LAW CREATED IN THIS COUNTRY! (The First Amendment, in case you didn't know what I was referring to). If the government suddenly wanted to ban the KKK & Nazis from speaking, would you support that too because you also agree that they are fuqhwads? What happened to "I disagree with what you are saying but will fight to the death for your right to say it?" The only reason they can get away with this is that hardly anyone will stand up for someone who looks at child pornography because people like you will assume they are child molesters & shoot them in the back or burn their fucking houses down. Not fair? If you believe that free speech is optional just because you don't like what was said, you are just as crazy (and wrong) as abortion-doctor murderers.

People get this crazy notion that as long as a lot of people agree about something, regardless of what it is or what constitutional amendments it shits on, that it is a fine law. That is not so. If it were, the KKK would be underground (as well as under-hood, tee hee).

Re:control

[hesiod]

> Cancer cells are broken cells

Then I can just say that certain parts of society "don't count" because they are damaged, psychologically unstable.

Re:control

[hesiod]

> they are damaged, psychologically unstable.

Which, I should point out, they were not "designed" to be, just like cancerous cells weren't designed to be broken.

Re:control

[master_p]

It's certainly an honour to be the dumbest (since the competition is so high), but I never mentioned that outlawing child porn will solve the problem of child abuse 100%. It may help lowering the child abuse rates though.

And it is no good to say that since there are gonna be child abusers anyway, we should allow them to view child porn to relieve their stress. It is like saying that we should allow killers to kill animals, just because they have a problem of wanting to kill. In other words, we should not treat the symptom, but the cause.

Re:control

[ATN]

I suppose it would be worth while to ask the question is pornography speech? It must be proven that pornography is a form of speech before it can be claimed that baning it is a violation of your countries first amendment. If it is, it certainly doesn't say much. It likely has properties closer to crack than speech. Perhaps we need to define more carefully what we consider "speech" so that it doesn't become a defense for every vile and evil thing under the sun.

Re:control

[KarmaOverDogma]

I've havent seen such a heartfelt description of someones faith in their belief of what Christianity is all about in a long time (and I'm not one, FWIW).

I do strongly oppose your view on Gay Marriage and adoption inside of one, however. As a former social worker of 8 & 1/2 years and a Father who has a wonderful wife and a beautiful newborn son, I have seen far too many lonely children languish in foster care and group homes without the families they deserve. Why should Gays be told "you're not good enough/moral enough to help a child" and that group/foster homes are more always more appropriate?

Still, it seems to me that you're not one of those preachy types. You're a very good example of a responsible disagreement with the parent poster, and for that my hat is off to you.

.

Re:control

[luigi1015]

Abusing children, that's illegal. ... but it's not my job to tell other people what's right and wrong.

Is it just me, or are those two statements contradictory?
I mean, you say that abusing children is illegal, obviously saying that someone should be jailed/fined/whatever for what you consider to be very immoral. To me that's trying to enforce your beliefs on others.
Then you turn around and say that you shouldn't enforce your beliefs on others.

To me, abusing children is immoral and should be illegal because you're harming other people (i.e. the children), but looking at photos of abusing children is usually immoral but shouldn't be illegal since you're not affecting anyone else.
It's a fine distinction and somewhat arbitrary, but it's the best I've come up with to protect the rights of everyone.

donald duck

[DonaldDuckBigO]

Donald Duck is going to have a screaming org@sm for his frist ps0t oimg omg omg omgomg

But...

[Three Headed Man]

You can't legislate morality. As long as there's a demand, it'll be there. It's like "The War on Drugs" in the US.

Re:But...

[polecat_redux]

Unfortunatly, morality varies widely among any society. The question is whether or not a government should dictate a common moral belief. Ideally, I would say they should not, but IMO, individuals largely consider only their personal interests, and because of that, I believe that some moral groundwork should be laid.

society: a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't legislate morality? I thought that's what we did everyday when we decide that murder, stealing, rape, etc. is wrong and make them illegal. And those still exist, despite the laws against them.

Re:But...

[rmarll]

And just like the US, the consumers of said products will, in public office, decry the practice.

The more insistant the official, the larger their infraction.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh bollocks. Of course you can legislate morality.

The real questions are these:

1) By how much (if at all) does the measure lower the use in the short term?

2) How much in the long term?

3) Is the cost worth these reductions (if any reduction occurs).

Care to answer for the War On Drugs? (the war on drugs is trying to lower use and does not fail through small amounts just being there)

Similarly, this porn effort is about lowering the amount as per question 1.

Please don't think I'm for either movement. I'm a pro porn, pro legalisation kind of guy. The thing though is that these types of things do tend to reduce usage in the short term. If they reduce cocaine on the streets, maybe it's enough to justify it to themselves (the government).

So care to ansewr the questions?

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like murder. Those who decry it are deep to their bloody hands in it.

Oh wait, you're making up rules that can't even stand up to the barest of scrutiny.

Well, good for you. Keep reaching for the stars!

Re:But...

[SirKodiak]

You can't legislate morality? I thought that's what we did everyday when we decide that murder, stealing, rape, etc. is wrong and make them illegal.

There exist reasons to make murder, theft, and rape illegal that aren't dependant on moral concerns, though moral concerns can certainly bolster the case for making them illegal. The grandparent was apparently attempting to claim that there's no reason to make pornography illegal except for moral concerns, which would make this a case of legislating morality, if true. I'm not convinced it is true, however; it's not something I've made up my mind about.

Which is not to say that I support censorship. It's just important to remember that legality, ethics, and morality are different, but often interrelated subjects.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt this has anything to do with morality. I have this feeling that the govt just needs an excuse to control things ...but maybe I'm just me.

Disclaimer: Whether the controlling is actually needed for reason or another is a totally different question. All I'm saying that the reason most certainly isn't pr0n.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Further, because of our innate sense of right and wrong, almost every society believes murder is wrong. It is something called a conscience. We are lucky to have a chance to choose our own beliefs here. If you want to become a Amish, it's your choice.

One exception is Japanese Seppuku, ritualized suicide.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't legislate morality. As long as there's a demand, it'll be there. It's like "The War on Drugs" in the US.

It's funny you say that. The Chinese solved their drug problems by executing millions. I don't doubt that the commie bastards would do it again if they wanted to.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

The last time I checked theft, murder, and rape are against the law.
So is lying under oath.

Re:But...

[Stargoat]

When official state doctrine rests on the quote "Power comes from the barrel of a gun", you can legislate just about anything you want.

Don't forget that this is the government responsible for the millions dead in the Great Leap Forward, and the auto-genocide of the cultural revolution. In 1989, up to 10,000 died on the streets during the Tianamein massacre. Today, throngs of angry farmers upset over food prices are still butchered. Mortality of this sort is legislated ever day in China.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are laws against theft. There are laws against murder. There are laws against rape. There are laws against libel and slander and on and on and on. It seems to me that it is morality that is the focus of legislation.

As for the continuation of drug abuse under drug laws, using your logic, we should legalize rape because the laws have not completely stopped that. We should do the same for murder and theft and everything else that legislation has failed to completely stop.

Re:But...

[Knara]

Apparently, according to the Chinese Red Cross the number of deaths was around 2600, but the *injuries* could have ranged up to and around 10k. (see el wikipedia article for example).

I'm interested to hear where you're getting the information that the Chinese gov't regularly butchers farmers. I mean, they're no saints to be sure, but regular massacres? that requires some pretty hefty proof there, buddy.

oh no.......

[machocomacho]

....if the U.S. where to do this, I'd be a billionaire.

Re:oh no.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it would be easy to do this with the current administration. Just say that pr0n sites are means of distributing WMD (Ways to Masturbate Desperately) and that they are supported by the UN and the French. See how quickly the govt. moves to take 'em down!

I knew this would pay off!

[jaymzter]

1. Collect large collection of porn links
   
2. Get called luser by few remaining friends
   
3. Thanks to Karl Marx and Mao, China goes Communist
   
4. Profit!!
   

Re:I knew this would pay off!

[tonsofpcs]

China is not communist (in the Marxist sense). China is socialist.

Re:I knew this would pay off!

[Tezkah]

How can you call an authoritarian government with a capitalistic economy socialist? Seems to me, the closest place on the map is the Nazis, with their very moderate economic standpoint, and they're extreme authoritarian attributes. I'm not comparing atrocities commited by the Nazis to this in any way, but they both kept a tight grasp on their citizens' minds, while used capitalism to their advantage.

Could be a good thing

[skinfitz]

Could be a good thing if it ultimately puts another thorn in the side of spammers who promote those pr0n web sites.

Re:Could be a good thing

[guru_Stew]

Could be a bad thing, if chinese porn spammers start forwarding all thier email to the government and getting paid or it.

Sad news ... Christopher Reeve, dead at 52

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saw some sad news on Drudge Report - Sci Fi star Christopher Reeve was found dead in his home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Won't do anything

[Anonymous Coward]

You can host porn legally in many many countries, and still spam from China.

HEH... and ppl who notified 'em the website will

[Anonymous Coward]

go to prison for visiting those illegal websites.

Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception. With China facing ongoing crises in both those human conditions, isn't porn the State's best comrade?

Re: Counterproductive?

[Black Parrot]

> Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception. With China facing ongoing crises in both those human conditions, isn't porn the State's best comrade?

Presumably their accountants were dismayed at the productivity loss when 1,000,000,000 take time out to play with themselves, even if it's only for a few minutes a day.

Re:Counterproductive?

[quinxy]

well, good point, but being a rather graphic solution, too likely to incite the people towards moral decay.

perhaps, though, they should create a list of state-approved electromechanical stimulation devices. somehow the notion of a state sanctioned "sexual energy dissipation device" would fit nicely with the whole "control" thing they're into.

quincy

Re:Counterproductive?

[josh3736]

It's +5 Funny and Insightful all at the same time!

You're right, and hasn't there been cases where someone goes and rapes someone simply because they couldn't get their hands on some pr0n? (At least I think I remember reading something along those lines...) So I say, increase the porn, the number of rape cases will go down!

Seriously though, this is just the State legislating morality, which is always a bad idea. If anything, demand for the "forbidden fruit" will go up, creating the "War on Porn" (as others have already pointed out). Why do governments insist on blowing (no pun intended) their money on pointless endavors such as this when there are other things it would be much more well-spent on? Let the adults make decisions for themselves. The world will be a better place.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Zenmonkeycat]

No, because as we all know, the Freemasons control Porn. Ever since the Freemasons hired Leon Trotsky to assasinate President Taft and replace him with a body double, we've had to deal with this Zionist/Illuminatist/Templar plot to infiltrate the minds of this great Republic with pornographic material. Porn, as we all know by now, is set to cause our minds to vibrate at a specific frequency, one that resonates with Nikola Tesla's mind-control rays that have been hidden inside the ironically-named "American Standard" urinals and toilets. It makes it so that everytime you go to the bathroom, you think about the Templars, and the Templars worship Baphomet, whose avatar on this plane takes the form of women seen in pornography. Thus, while in the bathroom, you have an urgent need to get online and look at those smutty web-sites. Once you're online, Tesla's rays kick into overdrive, and you begin seeing visions of Harry Truman instructing you on how to murder Communist babies.

Naturally, the only defense of this, short of assailing the fortresses of the OTO and Zionist forces hidden in the city of Agharti within the hollow Earth, is to purchase my new book, "Zionist Mind-Control Chemtrails and the Illuminati: The TRUTH about Flouride and Free Energy."

Re:Counterproductive?

[polecat_redux]

isn't porn the State's best comrade?

No, porn detracts too much from the human rights violations. It's called specialization...

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

"good point, but being a rather graphic solution, too likely to incite the people towards moral decay"

Slashdot is people? IT'S PEOPLE! IT'S PEOPLE! SLASHDOT IS PEOPLE!

Re:Counterproductive?

[clem]

I thought such prudish tendencies were more a product of Western Puritanism. Eastern thoughts toward sex were supposed to be all about the Kama Sutra, good times in Thailand, young women in plaid school girl uniforms, and tentacle porn.

Can't China's Communist Party come up with their own hang-ups? Sexual frustration is the domain of the United States of America. USA! USA! USA!

Re:Counterproductive?

[Goalie_Ca]

It's probably because they don't think they are ready to supply the demand of broadband to 1 million horny people who can only have 1 child.

Re:Counterproductive?

[sqrt(2)]

1 million people eh? That population control must be really working out for them.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Goalie_Ca]

blame teh b33r!!!
It's thanksgiving long weekend here in canada!

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

FNORD

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Ever since Chinese people have started wearing pants with zippers, they've become too American in their hangups. Maybe what this country needs is a good $5 silk pyjamas.

Re:Counterproductive?

[mrchaotica]

I think the Victorian-era moralists actually tried something like that.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I just had a mental image of a billion
people masturbating in unison to power a huge power
plant. I wonder if that could reduce their pollution
problems with coal-based power plants.

Re:Counterproductive?

[mrchaotica]

...Wow.

I've been sitting here for about five minutes now, not knowing what to type. That's the kind of post that you really want to respond to, but can't figure out whether to flame, laugh, or just gibber incoherently to yourself. I'm speechless. Very impressive.

Re:Counterproductive?

[DarkEdgeX]

somehow the notion of a state sanctioned "sexual energy dissipation device" would fit nicely with the whole "control" thing they're into.

I've always wondered what would happen to society if we could harness the raw inert power in every penis on Earth.

And so the ladies don't feel left out, I'm sure there's some power to be had from the vagina as well.

Re:Counterproductive?

[identity0]

Oh my god, if they perfect such a thing, I am *so* going to China. Just imagine Tiannamen square filled with people, all of them smiling, and an odd buzzing sound in the air...

On the other hand, I imagine they could have the thing have a pain setting in case you get out of hand, and a wireless reciever so they can activate it remotely...

but that could be fun, too : ) "This one goes up to 11!"

Re:Counterproductive?

[Y0tsuya]

This is some of the wierdest s**t I've read in quite a while. But then I've never been a fan of conspiracy web sites. Pretty funny tho.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Anonymous Coward]

But is has been argued that porn (especially hard core stuff) leads to rape, buggery and general treatment of women as second class.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception

If you want to apply amoral criteria, just because you don't agree with their ideology, you should accept the same.

Have you thought about how this could bite you back?

Re:Counterproductive?

[Shillo]

> perhaps, though, they should create a list of state-approved electromechanical stimulation devices. somehow the notion of a state sanctioned "sexual energy dissipation device" would fit nicely with the whole "control" thing they're into.

While at it, perhaps they should also offer state subsidy for the multiuser product.

--

Re:Counterproductive?

[hikerhat]

Maybe safer for you. But it seems you've forgotten that those are real people in the pictures and movies who are putting themselves at greater risk for STDs, social stigmatization, etc. Despite what the few highly paid shills on Howard Stern tell you actors in porn aren't there because they think it is a fun way to earn money. They are there because they've hit rock bottom, and the porn industry is taking advantage of them. Whacking off to porn is morally on par with whacking off to a video of a homeless person getting the crap kicked out of them. I'm absolutly against censorship. And I'm not against porn per se. If it were possible to create porn without taking advantage of people at the lowest points in their lives I would say whack away. But in reality, contrary to what the porn industry tells you, ethical porn isn't possible.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

I want to apply amoral criteria, because this is a medical issue. How does that "bite me back"? Are you somehow afraid of a future with less overpopulation, or do you have a thing for herpes?

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

Because it's morality that bounds pornography. How far would you take the argument that representation of the act is a preferable substitute for the act itself? How would you justify your decision without citing moral arguments?

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Anonymous prissy Coward, it has been argued that the Earth is flat by people served by that fallacy.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

I've felt some pity for the strippers I've known personally - in my New Orleans neighborhood. But I've also felt that if they'd aimed for success in their formative years by doing their homework, rather than blowing the football players, they might not have headed to the bottom. But everyone's misfortune has outside instigators, and most of us take advantage of our opportunities to succeed somehow, take responsibility for our reactions to misfortune. Of course coerced pornography, like any other coercion, must be eradicated by justice. But people exploiting themselves are pretty far down on my demanding sympathy list. I'll get to them sometime before I pity the women bottoming out in bad marriages, from which they need rescuing.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Though I rarely indulge, I prefer war movies to war, especially documentaries. And I think more sex is good - because I'm not the Chinese mafia government. I don't have their problems, so I don't apply their solutions. However, I can point out their inconsistencies, especially when their cynical "morality" is fronting for literally getting their country by the balls.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

And there was me pre-supposing that you wouldn't be in favour of child pornography and up-to-minute uncensored coverage of the Jihad...

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Of course child pornography is unacceptable. Less for publishing infamous images that destroy the reputation of the child for life, especially in their own self-image, than for the rape of the child in person that makes it to film. Just because the images are less devastating than the events doesn't make the images acceptable - they're all unacceptable. The same is true of war.

Now, if you could provide *truly* uncensored live coverage of the Jihad, I'd be for it. Not only would we see the truth of the insane savagery, leaving apologists and deniers nowhere to hide, but we'd be able to find the perpetrators themselves more easily. Those are but a few of the reasons outside media theory that prevent any "truly uncensored" coverage of such events.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

Of course child pornography is unacceptable

Of course... that's clear to anyone with morals.

Don't think it's about morality?

Have you the same definition of child pornography as the Dutch, the Japanese and the Saudis? (Clue: that's impossible)

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

No, I think it's about humanity. These acts violate humans in irreparable ways, when they're children. I need not reach for morality when denouncing them. Morals are innate values, which are difficult to debate sensibly, even when they coincide with reason. It undermines justice to appeal to them as a foundation, convenient as they might be. If we agree on justice itself, because of morals, reason, pragmatism, or aesthetics, that's sufficient. We need not face salvation together to share the world well while we live.

My clear definition of child pornography is: an actual child in real or simulated sex acts, represented in media. There might be some debate on the definition of "child", but I believe that the age of consent to sexual acts is a safe threshold. The problem with "morality" as the basis for these definitions is that morality varies among cultures, widely diverging among people as different as Dutch, Japanese and Saudi. That's why the actual psychological effects on a developing person, a child, must be considered prior to projecting morality on the question - no matter how important morality might be to you.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

My clear definition of child pornography is: an actual child in real or simulated sex acts, represented in media. There might be some debate on the definition of "child", but I believe that the age of consent to sexual acts is a safe threshold

That's not a clear definition because - apart from debate on definition of a child - there is debate on: what the age of consent should be, the reason I mentioned Netherlands (14 years old), Japan (12 years old) and Saudi Arabia (where one cannot legally consent to sex outside marriage); the definition of "sex acts"; and the acceptibility of simulated sex acts (illegal in Netherlands, a grey area in the United States and somewhat legal in Japan).

Why the differences? These are variations in codes of morality...

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

The age of consent in the Vatican City is 13.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

The age of consent in the Vatican City is 13.

You're not trying to persuade a protestant that its occupants are moral, are you?!?

Re:Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Well, if you're going to monopolize morality, the only safety is to hide your daughters. The rest of us will carry on working from a consensus reality that works, regardless of people's motivations for participating.

Re:Counterproductive?

[BarryNorton]

The rest of us will carry on working from a consensus reality that works

Communism is rather more of a persuasive consensus than Roman Catholic doctrine!

Re:Counterproductive?

[SeanDuggan]

You're right, and hasn't there been cases where someone goes and rapes someone simply because they couldn't get their hands on some pr0n? (At least I think I remember reading something along those lines...) So I say, increase the porn, the number of rape cases will go down!

Oddly enough, the opposite argument is the reasoning behind the enhancements to the child pornography laws that made all media that could be reasonably be interpretted as involving children just as illegal. Although no actual children are involved when a company uses a 31-year-old midget or draws their work, someone out there might get incited by the material and either decide to act upon the themese involved, or to make their own pornography with a cheap camera, some candy, and the kids in their neighborhood.

Who knew

[pashc1013]

Who knew that a communist regime could be moral

Re:Who knew

[suckmysav]

" Who knew that a communist regime could be moral"

One could muster a good argument that what they are doing is completely immoral actually. Loss of human rights and all that guff.

Perhaps a more accurate term would be moralistic

Re:Who knew

[tonsofpcs]

I agree, being moral is doing right, but does forcing others to do as you please moral? I think not.

Re:Who knew

[jcr]

The term I would use is "puritanical".

-jcr

Re:Who knew

[Anonymous Coward]

It has more moral at least than the current US administration.

Re:Who knew

[pashc1013]

" The term I would use is "puritanical". -jcr [ObjC retain];" That is what i meant should have said it that way

double edged sword

[YouHaveSnail]

So, in order to collect the reward, do you have to answer any questions? Like "How do you happen to know about this pornographic web site?"

Re:double edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

> Like "How do you happen to know about this
> pornographic web site?"

Well, I was talking to this Nigerian about a very interesting business opportunity when he told me I could "Lose Weight with Confidential Pharmacy" and "INCREASE MY PENIS SIZE BY 1/4 INCH IN ONE WEEK" for 152 weeks.

I told him I wasn't interested, so he told me about a web site where I could "Watch A Hot Tight 18 year old girl have sex with her horse"

That's when I decided to turn him in. Anyway, I have to go. I've just recieved word that I "May Be Entitled to Unclaimed Funds". All I need to do is given them my credit card number for administrative fees.

Re:double edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

> "INCREASE MY PENIS SIZE BY 1/4 INCH IN ONE WEEK" for 152 weeks.

Hmmm, do you realize that after all that work, that your penis will be as big as a midget?

Kind of ironic isn't it?;-)

Re:double edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, do you realize that after all that work, that > your penis will be as big as a midget?

Will you call it "Mini Me"?

Busted!

[Howzer]

Bounties or rewards for informing on criminals is neither new to the world, nor to China. Move on, nothing to see here.

But the fact that this story contains the magic words porn, internet, & communist is likely to generate 1,000 responses. Sigh.

For something truly fun and interesting along the same lines, recently the Chinese had a brilliant spin on "citizen crime busters", offering bounties for people with camcorders who caught drivers breaking the law! Now there is a great idea!

Re:Busted!

[BobaFett]

Morale of the story: if you ever make an illegal U-turn in China, take a good look around and make sure to run over every guy with a camera, he could be a vigilante bounty-hunter :)

Re:Busted!

[Anonymous Coward]

The traffic thing is not a bad idea - I'd have no problem reporting the arrogant, speeding, tailgating jerks that put me at risk everytime I use the freeway. Shit, I'd do it for free.

But the porn? If ther'e really good sites, hell I'd offer the reward.

Re:Busted!

[Anonymous Coward]

i wonder how useful it would be for chinese porn surfers to say to the cops that they were RESEARCHING in order to try to get the reward :-)

actually, when they say this, do they mean a crackdown on porn sites hosted IN china (hot chinese chicks!) or do they mean porn viewers?

Interesting...

[Mr. Roadkill]

Do many porn spammers use Chinese web hosting, or do they just relay through there? This could work out well for the rest of us, even if it's a(nother) kick in the goolies freedom-wise for the Chinese people.

LOL Christopher Reeve. DEAD.

[JismTroll]

Christopher Reeve. DEAD.

Once Superman turned gimp and now rotting corpse Christopher Reeve died this afternoon after bleeding out from being assraped. Reeve, unable to defend himself from 20 gay, well-hung niggers, had apparently taken the semen from all 20 men. The Reeve estate had recently hired Tyreese, a gay nigger chambermaid, who apparently let his friends in to the mansion.

He opened the door and led 20 large black men into the stall. "Chris, meet the Gay Nigger Association of America. GNAA, meet Chris. I'm sure you all will get along fine." With that Tyreese slammed the shower door closed and walked away laughing.

The men approached Reeve, backing him into a corner. The apparent leader stepped forward. "No matter what I'm gonna fuck that purdy lil' ass of yours. Now I can fuck it dry or you can lube it up for me." Chris knew he had no choice. He kneeled in front of the leader, who began to slap his face with his 10 black inches. Puss from syphilictic sores quickly covered Chris's cheeks. When the leader was sufficiently aroused he placed his throbbing cock up to Rob's lips. As soon as Rob opened his mouth the leader violently shoved his manhood to the back of Rob's throat and exclaimed "Swallow my shit you cracker bitch!" Rob gagged as he was violently face fucked.

Just when he was about to pass out the leader pulled out, turned him around and shoved his cock into Chris's ass. Chris began to scream in agony but his cries were quickly muffled by one of the other gang member's cocks. They rode him like that for the better part of an hour. When one man finished another quickly took his place. Just as Rob was getting used to the throbbing pain in his anus the men stopped. One man lay down on the floor and Chris was told to get on top of him and take his dick inside him. Exhausted and humiliated, Chris had no will left to fight. As soon as he inserted the penis another man came up behind him and began to force his cock into Rob's already filled anus. Again his screams of agony were muffled, this time by a smelly black anus.

For another hour he was violated in this way. When the men were finished with him he still couldn't walk and his mouth was filled with dingleberries, kryptonite and ass hairs. Before they all left the leader had some parting words for Chris: "Thanks for that sweet piece of ass, punk. We'll see you again tomorrow. Oh by the way, we all have AIDS."

Christopher Reeve, you always looked like a homo. First you failed acting then failed horseback riding then failed walking and now you failed life.

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA Firs

Re:LOL Christopher Reeve. DEAD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you may be interested in crapflooding the following blog, this guy is hilarious. He still uses words like "nutsack" -

Re:LOL Christopher Reeve. DEAD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chris knew he had no choice. He kneeled in front of the leader..

That was a fucking good trick, no matter how you look at it.

Seems like a good rate of pay to me

[shockwaverider]

$240 per webpage?

That's more than most web coders get per webpage. This could give rise to a new phenomina

"pr0n site farms"

Re:Seems like a good rate of pay to me

[korea]

Brilliant! Recieve outsourced work to create Chinese pornography websites, and then report your employer! In Socialist China, Porno fucks you.

Re:Seems like a good rate of pay to me

[HeghmoH]

It is slightly risky, though, since if they catch the person who actually made the site then they will put him in prison for the rest of his life. It doesn't really seem worth it.

Re:Seems like a good rate of pay to me

[Kizzle]

Grr this is how rumors start. The story clearly says "up to $240". Not $240 per page.

A Win-Win Situation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it: You get to see a porn site, and you get $240!!!

Wankers of the World, UNITE!!!!

Re:A Win-Win Situation?

[Idarubicin]

Wankers of the World, UNITE!!!!

I call BS. If you really believed in the One True Cause, you would have written,

Waers f te wrd TE!

Re:A Win-Win Situation?

[iNetRunner]

Well.. but if you use part of that $240 to make another porn site.. and report it again..
3 Profit!

all well and good, but ...

[antimatt]

... what authority do they have? Is all pornography illegal for everyone in China? While they might be disagreeable to some, most porn sites are legitimate businesses. Is the Chinese government so far-reaching?

Re:all well and good, but ...

[wwahammy]

you have got to be kidding right?

Re:all well and good, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, am I?

Re:all well and good, but ...

[LPetrazickis]

According to Chapter II, Article 35 of the People's Republic of China constitution -- Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. -- pornography should be legal. Hmmph.

Re:all well and good, but ...

[wan-fu]

Yes. My friend in Shanghai was hosting a dump site and got busted because a bunch of porn was placed onto his server. They are that far reaching.

Link between communism and open source

[BottleCup]

This is the best evidence yet against those who accuse Open Source people as being communists. As is known, we Open Source people are very much into porn.

Oops... did I say we?

Yeah...

[Dirtside]

...because as history has shown us, the best way to keep people from doing the things they want has been to make those things illegal.

This'll work out great in the long run, I'm sure.

Re:Yeah...

[voisine]

You're missing the point. In a communist dictatorship you *want* everyone to be doing at least a few things that are illegal. That way if ever they are even suspect of causing any problems, you have a convenient excuse to haul them off to the gulag. That way you have total control over everything and everyone and yet are able to maintian the illusion that it's still a *people's* republic. We do the same thing in the US with drug offenses. You think this guy is probably the guy who robbed the liquor store but can't prove it? No problem, he's got a dime bag of weed in his jacket pocket. Take him away boys!

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

In a communist dictatorship you *want* everyone to be doing at least a few things that are illegal. That way if ever they are even suspect of causing any problems, you have a convenient excuse to haul them off to the gulag.

Huh? I think you mean "in a corrupt government you *want* everyone..."

Simply because a government is communist or a dictatorship, it doesn't mean that the leaders are automatically evil people. Or have you bought into the Cold War-era USA propoganda?

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

So people steal and murder because they have been made illegal? You're an idiot.

Re:Yeah...

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

No:

So people don't steal and don't murder because they have been made illegal?

You're the idiot.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of the legitimacy of the Chinese government's position, the purpose of law isn't to deter. Granted, the severity of the action increases the severity of the punishment, which may serve as a deterrent.

But the true purpose of law is to provide a standardized means of punishment for crime and to differentiate between crimes that look the same. We do not have laws to stop people from doing anything; we have laws so that we may punish them for breaking them. And, rather than subjecting the perpetrators to the capricious whims of a {king, dictator, et c.}, we instead look up their crime and assign them the appropriate punishment.

I realize it's not as black and white as that, of course, but the idea that law is supposed to prevent anything is a bunch of nonsense. It never has, and it never will. But it does provide recourse for ensuring that those who are a danger to themselves and society are prevented from doing so again.

And no, that last sentence isn't an invitation to complain about the injustice of the system. ;)

--winterlens (moderated here already)

apropos

[Doc Ruby]

My Slashdot "fortune", at the bottom right of the page with your post, says:

"One size fits all": Doesn't fit anyone.

We're not going to get boringly competent presidents until we remove the campaign bribes^Wfunding and media personality cults^W^Wbubbles from the critical path to elections. Remember that the November ballot is effectively a binary choice, for better or worse. Abstaining, or voting for a certain-to-lose candidate, means tacitly accepting whichever crook the rest of the electorate chooses for you. Personally, I prefer to at least make my own mistakes - it's less humiliating than being done in by millions of strangers. Hold your nose and vote for one of these two crooks; you're going to get one of them, so you might as well at least mitigate the damage a little.

BTW, vote for Kerry. Bush is a lot worse, as is abundantly clear, and will become too painful to bear without the bait of reelection dangling before him.

Re:apropos

[seanadams.com]

Abstaining, or voting for a certain-to-lose candidate, means tacitly accepting whichever crook the rest of the electorate chooses for you.

It is precisely that line of thinking that kept Ross Perot from winning. If we thought he had a chance, it would have been a landslide! Don't waste your vote. Vote for the right candidate, whether R/D/whatever. Even if your guy only gets 0.001%, at least you've made a statement. Simply picking the lesser of two evils does a grave disservice to democracy IMHO.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

It must suck to be a Democrat.

Re:apropos

[karmatic]

Vote libertarian, then. Badnarick is about as different from the two major parties as Nader, and he's shown he's willing to stand up for his beliefs.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Holy manchurian candidates, batman! Perot went out like a bitch. If we'd had that lying dwarf running the country "like a business" the way he sucked his billions from the government with EDS (administering Texas Medicare, etc), the 1990s would have looked a lot like the 2000s. If a voter makes a statement in an election and the fascist wins, does anyone care? Don't waste your time on empty statements that make you feel better when you cast the ballot, but let someone else's winner make you feel worse for the next four years. Or vote for me, Doc Ruby - only I can set you free :P.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

I wouldn't know, Anonymous loser Coward, I've never tried. It's probably pretty cool to be the Democrat who wins the 2004 election, though. FWIW, it must suck to be a Republican, because all the stupidest responses I get from them are signed "Anonymous Coward". Yella Republicans.

Re:apropos

[tarunthegreat2]

You know, the stereotypical politician is meant to be a Used-Car salesman. And frankly, I'd rather have a whore for president than somebody who is as naive as Bush...yes you heard me correctly - I'd rather have a sell-out like Kerry than somebody who actually stands for what they believe in - like Bush. I believe that ruling the most powerful country in the world means that you have demonstrate some flexibility. This is isn't frikkin' Little League, where there is Good and Bad, Right & Wrong. There are lots of shades of grey, and they all need to be dealt with in their own way. Most Americans don't want to look into the causes behind the 9/11 butchers, but the fact is that they were idealists too - true believers to their cause and look what they accomplished. The same goes for Lenin, Mao, e.t.c. When your politicians are selling out to the highest bidder, that's when you know everything's ok in the world. If they start taking up causes, and preaching The Right Way & The Wrong Way or With Us or Against Us policies, that's when it's time to be afraid.

Re:apropos

[autopr0n]

Hold your nose and vote for one of these two crooks; you're going to get one of them, so you might as well at least mitigate the damage a little.

How is Kerry a crook? He's done more to stop government thievery and corruption then most people. (speaking out against 'Nam, busting up BCCI and discovering the Iran Contra affair)

Re:apropos

[autopr0n]

It is precisely that line of thinking that kept Ross Perot from winning. If we thought he had a chance, it would have been a landslide!

That, and the fact that he's a psycho. Would you really have prefered Perot to Bill Clinton?

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

??? There's a good and bad in Little League?

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Here's a reality check just a few weeks before we have possibly our last chance to keep our republic from descending into an unsustainable empire. Bush has actually lied us into war, through the recession, into the Patriot Act, the Medicare Prescription Drug Industry Welfare Act, the destruction of the environment through oil, coal, nuclear and every other lucrative pollution, has divided the nation more than since the Civil War... the list just goes on and on. And in every case, he has lied throughout - from his 2000 campaign, through his continuous spin, through his coverups, rigging investigations, and even through the debates. Kerry has been telling the hard truth, and has even risked alienating millions of denial addicts with his truth.

Bush Sr had a lot of faults, including backing Saddam in the 1980s, and apparently (to Saddam, at least) giving Saddam the go-ahead for invading Kuwait without resistance in 1990. But he at least understood that if we crushed Saddam's regime in 1991, we'd have to keep that frankencountry (created to be unstable by the retreating British) under control, a task so far manageable only under Saddam's intolerable tyranny. Bush was loathe to upset the Turks by backing Kurds in a revolt that would have not only created a federal Iraqi state full of Shi'ites ripe for annexation by Iran, but also a momentum towards greater Kurdistan. Including not only SE Turkey, but also eastern Syria and NW Iran, guaranteeing war in the region on shifting fronts much like the "Vietnam" war through Southeast Asia, which consumed Laos and Cambodia (and several million people), without even the threat of nuclear war from neighboring Israel and Iran, to say nothing of the oil, gas and pipelines. Bush Sr chickened out, leaving that unsolvable puzzle for someone else. Perhaps someone might have unraveled it, but now Bush Jr has burned every bridge, and is burning out every chance at any stability at all. We'll need years, decades, generations, just to get back to equilibrium, let alone justice or democracy.

As for JFK, his refusal to cut a deal with the Soviets has been shown, in 20/20 hindsight, to have been the right call. If only some of these Republicans could gamble with the same steel balls as the most famous liberal Democrat of the 20th Century.

Vote for Kerry. Don't let the past 4 years of fearmongering and devastation extinguish your capacity for hope. One step at a time, starting with removing the malignant cancer from the White House. Then, if you're still unhappy with Kerry, at least you'll have a chance to choose something else. With Bush, democracy itself is on the outsource list.

Re:apropos

[LFS.Morpheus]

Part of our system of voting requires us to think about the candidates that we think has a chance. It is a clear side-effect of a first-past-the-post voting system. As explained there:

First-past-the-post encourages the tactical voting technique known as "compromising": voters are encouraged to vote for one of the two options most likely to win, even if it is not their most preferred option. ...

If enough voters vote using this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes a form of runoff voting where the first round is held in the court of public opinion. This can give substantial power to the media as voters will tend to believe their viewpoint on who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election and use that viewpoint to decide where a "tactical" vote would be (in the voter's opinion) best used. This can also become a system promoting votes against more so than votes for.

If you go on and read about tactical voting, you'll see it says that "Duverger's law suggests that, for this reason, first-past-the-post election systems will lead to two party systems in most cases." Quite discouraging if you ask me; I'd love to see more parties involved.

I just read some of these articles yesterday trying to learn about the British election system. It's very interesting stuff. Sometimes I wish I was a political science major...

Re:apropos

[jim_v2000]

Before I read this post, I used to think that you could only find this much crap at Wal-Mart.

Here's a reality check just a few weeks before we have possibly our last chance to keep our republic from descending into an unsustainable empire.

Do you honestly think that the US has become an "empire" since Bush took office? I fear that you have strayed to far to the left and fallen off the earth. Who has the US conquered or taken control of? Iraq you say? Wrong. We have not conquered Iraq, we have liberated it. For now the US helps their new government off it's feet.

Bush has actually lied us into war

Unless he somehow managed to trick the entire CIA and Congress, they all saw the same info he did and came to the same conclusion. So maybe they all lied to get us into war?

through the recession

You mean the one he inherited from Clinton? And how did he lie to get us through it? By making predictions that weren't 100% accurate? Not even the best on wallstreet can do that. Sorry.

the destruction of the environment through oil, coal, nuclear and every other lucrative pollution

Actually the water/air has actually become cleaner since Bush took office.

And if you don't like pollution...stop driving your car, turn off the lights, and recycle. It's going to do a whole lot more good than bitching about the President.

Kerry has been telling the hard truth, and has even risked alienating millions of denial addicts with his truth.

You can't be serious. The guy can't even get the story about if and when he was in Cambodia right. I haven't heard him mention the hard truth about how his words were used to demoralize captured US soldiers. I haven't heard him talk about meeting with N. Vietnamese officials during a time of war. He hasn't talked about how he rarely actually does his job in Washington, or how he has more money than most of us will see in a lifetime.

Bush Sr had a lot of faults

Being a Conservative/Republican was probably the first one on your list.

If only some of these Republicans could gamble with the same steel balls as the most famous liberal Democrat of the 20th Century.

Uh, what do you call liberating Iraq? If Iraq stabilizes, we have a big ally in the Middle East. If it doesn't, well, good try anyway. If JFK had been wrong, on the other hand, we could have had straight up nuclear war.

Don't let the past 4 years of fearmongering and devastation extinguish your capacity for hope.

Yes, don't listen the the doom and gloom Democrats. Things are not as bad as you seem. Mr. Partiot Act is not waiting in the bushes to rape you. There won't be a draft. Iraq is so far a success. The economy is still going up. (If you'd like to see it stay that way, go invest!) The sky is not falling.

Re:apropos

[seanadams.com]

If you go on and read about tactical voting, you'll see it says that "Duverger's law suggests that, for this reason, first-past-the-post election systems will lead to two party systems in most cases." Quite discouraging if you ask me; I'd love to see more parties involved.

You could say Perot cost Bush the election, or that Nader's votes came right out of a Gore's pocket - that's hard to refute if you look at how those voters would otherwise have leaned. But would we have been that much worse off, in either case, had it gone the other way between the two leading candidates?

I suspect the tactical voting phenomenon becomes less certain to prevail as the two leading candiates become less distinguishable from each other. It seems to me that with every passing election, the "middle" becomes more clearly defined by those two.

This relieves voters from worrying if tweedle-dee|dum will "accidentally" win if they "waste" their vote.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, Kerry keeps repeating the simple outlines of his plan, though somehow the media (and many opponents) keep ignoring it, and claiming he has none. As I (not a part of the Kerry campaign or his policy staff) understand it:

1> Accept that we are still at war
2> Add enough properly supplied troops to the level necessary for tactical victories, and control the entire country (not just the parts on camera)
3> Bring our allies back to help, like in 1990, when it cost us only about $5B (instead of the $200B so far this time) and we all bore the casualties. That will also remove lots of recruiting propaganda about "Iraq vs. America". Our allies include, first and foremost, Iraqis.
4> Rebuild infrastructure to keep Iraqis vested interest in peace, rather than keeping them with nothing to lose

Their plan is detailed more at their website.

You'll hear Bush (and company) say that Kerry has no plan, that his plan is wrong, and that his plan is the same as theirs, depending on which audience Karl Rove thinks is listening. Bush obviously has no plan - the man himself has never had a plan, other than to stay close to his father - and is just hoping to keep the game rigged long enough to keep his job through the election, so he can forget about it for awhile, work on some other ripoffs. Kerry is making his own decisions, and needs to close the book successfully on Iraq, like Clinton did on the Bush Sr deficit and recession, to get reelected in 2008. Let's get someone in there with accountability. Enough of this media hero worship claptrap about "better character": they're both in the "compromise business" (politics); I want the guy who can get caught and stopped when he does wrong. Kerry is much more accountable, while Bush is incapable of even admitting he's ever made even a single mistake. He doesn't know how. Let's give him a few decades to figure out who screwed up his reelection, where he can't hurt anyone any more.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Your parroted lies from the Bush camp are almost not worth replying to. But let's cut to the chase, instead of parsing words:

Iraq is a disaster. Everyone can see that the country is degenerating from catastrophe to chaos. What happened to "cakewalk" and "the end of major combat"? Come on - saying "Iraq is a success" only makes it true in the minds of true believers like you.

The economy? Even after you've cooked it as much as you could, and given TRILLIONS away, mostly to rich people, it's still mismanaged into incoherence. Americans are greedy, but we haven't been investing: the stock market is THE SAME as it was years ago, after a decade of unprecendented growth. Because the endless fear spewing from the White House keeps Americans, and others, investing in foreign economies that make a little sense. Again, everyone can tell this, especially those who remember just 5 years ago when jobs were all over the place. And I'm not talking about jobs filled by replacing one of the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Americans now stationed overseas in Iraq.

All those SUVs getting 12MPG are spewing vast amounts of pollution into the air, because under Bush the EPA limits don't apply to them, as "trucks", but tax credits and subsidized car loans have made them "family cars". He's forcing Nevada to build a nuclear dump on an unstable groundwater dump. He's opened national parks to oil and other mining, as well as threatening the Alaskan wilderness for a maximum few months, delivered years from now. ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON ENRON.

"If Iraq doesn't stabilize, good try anyway"? You sick fool, you're playing with millions of lives, including mine, with that moronic disregard for safety. You repeat prattle like "Kerry's words to end the war were used to torture American POWs in Vietnam", without recognizing that Kerry helped end the war, bring back POW/MIAs, or even that you're somehow excusing Vietnamese torturers, who stop at nothing, from torturing Americans, and instead blame the man bringing that war to a halt, despite the Republican Nixon reneging on his campaign promises to end the war. You sick bastard, you probably even buy that "elder statesman" and "misunderstood greatness" propaganda the Republicans cranked out to recover from the last monomaniacal tyrant they installed in the White House.

If you don't believe the sky is falling, you should check the Homeland Security index: Yellow/elevated. I don't believe it either, but I want to fire all the clowns who keep scaring us with BS labels and nonsense designed in a focus group. We need some grownups back in Washington, to grab the wheel from yammering fools sending us towards the cliff with rosy words and diabolical deeds.

Re:apropos

[mikeswi]

The system is broken and guarantees that either a Democrat or a Republican is going to be president. It's tragic, but your only real choice is to decide who is the lesser of two evils. A vote for an alternate party candidate is a vote for the candidate whose politics is opposite of your guy because it siphons votes from the other.

As you say, don't waste your vote. Save the alternate party voting for Congress where an independent or alternate party candidate has a real chance. Get enough of those in Congress and maybe they can fix that broken system so Naderites can vote for Nader with a clear conscience.

Re:apropos

[pedestrian crossing]

Hmm, where to start...Let's take this one:

Unless he somehow managed to trick the entire CIA and Congress, they all saw the same info he did and came to the same conclusion. So maybe they all lied to get us into war?

Its strange, you hear the accusations of "lies", and the response is something like the above. But let's just look a little further back, say to when Bush was running for the presidency in 2000.

Look at what he campaigned on and what he promised then, and look at what he has done in four years.

A simple example: his position was that America should not be in the business of "nation building", that America shouldn't be the world's policeman, and that under his adminstration, America wouldn't be. Remember? That was a big part of his foreign policy platform. Look at where we are now. Anyone who believed him on that, fell for a huge lie.

He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. Gee, I guess that didn't work out...

Donald Rumsfeld claiming that this war would pay for itself out of oil revenues, what do you know, that was a lie too! Funny thing is, that was ridiculous on the face of it, but nobody called him on it at the time.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

All those SUVs getting 12MPG are spewing vast amounts of pollution into the air, because under Bush the EPA limits don't apply to them, as "trucks",

You gotta be kidding. The fuel economy exemptions for "trucks" long predates the current president. You can't blame that one on Bush jr.

Re:apropos

[AvantLegion]

the destruction of the environment through oil, coal, nuclear and every other lucrative pollution

Because, you know, we should ban all power sources that produce enough energy to be useful.

But I'm sure the computer you're using to share this knowledge with us is powered by a bike pedal operated generator.

Re:apropos

[Citizen of Earth]

1> Accept that we are still at war

Most lefty types simply insist "we should not have gone to war" and have no thought beyond that. Presumably, most of them want to pull out tomorrow, neverminding the chaos and bloodbath that would follow. Apparently, in their minds, backward error recovery will instantly follow from a convincing a majority of voters that "we should not have gone to war" and all people will be un-killed, all butterfly wings will be un-flapped, and all dictators will be restored to tryranical power. Unfortunately, in reality, there is only forward error recovery in human affairs and Kerry's likely voters don't have much patience for that. For all they rhetoric about fixing the world and helping the poor, they have no will to actually do it; they prefer giving hand-outs.

2> Add enough properly supplied troops to the level necessary for tactical victories, and control the entire country (not just the parts on camera)

Absolutely. By allowing the terrorists to fester in uncontested parts of the country, Bush is only encouraging them. There must be no part of Iraq that is not controlled by the Iraq/Coalition authorities.

3> Bring our allies back to help, like in 1990, when it cost us only about $5B (instead of the $200B so far this time) and we all bore the casualties. That will also remove lots of recruiting propaganda about "Iraq vs. America". Our allies include, first and foremost, Iraqis.

This will not happen under any president's leadership. The UN and International Community, despite whatever rosy language they choose to use, don't give a shit about Iraq or Iraqis and will never give more than token help out of spite to the world's superpower.

4> Rebuild infrastructure to keep Iraqis vested interest in peace, rather than keeping them with nothing to lose

#3 seems to be a sticking point for making #4 work.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Before Bush, trucks were a small part of the American fleet, so their emissions exemptions weren't as big a problem for the environment. Under Bush, their use has exploded, helped by the tax deduction of their purchase, as well as the extremely low interest on Federal loans to car companies that they pass on to consumers buying them. All these issues are questions of management as conditions change. Bush is a miserable manager, who sticks to his guns when conditions change. We can blame him for not rebalancing the finance and pollution systems when SUV pollution started to become a problem on his watch. But of course we're not surprised that he protects double the gas consumption per mile while oil costs twice as much per gallon, because he's a Texas oil baron cowboy. Lack of surprise doesn't excuse his mismanagement, it underscores it.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Drop the strawman crap propositions. You're the only one talking about banning anything. That's the only arguments we get when talking about sane management of our natural resources: insane denials from clueless people who don't really care, but want to rap out a snappy answer, no matter how insipid. Cutting pollution doesn't mean banning power supplies - of course that goes without saying, among people actually interested in discourse. But you're just trying to say something to keep the wheel turning.

Then again, you're selling your vote for an iPod:

"GOP but will vote Kerry if you help a kid get an iPod"
- your .sig

so you don't care about politics, or you're just a crooked liar. Why do you hate America?

Re:apropos

[jim_v2000]

Instead of regulating...why not try innovating? Build cars/trucks that use less gas, or don't even use gas. Promote deisel vehicles. Donate to research. Do something more productive other than bitch about what politians are or aren't doing.

And, there isn't any concrete proof yet that emmissions from cars are causing any noticeable damage to the environment. (I'm assuming you are talking about global warming.)

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Everyone cares about getting Iraqi oil back into the global economy, especially as China's demand keeps the price per barrel at or near $50 indefinitely - while Russia, Germany and France are eager for Iraq to resume payments of its Saddam debt to them. And every democracy, including several in North Africa and the Pacific, care about keeping SE Iraq out of the control of a nuclear Iran. Then there's the humanitarian and lucrative contracting motivations. Once we get diplomacy back into the game, instead of wasting people like Colin Powell in a shellgame to invade and reelect, we'll be back in the lead of our cooperating/competing neighbors: business as usual for the lone superpower.

As for the "liberals" looking for a handout - that's some kind of bugbear you keep using to scare the children. The 2000 Bush states are getting their outstretched hands filled with Federal welfare, at the expense of the 2000 Gore states, so even that old con is as preposterous as "$2T/2005 Bush" heading the "party of fiscal responsibility".

Democrats backed Kerry, rather than, say, Dean, or Kucinich, because Kerry has military strategy credibility. Americans saw what happened the last time Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon (under Ford): we created a quagmire, pulled out to cut political losses, and sent Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos into genocide from which they haven't recovered, a generation later. Not to mention the extreme damage to American interests, political, economic and moral. Do you want the next 4 years of terrorism to look like 1972-1976 did for Communism?

Re:apropos

[dahamsta]

The UN and International Community, despite whatever rosy language they choose to use, don't give a shit about Iraq or Iraqis and will never give more than token help out of spite to the world's superpower.

Damn straight! The UN and International Community should be on-hand constantly to clean up America's messes!

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

I've been talking about pollution, which is universally understood to be bad - after the nightmare of the 1960s, when the filth was too much for even Nixon to countenance. I might as well talk about the Greenhouse - you apparently missed the news that the workweek causes climate fluctuations.

Lots of people are innovating alternative energy, including for transportation. A good start, after dropping the unhealthy and expensive denials of pollution damage, would be dropping the subsidies for petro fuels that keep so much R&D budgets and talent tied up in that deadend industry. I personally do my part in the equity analysis of alternative energy corporations, and promote wisdom in energy every chance I get. What do *you* do, other than chide Slashdotters with pollyanna pollution apologies?

Re:apropos

[Tim C]

Do you honestly think that the US has become an "empire" since Bush took office?

Become an empire? No.

But two countries invaded in four years is certainly a step in the right direction, if that's the direction you want to be going in.

We have not conquered Iraq, we have liberated it.

But at what cost? The situation there is much worse now (at least for the Iraqi people) than it was before we went in.

For now the US helps their new government off it's feet.

Nice Freudian slip there; from where I'm sat, it does look a lot like the "coallition of the willing" has kicked the Iraqi government's feet out from under them.

Re:apropos

[tarunthegreat2]

#3 isn't as far-fetched as you could imagine - many countries (e.g. India & China ) were willing to commit their troops if the Iraq war got UN Approval (ok so they knew it wouldn't...). However, let's theoretically assume that it DID get UN approval - India, at least is obligated to provide a certain number of troops as UN peacekeepers. Initially USA had asked India & China to help in the Iraq war (Because China has the world's 2nd/3rd-largest standing army and India has the world's 4th/5th-largest). Can't speak for China, but India had to refuse because of the large amount of public opinion against the war - it was considered America's war. However, had it been UN-Approved (I know that sounds like a meaningless term to Americans, but it holds weight elsewhere), then it would have been a different story althogether. India and China both helped out in the Afghan War because the Taliban was a direct threat to both of them, but Iraq is not so clear-cut.

Re:apropos

[jim_v2000]

Your parroted lies from the Bush camp are almost not worth replying to. But let's cut to the chase, instead of parsing words:

Your parroted lies from tke Kerry camp are almost not worth replying to. Bet let's cut to the chase, instead of parsing words:

The economy? Even after you've cooked it as much as you could, and given TRILLIONS away, mostly to rich people, it's still mismanaged into incoherence

Just who do you think provides the jobs to the rest of us? Am I on my 40k a year job going to hire anyone other than a kid to mow my lawn? These people get TRILLIONS back because A. They pay the MOST tax already. B. They are the ones who create jobs.

He's opened national parks to oil and other mining, as well as threatening the Alaskan wilderness for a maximum few months, delivered years from now.

Oh good God, not the Alaskan wilderness! Not only is it a frozen tundra up there where not a whole lot lives, the oil exploration would impact 1% of it altogether. Remember the pipeline that was supposed to be so bad for the carbou? They're thriving because the pipeline provides warm areas to breed next to.

And once again, instead of whining about it, you should be promoting ways of doing it cleanly, because we ought to be exploring these areas.

You sick fool, you're playing with millions of lives, including mine, with that moronic disregard for safety.

My comment was in response to you saying that JFK was brave for stading up to the Soviets, who could have killed A HELL OF A LOT MORE PEOPLE than teh current conflict in Iraq. Try keeping your standards to your side too.

Iraq is a success. Saddam is gone. Elections are scheduled. Once the insurgents are crushed, or give up, Iraq will be well on it's way to becoming a new free country.

Kerry helped end the war

You're right he did. He demoralized our troops and rallied the Vietnamese. Let me give you a quote from Colonel Bui Tin of the N. Vietnamese army:

"Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and would struggle along with us .... those people represented the conscience of America .... part of it's war- making capability, and we turning that power in our favor."

http://www.vwam.com/vets/buitin.html

Kerry and his antiwar buddies sure helped the war end--by helping our enemies.

Re:apropos

[Grax]

Voting for Bush or Kerry is throwing away your vote. Neither of them are fit to lead the country at this time. If you really want to make your vote count write in the person you believe should be president.

I am writing in Colin Powell. I believe him to be a good and honest man with the leadership skills and knowledge to lead. His extensive military experience give him the skills to effectively lead the military while he has shown himself to be a man of peace and diplomacy.

Re:apropos

[jadavis]

I think it's naive to assume that Mao et al. were true believers. They were just dictators that said whatever was required to become all-powerful.

Re:apropos

[The Limp Devil]

Politics requires pragmatism. Principles kill.

Re:apropos

[tarunthegreat2]

Well... I'm kinda mixed on that statement. They didn't just 'say' whatever was required to become all-powerful, they went out and did it too. They were leaders after all, not the ones who swayed with the wind (Kerry-style)...at least AFAIK anyway...

Re:apropos

[slittle]

autopr0n is like, down and stuff.

Was it, like, totally hosted in China?

Re:apropos

[Izago909]

It is precisely that line of thinking that kept Ross Perot from winning.

Ross Perot is what kept Ross Perot from winning.

Re:apropos

[maop]

btw, can anyone can tell me what makes GW so much worse than other past presidents? Just as some examples, I think his dad was MUCH worse by pulling out of Iraq, and John F Kennedy nearly annihilated the entire planet because he wouldn't just make a deal with the russians (sure it would be a small sign of weakness, but jesus christ, the alternative is crazy).

I have no idea if you are asking a rhetorical question or not. I was going to flame the shit out of you but now that I have calmed down I will try to be helpful. Others might find this useful as well. Consider getting your information about current events from sources other than CNN and FOX News. Does anybody fucking read anymore (not necessarily directed at you)?

A short reading list:

• Against All Enemies
• The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
• Casualty of War
• The Roots of Torture

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

My comment was in response to you saying that JFK was brave for stading up to the Soviets, who could have killed A HELL OF A LOT MORE PEOPLE than teh current conflict in Iraq. Try keeping your standards to your side too.
Did you know that a nuclear war was only averted because a single Russian submarine commander decided not to fire a missile. JFK very, very nearly destroyed the entire world.

Of course Kerry's actions may have given some "comfort to the enemy", but that's missing the point. The invasion of Vietnam was wrong, and any decent person would have been supporting VC guerillas (at least on the assumption that people have the right to defend their own country). Blind patriotism is immoral.

Re:apropos

[Nexx]

Gods. I'm replying to this.

Just who do you think provides the jobs to the rest of us? Am I on my 40k a year job going to hire anyone other than a kid to mow my lawn? These people get TRILLIONS back because A. They pay the MOST tax already. B. They are the ones who create jobs.

2 families with $40k/yr disposable income going up to $45k/yr disposable income will spend more (and thus have a greater impact upon the economy) than one family going from $80k/yr to $90k/yr. What happens when the family with larger amount of money receives a tax cut (and thus a bump in their disposable income) is often an indirect bump to the economy; a stock price going up will not directly increase jobs, especially when one of the biggest problems in the financial markets today is too much money circulating there, not too little. However, when a middle-class income family receives a tax cut, they often end up paying outstanding bills with it or they outright spend it on luxury goods, directly pumping moneys into the economy. The ratio of people earning $60k/yr to $110k/yr (yes, $110k/yr -- we're talking disposable income) is about 2:1 to 3:1. From these economic theories, it is clear that cutting personal taxes for the greater masses provide a bigger economic impact than the wealthiest.

As for your rhetoric that these wealthiest few create jobs, where do you think they received their money? They are often in the upper eschelon of companies who sell to the masses. The largest companies in the world, whether they are retail sector like Wal-Mart or financial services company like Citicorp, cater to the middle class.

Re:apropos

[untaken_name]

Hear, hear!
If I meet one more libertarian who's not voting libertarian (again) because they want to vote for a candidate with 'a chance to win' I'm going to scream. Perhaps if you people voted for the candidate whose platform best represents your views instead of one you think will win, third-party candidates would have a chance. Sure, the money and power aren't there for them right now. Sure, it will take time to effect change. However, if we keep putting off the hard work and compromising our views just to be on the 'winning team', it will NEVER happen. Why the hell do you belong to a third party if you're just going to vote Republican or Democrat anyway? Kinda defeats the purpose of a third party. Since the 1850s, no third party candidate has received a single electoral college vote*. We could change that.

*That I could find. I know for sure that Ross Perot did not receive any, despite getting about 20% of the popular vote, the largest amount for a third-party candidate since the 1850s.

Re:apropos

[Zachary Kessin]

I have seen a lot of Americans wishing for a different electoral system. I guess the theory is that if it was only this way or that it would be perfect. Its not so, I'm told that you can prove this fact but I have no idea.

The issues with the American electoral system stem from several facts.

1) The presidency is a directly elected (mostly) post. Only one person can be president, and he is selected by the electoral college. This tends to shape the way the large parties act and cast themselves.

2) The Small parties have no clue. The various small parties (Libertarian, Green etc) insist on acting like small versions of the big parties, and failing at it rather badly. (I define sucess in politics as getting your people elected and your ideas in effect). If the small parties would act like small parties do in the rest of the world they would probably have much more luck.

I live in Israel, land of many many parties. The small parties know that they will never get their guy to be Prime Minister, but if they get a few seats in the Kenesset (Our parlament) they may be able to get some of the things they want done.

If the US Libertarian party would take their resources and spend them running people for county commisioner and the state legislator etc they may be able to get a few people elected. If things are split between the 2 main parties they may even be able to use a few seats to get some of the things they want pushed threw. Not all of what they want, and not every time. Some of the things that they want some of the time. Yes it means playing the horse trading game, but thats democracy for you. I'll support you on X, you support me on Y.

I wish the parties in the USA would figure this out.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, clinton was a moron. i would have prefered nearly any psycho to clinton. and to make matters worse he was reelected a second term!

don't forget clinton signed the dmca into law.

i don't know if perot ever had a chance, but he f'd up which completely destroyed any chance he ever had.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple example: his position was that America should not be in the business of "nation building", that America shouldn't be the world's policeman, and that under his adminstration, America wouldn't be. Remember? That was a big part of his foreign policy platform. Look at where we are now. Anyone who believed him on that, fell for a huge lie.

For once, no, this is not a lie. He accomplished that, the US is no longer viewed as the worlds policeman, but exactly the opposite.

Aggressor, criminal, killer, pick your favorite.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

Presidential order 13233. Dub called it an "implementation" of a law passed by congress. The law says that 12 years after you leave office your presidential records are to be made public. The "implementation" is bastardized citing a Nixon-related court decision to implement the following: wait 12 years then you can have information if and only if I say you can. So the question is: what did Dub do during Daddy's term that had to be hidden?

Historian's have nearly always been able to do a post-mortem on a presidency -- we're never going to know what the hell happend from 2000-2004.

Re:apropos

[RayBender]

Kerry just strikes you as a used car salesman, lying strait to your face with a smile (not saying he is, but he gives that impression)

Can you please give an example? If not, and you seem to back off from your charge, why do you base your opinion on an impression that you admit is false? That just makes no sense to me.

Personally I started out luke-warm towards Kerry, but the more I hear him speak the more I realize that a) the man is very intelligent and knowledgeable, b) the man thinks very deeply about issues in front of him, c) he did a good job leading and taking care of his crew in the Mekong delta, and d) he volunteered to risk his life out of a sense of duty to his nation. That has to speak to his character.

The more I see Bush the more I realize that he's just plain out of his depth. He doesn't belong anywhere near the big red button.

btw, can anyone can tell me what makes GW so much worse than other past presidents? Just as some examples, I think his dad was MUCH worse by pulling out of Iraq,

41 was smart enough to realize what a disaster he'd have on his hands if he took Baghdad; the U.S. wasn't and isn't prepared to deal with the aftermath of destroying a country like Iraq. That should be obvious by now.

and John F Kennedy nearly annihilated the entire planet because he wouldn't just make a deal with the russians (sure it would be a small sign of weakness, but jesus christ, the alternative is crazy).

Where do you get the quaint notion that Kennedy didn't make a deal? At the time of the crisis we had 25 Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey, a threat that nicely mirrored placing missles in Cuba. Within six months of the crisis those missiles had been decommissioned, ostensibly because they were no longer needed. But we did not have our first wing of Minuteman I missiles fully operational for a couple years after that, so I'm not sure that argument holds.

Re:apropos

[tazan]

Trucks didn't just explode under Bush. They've been exploding since the 80's. And it's because the goverment tried to force everyone to drive tiny plastic boxes. Most people don't want to drive tiny plastic boxes and no amount of legislation is going to change that. The only thing you could do is tax gas until it's $3 a gallon which is extremely regressive, and pretty much guaranteed to get you voted out.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that the November ballot is effectively a binary choice, for better or worse. Abstaining, or voting for a certain-to-lose candidate, means tacitly accepting whichever crook the rest of the electorate chooses for you. Personally, I prefer to at least make my own mistakes - it's less humiliating than being done in by millions of strangers. Hold your nose and vote for one of these two crooks; you're going to get one of them, so you might as well at least mitigate the damage a little.

I apologize for being so harsh, but do you know anything about how campaign financing works? Part of your Federal tax dollars go towards the various political parties for campaigning. There a magic number of 5% of votes that qualifies parties for additional campaign funds. By voting for the third party, no chance to win candidate that you really want in office, you're helping to ensure that they get more campaign dollars the next time.

Please educate yourself as to how the political systems in America works before advising others.

Re:apropos

[ChristTrekker]

Egads, man, if you can't stomach Nader isn't there someone else you can vote for? What about Badnarik, Cobb, Peroutka...there's got to be someone closer to your beliefs. Sacrificing your conscience just to make a point doesn't seem like an equitable trade, IMO.

Re:apropos

[aeryn_sunn]

Umm, how about pointing out specific lies that Kerry has told? Please do not regurgitate what you hear on Fox news...and while you are at it, please explain how Bush has not "mislead" or better yet, make the argument that Bush has been completely honest with the american people.

Your sense of Kerry as a used car salesman is exactly the effect that Bush's Spin wants you to have...YOU, have been influenced without even knowing it.

Re:apropos

[bnenning]

Bush has actually lied us into war

Uh huh. Bush thought Saddam had WMDs. So did Kerry, both Clintons, and just about everyone else on both sides. So either this was a giant bipartisan scheme to lie to everyone, or they simply made a mistake. Do you call the weatherman a liar when he predicts rain and it doesn't happen?

Kerry has been telling the hard truth

What truth would that be? That we could have resolved Iraq with diplomacy, when we now know that Saddam was bribing our would-be diplomatic partners? That the recession is Bush's fault, when it was caused by the bubble bursting, corporate fraud that began in the prior administration, and the 9/11 attacks? That only the "richest 1%" benefited from the tax cuts, when in fact they made the tax code more progressive?

into the Patriot Act

I don't like the Patriot Act either, but can you honestly say that Al ("Clipper") Gore wouldn't have done the same thing? Isn't it amazing that this huge bill materialized out of nowhere right after 9/11? It was a wish list of policies law enforcement had always wanted but couldn't get passed through rational debate, including Clinton-supported policies like "know your customer". This is not a Democrat/Republican issue. The party in power is lousy on civil liberties, and the opposition party pretends to care so they can use it to attack the other guys. Here's Kerry on the Patriot Act:

"You can sum up the problems with the Patriot Act in two words: John Ashcroft....The real problem with the Patriot Act is not the law, but the abuse of the law."

In other words, the only problem with excessive government power is that he isn't the one who gets to use it. Kerry will not be an improvement in this regard; in fact he could easily be worse, since liberals won't be as willing to criticize him. (In the same way that many conservatives, not including myself, won't criticize Bush for running up the deficit with huge spending increases).

With Bush, democracy itself is on the outsource list.

Yes, the stormtroopers will be arriving at your door shortly. This is as silly as the wackos on the right who were convinced Clinton was going to use Y2K to cancel the elections and institute a dictatorship.

Re:apropos

[sirrube]

Ok, This is political not a flame. "John F Kennedy nearly annihilated the entire planet because he wouldn't just make a deal with the russians (sure it would be a small sign of weakness, but jesus christ, the alternative is crazy)." You must be talking about the cuban missle crisis. When someone parks alot of nukes 100 miles away from your country on a small little island who's economy consists of rum and cigars you better be ready to drop everything and fight for you life, because once nukes are in place there is nothing you can do about it. I want a president to be prepared to go all the way 100 times out of a 100 in that same situation. "I'd rather have a whore for president than somebody who is as naive as Bush...yes you heard me correctly - I'd rather have a sell-out like Kerry than somebody who actually stands for what they believe in - like Bush." I thought that not voting was the worst waste of democracy. However Voting against someone who stands for what they believe in and supporting someone who has no beliefs. That takes the cake. I work underneath people like you all day long. You loot and feed off other people because you support the worst in people and reject the quality in others. For the record (IMHO). People shout "Anybody but Bush". Im not a huge fan of Bush, but if Kerry wasn't a credible cannidate I would not support him. A sell-out whore is not better. Both Bush and Kerry stand for what they believe in. Bush is right about one thing. Once you make a decision you have to continue on that path without flopping. Sure we went alone against the UN, sure we invaded the wrong country, sure he pissed off the world. But the world knows without a doubt that when he says something he means it. For better or for worse. Kerry is a true civil servant of the United States. Look at his story. He fought in Vietnam. When he came home he got involved in the anti-war movement. Ever since then he has been involved in politics. This guy is rich, Beverly Hill Billies rich. The realist in me tells me that he is involved in politics because he truly wants to help out. Whoever you vote for, vote for them because you think they will improve this great nation of ours, not because they will pay you for telling them about porn sites.

Re:apropos

[plover]

"4> Rebuild infrastructure to keep Iraqis vested interest in peace"

Bush has been trying to do #4 since the "Mission Accomplished" banner was hung. As a matter of fact, that seems to have been his entire strategy: rebuild it so the population will welcome us as rescuers from the Evil Saddam. But I know people on the ground in Iraq (as I'm sure we all do) that have been involved in reconstruction projects. They repair or rebuild a generator plant, and it's attacked by insurgents. They repair pipelines, and other pumping stations are sabotaged. A year and a half of rebuilding, and Iraq is currently in exactly the same poor state of disrepair it was in after the fall of Saddam. The average citizen of Baghdad still has electricity maybe 4-8 hours a day. Water service is sporadic, and is only available by truck in many parts of the cities. There has literally been no improvement whatsoever in the lives of the Iraqi people.

What I'm saying is that all the reconstruction projects are just pissing away money as fast as they can spend it. There is no actual progress being made, and the insurgents are determined to keep the population miserable. Without a functioning free press (American provided news is seen as biased propaganda in much the same way we view Al Jazeera,) more information is interpreted and distributed by sympathetic local leaders, who find it easy to blame the American occupiers as the cause of the misery. The general population has pretty much had it with the Americans, even though they're vaguely aware the insurgents are causing the small bits of damage.

The solutions I've heard are all tough:

• Walk away and let Iraqis duke it out amongst themselves. With all the weapons available in that country, hundreds of thousands will perish, and they'll end up with three constantly warring factions as the "most stable" result.
• We could also keep doing what we're doing, which is accomplishing absolutely nothing except adding the deaths of more kids to this quagmire.
• We could drop our "U.S.A. Only" signs, invite the U.N. to share in the pacification and see if the Iraqi insurgents respect the blue helmets any more than they respect the U.S. Army. That's assuming the U.N. doesn't tell us to go fornicate ourselves under the Pottery Barn rules: "you broke it, you pay for it." (They might not; being as corrupt as they are, I can imagine many of their member states wanting to get involved for a share of the spOILs of war.)
• We can ship in two or three times as many troops as we already have, and see if we can violently but dramatically put down the insurgents (at an unknown cost of U.S. lives.)

Those are all pretty crappy solutions to a war we were lied into starting. And yes, what Bush says about Kerry is absolutely true: we (the U.S.) would have been far safer leaving Saddam in power. We would have lost 1000 fewer soldiers lives, and we would not have pissed away every last drop of goodwill that Americans have been building up internationally for the last 80 years. Saddam was no threat to us or anyone, as the UN sanctions had been working remarkably well. He would have fallen sooner or later, probably from within, leaving Iraq in a much more stable state than they are today.

Re:apropos

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

You have that backward son, or is genocide in Africa the US's fault?

Re:apropos

[Cybrr]

and John F Kennedy nearly annihilated the entire planet because he wouldn't just make a deal with the russians (sure it would be a small sign of weakness, but jesus christ, the alternative is crazy).

That's speculation. Like WMDs. Though the WMDs were really produced somewhere...

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

How this got a +4 insightful is beyond me.

I guess trolling with what's popular gets you karma.

This sheds no insight into anything!

Re:apropos

[Cybrr]

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!

Re:apropos

[genner]

Perot lost becasue he wanted to loose.
Did everyone forget he dropped out of the election, lost all credibility and then came back.

Re:apropos

[Dmala]

He would have fallen sooner or later, probably from within, leaving Iraq in a much more stable state than they are today.

I don't know about that. I could see all of the factions in Iraq rushing to fill the power vacuum, leaving the country in a state similar to what it is in today. The only difference would be that the US wouldn't be blamed directly for the troubles.

Re:apropos

[genner]

Wow, this is scary. No wonder the country is
screwed up if people have given up on the concept of absolutes all together.

Sure Lenin, Mao, etc. all believed in what they
did, but so did Martin Luther King and Harriet
Tubman. Effective change has never come by people
who only believe in shades of grey. Why would
they bother?

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

At least you're honest in your sleazy committment to the lies that are destroying us. Another poster has handily schooled you on discredited "supply side" voodoo economics, which you have conveniently forgotten from the 1980s. I'll just point out that you are greedy to destroy Alaskan wilderness because *you* don't want to visit it. Just as the Prudhoe Bay drilling has annihilated an area the size of Connecticut, many times the promised "limited area", once it got past Congress and American sensibility. I'm sure you're slavering for the Greenhouse to warm it right up, so you can go to the beach.

As for JFK, he took a calculated risk, and his calculations were *correct*: we needed to stop the Russians from terrorizing us with Cuban nukes, and keep our advantage in terrorizing them with European nukes, to win the game we'd constructed in the Cold War. Carp like a crying child about how scary it is for you in retrospect, but Kennedy faced that fear in realtime, and delivered victory without bloodshed. Your boy has us in the Iraqmire: he has a lot more in common with JFK on Vietnam, and really with Johnson, who wouldn't fold a losing hand built on a lie. Speaking of lies, you somehow twist history into a Vietnamese military victory that ended the war, enlisting a Communist propagandist to contrive your point. In fact, patriotic Americans ended the war by wresting control of it away from the unaccountable warmongers in power. Sound familiar? But you probably want to go back into Vietnam, too, with guns blazing. You should go to hell - I'm sure you'll love the atmosphere.

Re:apropos

[walterbyrd]

>>and the fact that he's a psycho

It's a fact that Ross Perot was/is a psycho? I've heard this many times, but nobody has ever offered an expanation as to exactly what was so insane about Perot.

I'll ask again: what makes you think Perot is insane? What idea did Perot propose that are so crazy?

Thank you.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Powell can afford to pose as an adult in the Bush nursery, especially when his agenda can't be tested in reality while they castrate it. You might want to look into this career whitewasher's roots denying massacres in Vietnam for a living, before you subscribe to his slick public image. Read about how he covered for the My Lai massacre, as even his fans admit.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Bush loves the tax credit that subsidizes SUV purchases, despite the arrival on his watch of huge CO2 jumps, $50 oil barrels, and catastrophic wars over oil dependence. If we'd taxed gas to $2:gallon, and used that money to get free of foreign oil, we'd be rid of Bush and his parasites by now, and prices could be heading lower, instead of higher, with that extra money going to American engineers, rather than foreign terrorists.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Yet another Anonymous obtuse Coward posting half-bright prattle in this thread. Those 5% thresholds are part of the system for drawing pressure off the "winner takes all" system that's strangling our democracy. 6% parties can't muster a win, but divert pressure from both winning parties and the system itself. A party that gets 10% or more can fund itself. The real reform is discarding the rules that protect the party duopoly from any threat, including those that nurture inconsequential parties which can't get into a real race. If you want diversity, organize pressure on a Democrat or Republican to organize reforms that open up the power to more takers. It sounds like a catch-22, but with so much abuse of power by those who have it, and threatened permanent minority status for those who don't have enough, that is rewardingly fertile ground to tend. Ignore the scorched earth Republicans at your peril, because their victory is a defeat for any kind of political progress, except corporatism.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Bush knew there were no WMDs then, and invented fake intelligence to support his committment to war in Iraq. He and Cheney are still insisting on the WMD threat, though it's completely discredited. That doesn't faze you, because you are yourself committed to Bush, despite intelligence and evidence.

Bush is the one turning the Patriot Act into exactly those stormtroopers you trivialize. Ask the thousands of Muslims in Guantanamo, grabbed in America, about the stormtroopers. Ask the Iraqis rounded up (95% "by mistake") into Abu Ghraib - and the rest of the American gulags - about the stormtroopers. Ask the old black Floridians being intimidated into staying away from the voting booths this November about the stormtroopers. While you're at it, find an old German to ask about the stormtroopers they thought would never come for *them* in the 1940s, because they weren't Jewish, or Communist, or homosexual, or Catholic, or Gypsy - but who came nevertheless. They'll tell you that it *can* happen here, that the beginnings have already arrived.

As for Kerry, things are so bad in America that even his weak opposition to the Patriot Act is better than Bush's hunger for more. What's the real alternative? And don't give me that "third party" jive - they're all certainly going to lose, taking votes with them that could get rid of Bush's abuse of democracy.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Now Iran will pluck the ripe fruit they've watched.

Re:apropos

[soft_guy]

1. He invested a lot of money in NeXT at a share price that was very disadvantageous to himself.

2. He exited the presidential race and then got back in, claiming the reason was that republicans had threatened to ruin his daughter's wedding.

3. Appearing on Larry King wearing the tin foil hat.

Re:apropos

[Karn]

I don't find it hard to believe that one could find intelligence to back up any claim, if one looked hard enough. Isn't it obvious that Bush decided to go to war with Iraq before they had any 'smoking guns'? Everyone may have received the same intelligence, but nobody was told how uncredible it was, or that they got it from a bubble gum machine in Qatar.

If this intelligence was truly credible, the CIA wouldn't have stated that Iraq was NOT a threat just after 9/11.

Re:apropos

[mdfst13]

"that's hard to refute if you look at how those voters would otherwise have leaned."

No it isn't. In both cases, exit polls showed that the third party candidate drew roughly equally from both parties. In general, most voters who strongly preferred Gore to Bush or Bush to Clinton voted for Gore or Bush Sr. What was left were a bunch of people who didn't really care.

Nader might possibly have cost Gore the Florida vote. The overall margin was so small that even a small change could have made a difference. However, most voters who would have voted for Gore if Nader weren't in the race did vote for Gore (since Nader wasn't an effective candidate). It is just as likely that Nader voters would have not voted as have voted for Gore (or Bush).

To get back to the previous point, once Perot re-entered the race, he never had a shot. At best, he was the first choice of around 25% of voters. He would have lost handily in IRV voting, as he would have been eliminated in favor of Bush and Clinton (both of whom had more first place votes). He might have won in Condorcet voting, as he was probably the second choice of most voters for the other candidates; he was a relatively centrist candidate.

In no way did Perot lose because voters did not take him seriously. Perot lost because he abandoned the election in the middle. Until then, he had been in a dead heat with the other candidates.

In a two candidate election, both candidates will race for the middle. That way, each voter counts twice, once for the candidate and once for not voting for the opponent. This is not a bad thing. It causes policy to maintain a relatively constant path. If anything, the bad part is the primary system, which puts forth more partisan candidates.

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

OK, maybe "only I can set you free :P" is a Troll :P.

Re:apropos

[dahamsta]

Is that the only example you could come up with? And the answer is probably yes anyway, it certainly wouldn't be the first time the CIA has interfered in African politics.

Re:apropos

[Anonymous Coward]

And, there isn't any concrete proof yet that emmissions from cars are causing any noticeable damage to the environment. (I'm assuming you are talking about global warming.)

I propose a mental experiment then... if you had a choice between sucking on the exhaust pipe of an SUV or a honda Civic for 5 minutes, which would you choose?

Re:apropos

[sphariss]

Not Quite... If gas was taxed $2 a gallon, government would find other programs to spend it on...the $2/gal tax would stay forever as a way to "spread the wealth" (i.e. pay off voters)

Re:apropos

[Doc Ruby]

Plenty of laws have "sunset provisions". This one would be perfect. Make the tax proportional to the amount of imported petro fuel, starting at $2, designated as the budget for a DOE "independence programme". And make it sunset hard by 2040. If we don't get the independence and efficiency by then, the petro will be running out anyway.

Could be a bad thing

[mtrisk]

Could be a good thing if it ultimately puts another thorn in the side of spammers who promote those pr0n web sites. Could be a bad thing if it is nothing but pure censorship.

A government that excuses its actions by acting as a sort of parental figure, is a corrupt government indeed. Human beings are critical thinkers, thank you very much, and it is an insult to the intelligence of a Billion+ Chinese if China's government thinks it should "protect" them from "harmful content" so that they don't "harm" themselves.

I know that's not the real reason, but seriously, who does China think it's fooling?

Re:Could be a bad thing

[MourningBlade]

China probably doesn't think it's fooling anyone.

Here in the US we have stopped believing in the same types of societal engineering that we used to believe in. Look back a few years ago, and we had social hygene programs, and great plans involving legislation and government funding for eliminating the ills of society and shaping our future.

Decency, literacy, sobriety.

After a while, we lost the desire for it, at least on the same scale as we used to. We still keep some of it going (war on drugs, onerous regulation and taxation on "sins" such as alcohol and tobacco, and decency laws), but our attention has mostly turned to financial matters: engineering a society that has no impoverished.

The average citizen in the US believes that poverty and its ills can be reduced through group action expressed through legislation.

China as a whole still believes in societal engineering, so we'll keep seeing things like this. The reason these programs are not voluntary is because, well, what's the point in enforcing morality if you can opt out of it?

I'm sure they really do think they can clean up the country. There are quite a few true believers in China.

Scares the hell out of me, and makes me glad I don't live there, and pray that our movements in that direction are halted here.

profit!

[comwiz56]

Step 1. Make porn site (and cover your tracks
Step 2. Report porn site
Step 3. PROFIT!!!! and making porn

That's it...

[kisielk]

I quit my job. I can make a fortune!

Re:That's it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah!

$ wc -l bookmarks.html
200

Looks like I've got an easy 48 grand coming my way...

They don't realize

[miyako]

The government doesn't seem to realize that without pornography, they will have no driving force behind technology.
Granted I don't know much about the chineese government or economy, but don't they have something that somewhat resembles a free market, at least enough that this could actually have an effect.
On a side note, I wonder what effect this will have on society and on sex crimes.
A lot of people would have the public believe that wide availability of pornographic material leads to an increase of sex crimes, but I would venture to guess that it actually cuts down on the number of sex crimes by offering an alternate, quasi legal, and more or less harmless outlet for sexuality.

Re:They don't realize

[polecat_redux]

A lot of people would have the public believe that wide availability of pornographic material leads to an increase of sex crimes

Actually, it is a commonly-held belief that sex crimes (ie: rape) are more about power and control than sexual gratification. I doubt that porn has much of an impact in that respect.

Re:They don't realize

[Anonymous Coward]

Want 2 Gmail Invites? [freeflatscreens.com]

What kind of retarded referrer link is that?

Re:They don't realize

[polecat_redux]

What kind of retarded referrer link is that?

Wow, you got me... why don't you click it and find out?

Re:They don't realize

[sqrt(2)]

At least you're giving something for it, most people just want their iPod and aren't offering anything in return.

Re:They don't realize

[polecat_redux]

At least you're giving something for it, most people just want their iPod and aren't offering anything in return.

Thanks for the support. If you want a gmail account (and don't yet have one) send me an email and I'll hook you up.

Re:They don't realize

[sqrt(2)]

Already have gmail, and I don't support those pyramid marketing schemes. But it's a fair trade I guess for someone who wants a gmail account (but really, who doesn't have one anymore who wants one?)

Re:They don't realize

[polecat_redux]

I don't support those pyramid marketing schemes

Interesting viewpoint. Do you see them as scams, or do you simply find them distasteful?

Re:They don't realize

[Citizen of Earth]

Actually, it is a commonly-held belief that sex crimes (ie: rape) are more about power and control than sexual gratification. I doubt that porn has much of an impact in that respect.

I've heard various reports the availability of pornography reduces the occurrences of sex crimes. After a guy jerks off to porn, he has much less incentive to go out and do something unlawful to get off.

Re:They don't realize

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see the disconnect that you apparently see between [power and control] and porn. As I see it the two are inextricably linked.
Think about bukkake and anal sex.
[disclaimer: the following is about heterosexual pornography from a male perspective. While almost undoubtedly slanted, it's all I've got to go on.* Ostensibly, the principle is generalizable.]
Most anti-porn advocates would argue that the precise problem with porn is that it is about power and control over women.
Their argument is that the objectification of women refuses to deal with them as they really are and merely deals with women as objects for the gratification of men. In my experience, this is the case. Apparently, I am not the only one.

*"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience."
Thoreau, "Walden"

Re:They don't realize

[Psychotext]

Interesting view on the situation, but the link you provide doesn't really suggest any sort of link with sexual violence, more the loss of sexual innocence. I would certainly agree that pornography has desensitized, but then I would argue that knowledge is power and I'm sure people are generally more open to sex (and good varied sex) since porn became mainstream than before. Let's not get started on poor use of contraception and STDs though.

I think you might be interested to know that the countries where pornography is available, accepted and mainstream (Even the ultrahardcore forms) not only have lower incidence of sexual violence, but lower rates of teenage pregnancy too. Some would argue that the latter is due to the lower age of consent in those countries though (14 across much of Europe). The studies to support this are out there.

Personally, I've gone full circle. Started as a kid being turned on by the usual semi naked women, moved on to mainstream porn, on to the crazy hardcore multiple penetrations / bukkake / you name it. Now, about 12 years later? Tasteful lesbian movies (Look up Andrew Blake) that I can enjoy with my girl. Can't stand the ultra hardcore stuff any more. Too many limbs, and holes, and gunk. It's like a seriously fucked up game of 12 player naked twister on amyl-nitrate and astroglide! :)

Re:They don't realize

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the person you asked, but I'll answer anyway.

They're scams in the same sense that the lottery is a scam. They take advantage of people's poor grasp of things like statistics and arithmetic.

The lottery is illegal because it's incredibly lucrative and exploits unfortunate people. Governments often grant themselves an exemption to this law despite contrary indicators, because it's a quick source of cash that, unlike a tax, won't lose too many votes.

Whether this makes your pyramid marketing scheme illegal or not is a matter for your local jurisdiction. It certainly makes you a bad person (exploiting other people for your own gain) as well as perhaps a stupid one (you may never receive your promised reward if the scheme explodes before it is delivered).

Re:They don't realize

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be a commonly held belief, but only from the victim's point of view. The aggressor can rape for any number of reasons, including sexual gratification.

Re:They don't realize

[Anonymous Coward]

You're entirely wrong, check your facts. As a Motivational Psychologist, I've studied case after case involving rape and assult activity; Case data suggests (I won't use the term 'prove' here as it always generates additional fruitless arguement) that many of the sex crimes in this country really *are* about sexual tension. This perpetual myth that rape is a 'power-struggle' is a common and very widespread misconception. I can't argue that _all_ rape cases are a result of misdirected sexual tensions, but the motivational evidence collected seems to indicate that this behavior is largely on inability to express sexual frustrations, not merely a failure of ones superego.

Re:They don't realize

[Darby]

But it's a fair trade I guess for someone who wants a gmail account (but really, who doesn't have one anymore who wants one?)

Me. Can you hook a brother up?

Re:They don't realize

[DerWulf]

One sticks to this view until he overhears two women actually refering to guys by the physical features of thier cocks and asses. Last time I checked, sex was about instinct and we share it with all 'higher' animals. Of course it doesn't involve much reference to the opposite as 'person','soul' or whatever. Sex doesn't get much deeper than the physical layer unless it's love making. People are fully capabale of making the crucial difference and males as well as females desire sometimes 'sex' and sometimes 'lovemaking'.

Re:They don't realize

[Psychotext]

Here's one link blatently stolen from another post: Pornography, Rape, and Sex Crimes in Japan

Japan underwent a massive swing from one of the most conservative nations with respect to pornography to one of the most liberal, and extremely accepting of fetishes. There was a corresponding *decrease* in sex crimes.

(Thanks 0x0d0a)

Re:They don't realize

[mdfst13]

"Actually, it is a commonly-held belief that sex crimes (ie: rape) are more about power and control than sexual gratification. I doubt that porn has much of an impact in that respect."

Porn replacements like being a peeping tom are known gateway crimes (i.e. many rapists start as peeping toms). People get into it for the sex, but stay for the power/control. Porn is a passive resource; it does not feed power/control issues.

The only observed relations between porn and sex crimes suggest that availability of porn decreases sex crimes.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Different society

[FTL]

Contrary to popular belief, porn is not a fundamental human right. Note that the UN decalration says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Contrast with the USA's "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness."

Just because a society is different, don't necessarily mean that its peoples are oppressed (and need 'liberating'). It's a big planet, there's nothing wrong with a little diversity.

Re:Different society

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the Chinese government restricting it's citizens from doing something "diversity"? Diversity should come from what people choose to do, not what they are told to by their government.

Re:Different society

[wwahammy]

Maybe its just me but I think porn is the least of the Chinese people's problems with oppression; this is simply a funny example of it. Not being able to fairly vote, not having a right to free speech, not being able to worship and frankly not being able to keep the government from killing you on a whim is oppression. That's not a difference in society, that's abuse of power.

Re:Different society

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Sounds like a "license to wank" to me!

I wonder what kind of pr0n Kofi Annan likes? He's a pretty worldly guy, so I bet it's some Indian/Asian stuff. But not that bukkakakaka stuff, something real elegant. In fact I bet he just looks at stuff where the girls have most of their clothes on. Real highbrow. He's just that smooth. And I bet he sips an expensive drink with one hand, wanks with the other, and let's his assistant cycle through the images. "It is now time to advance to the next photograph... ah, excellent, she's one of my favorites. Thank you Charles...ahh...."

Re:Different society

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I would place pornography in the 'liberty' class of rights. If consenting adults are forcibly prevented from producing and distributing porn, under the auspices of 'morality' (whose?), I consider it a substantially illiberal nation.

Besides which, the fact that something *isn't* defined as legal doesn't make it right to outlaw it.

Re:Different society

[FleaPlus]

>Note that the UN decalration says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Doesn't the ability to read whatever one chooses fall under "liberty"?

Actually, in the UN declaration, what exactly is "liberty" referring to? It's one of those words with many different meanings.

Re:Different society

[jandersen]

'Just because a society is different, don't necessarily mean that its peoples are oppressed (and need 'liberating'). It's a big planet, there's nothing wrong with a little diversity.'

Well said, very well said!

Re:Different society

[Anonymous Coward]

" Contrary to popular belief, porn is not a fundamental human right. Note that the UN decalration says [SNIP]"

Fuck you if you think something is only a fundamental human right only if a group of people I don't know or care about decide it is.

Re:Different society

[Anonymous Coward]

But who are we to deem what is acceptable in another country? It isn't our place to tell them what their morals should be or whether they should have free speech, open religion and the right to vote.

In Soviet Russia

[weighn]

...the porn reports YOU! (or is that Belarus?)

Zombie SPAM

[grimsweep]

Gah. Here we go again. One rumor, and it's like people band together to spam respectable news sites.

Please, mods, bump these irrelevant posts down a few notches.

"A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."

Re:Zombie SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is a respectable news site? LOL!

You cry for censorship. How unsurprising of you.

Something important which is rarely noted

[Atrax]

You cannot legislate morality

If people want smut, they'll get smut, despite the legal framework attempting to prevent it.

Same with any other behaviour deemed 'antisocial' whether it's porn, drugs, prostitution or [laughs] fireworks, people will find a way to do what they want to do, hence the emergence of black markets. Governments could be profiting from taxing the crap out of this stuff, but instead they drive it underground.

As for rewarding snitches, well, I think you can guess what I think of that too. One big waste of money.

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[Anonymous Coward]

If they truly feel that porn is immoral, even taxing it is not enough. Should the government allow people to do other things they feel are morally wrong (murder, steal, etc) as well, as long as they pay a large enough fee (nevermind that that already accurately describes the judicial system)?

If they're trying to prevent people from looking at it by any means necessary, they could heavily propagandize AND make it illegal. When done correctly, government propaganda is extremely effective.

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[polecat_redux]

You cannot legislate morality

But morality is legislated in many respects: murder, rape, robbery, assault, etc.... If you don't like it, throw on that GBH album of yours and dream of a day when you don't have to answer to any higher power. Until then, get used to the fact that you're less of an individual than you are a thread in a society that demands you to act in a manner congruent to the general beliefs of those around you. Welcome to planet Earth.

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[autopr0n]

You cannot legislate morality

Why do you believe this? The first person who said it was a supporter of racial segregation. Obviously, he was wrong.

You may not be able to make people you find immoral moral through laws, but you can throw them all in jail.

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[lendude]

In the case of pr0n, I doubt any country has the required infrastructure to accomplish this!

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[mrchaotica]

Well, China is the one that comes the closest, at least!

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[mrchaotica]

You're talking about two different classes of "immoral" behavior.

The parent's example of "porn, drugs, prostitution, and fireworks" are all "victimless crimes" -- they are the actions of consenting people. Their actions might be dangerous to themselves, but they don't directly harm anyone else. There is no violation of basic human rights.

You tried to compare this to murder, rape, robbery, and assault which directly harm someone who didn't consent. In other words, an innocent person's basic rights are being violated.

See the difference? When you make laws against murder, etc. you are protecting innocents. But when you make laws against consentual sex or drugs, you are "protecting" a person against their will -- a violation of their liberty!

So, it's about protecting people's rights vs. violating their rights, but you argue that they're the same. Maybe this is why almost everyone agrees that murder is wrong, but a significant percentage of people disagree wrt. drugs and such. Have you considered the possibility that the ones who support these laws are oppressing the ones they proport to protect? I say the laws themselves are immoral, not the behavior they prohibit!

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent's example of "porn, drugs, prostitution, and fireworks" are all "victimless crimes"
Say that to someone who has been hit by a firework.

Until you can come up with a way a making sure only people who will not throw a firework at someone else can get access to them, I'm not in favour.

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[mrchaotica]

Sure, throwing a firework at somebody else would be a crime, because at that point you're harming an innocent. I'd imagine it would be some kind of assault. The key to remember is that it's the assault that should be illegal, not merely possession of something that could possibly be used for it.

Let me guess, you think guns should be banned too, right? Even if I agreed with you there, this is less reasonable -- the primary purpose of fireworks is to entertain, not harm. Would you ban cars just because they can be used to run someone over? Would you ban knives just because they aren't only used to cut food?

Re:Something important which is rarely noted

[Grishnakh]

Have you ever bit hit by a rock? Do you think rocks should be banned too? How do you propose to make sure only people who will not throw a rock at someone else can get access to them?

We must ban rocks now!!

In Soviet China,

[flatface]

Porn sites pay you!

Where can I download the list?

[complete loony]

Are they publishing their list of sites somewhere ;)

Re:Where can I download the list?

[hereschenes]

Yeah, because it's soooo hard to get hold of porn on the net these days.

You fucking retard

[JismTroll]

No, it's not a rumor dipshit, it's on CNN, Drudge and ABC

The HUMANITY

[Jormundgandr]

Where will the Chinse get their porn now? Where? Oh god, it's too painful to think about. Why God, why!!??

China controls porn snatches

[Anonymous Coward]

For a second, I thought this meant 'pay to poke'.

Why does the Chinese government care?

[eidechse]

How is pornography contrary to Communist ideology?

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Communist China, the porn looks at YOU

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I wonder about that too. Communisme is about sharing everything you have with everyone (well, in theory...). Porn is about sharing your sexlive with everyone else. So basicly how the heck could they be against it?

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[auratus]

It's not contrary to Communist ideology, but China has additional concerns. Mao built the popularity of his government in large measure through a campaign extolling the "rustic virtues" of his people -- since peasants lead the most virtuous lives, they're the true People, and so they deserve socioeconomic equality, etc etc. The interests of the common people (at least as articulated by Mao) should guide the country and legitimate its leadership.

I guess those "virtues" are what's being "offended" by pornography.

Under Lenin's communist theory, by contrast, Russia believed in having an elite intellectual vanguard making all policy decisions. The Russian peasants couldn't matter less.

That's one reason why America's fears about Russia and China conspiring during the Cold War were never really well-founded. Two totally different flavors of Communism.

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[physick]

My guess is that their objection is not ideological, just that they don't want a lot of priviate citizens/companies making lots of money in ways that are difficult for the government to control and rake off a percentage.

Although as two principles of communism are that the State owns the means of production and there is no private property, one could imagine they oppose it just because it isn't being produced by the state and ends up being "owned" or distributed to any number of people without the government knowing.

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[Teh_monkeyCode]

The removal of pornography is meant to create a buildup of sexual tension. This tension can find no other release except in what is referred to as government frenzy, so that youth are more easily brainwashed into thinking their continually dwindling Standard of Living is actually rising.

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about a certain kind of control.
You must controls sex, drugs, religion, ...
You give a person no other outlet than his country.

Have you not read "1984"?

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[t_allardyce]

Its not, but just like most wacko-parties they have to please the right-wing fundamentalist groups who vote/fund them and who think that sex is dirty. Also, sex reduces productivity, you can't have lots of cheap labour if everyones going off having sex or looking at porn all day!

Re:Why does the Chinese government care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm, chocolete flavoured Communism

Porn filtering list

[AK Marc]

So, if they are collecting this list of porn sites, presumably to filter out the outside ones, are they going to publish the list for the rest of us?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

China does not seem to have a firewall...

[patniemeyer]

I just returned from China, where I travelled with my PowerBook and used both dial-up and ethernet connections at many places, including internet cafes and people's homes. After hearing all about the authoritarian firewall and net filtering I was a little surprised to see absolutely no firewall or filtering of any kind in effect. I was able to connect back to my home using SSH, use https to web sites in the U.S. and get to arbitrary places, news sites, and web based email every where I tried.

I could find no evidence of a firewall of any kind. I read about the google results, but what else are people talking about?

Pat

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[HeghmoH]

Where did you go in China? I've had pretty much the same experience as you during my visits in Beijing, but it appears that China's filtering policies differ depending on which parts of the country you're in. Also, the filtering isn't as extensive as the more paranoid would suggest; they won't filter things like CNN, but they will filter things which are specifically targeted at China, like sites advocating better human rights there, etc., which people like you and I are probably not very likely to try while we're there.

The Wikipedia article is interesting, and has links to further information.

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[DigiShaman]

Shanghai is different though. I've known this woman on the Internet for many years now. And over time, I've sent her links to CNN.com and other such sites of news. At first, the DNS records were blocked and I could send her just the IP. But now, it looks like most of the sites are explicitly blocked. Luckly though, we can still use IM to chat. The only way to cut the chinese off is for the CCP to totally isolate themselves from the rest of the world in terms of Internet access. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if China just becomes the worlds largets InTRAnet rather the InTERnet.

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[patniemeyer]

I was only in and around Beijing and Xi'an, so I can't speak to the rest of the country.

Pat

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[sensui]

I know this is a bit offtopic. But you also need to be aware of from where you are connecting. Many hotels, schools, research institutes, and agencies belong to the foreign affairs office do not have such block.

The situation is similar to the control in the Mao's era. At that time, many foreign books or translated copies are banned from regular citizens but available in university libraries or stores subject to approvals.

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[Enoch Root]

There are very little English-language websites blocked in China. You mostly notice it when you try to access free web hosting like Geocities, or Blog websites. Even English porn is not usually blocked. It's for this reason that Slashdot has yet to be blocked, even though some of the comments here would make a Chinese censor's hair rise on his back. Chinese-language websites, however, are heavily controlled.

The reason is that they are mostly concerned about the minimum effort for maximum results. By paying close attention to Chinese websites, they ensure that only a small percentage of the population can actually see the 'open' web. Sure, some will be able to fire up Google and find some 'bad' stuff, but that's not the majority of Chinese.

If you're a Laowai connecting your laptop in a hotel room, chances are you can surf for porn or political websites as much as you want. But if you're Chinese, and you're dialing up from home, you'll find your options are very limited.

On a side-note, given the connection to Western websites tends to be flaky (even through FTTB such as in my home), it's tough to distinguish between bad connections and censoring. Talk about obscurity through inefficiency. :)

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would still be an internet, just not THE Internet.

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[nmk]

English porn?? What exactly is that. Most of the porn I see uses the universal language of "aaaah" and "ooooh".

Re:China does not seem to have a firewall...

[afa]

In actual fact, the blocking and filtering are mainly done by the LOCAL ISPs, who fear to take the responsibility to touch the triger of the bomb in order to keep their running licence. And the filterings... I think Cisco and other US based company are to blame because it is no doubt that they are helping Chn gov on the tech of such things on the WAN.

control-North Korea.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it possible? I fear that it IS possible. If you control all the fiber coming into the country, and you control everything published inside the country, then you can just keep on governing the old-fashioned way."

Welcome to North Korea.

Re:control-North Korea.

[hunterx11]

Welcome to North Korea.

Many of my fellow /.ers might disagree, but things like eating enough food generally take a higher priority than internet access.

And in related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

And in related news, Australia's newly-re-elected federal government looks set to enter in to cosy deals with the right wing Family First Party in order to get some of John Howard's pet reforms through the Senate. (Family First could hold the balance of power in the Senate)

This effectively means that the Great Firewall of Australia could almost be a reality. Even scarier is that one of Howard's pet reforms is the full privatisation of the national telco/isp Telstra. Family First acknowledge that most small ISP's will go out of business with the Great Firewall of Australia, and a privatised Telstra would welcome the reduction in competition.

This is probably happening because...

[Anonymous Writer]

... someone in the Chinese government finally saw Tubgirl

One small step...

[eaglebtc]

I am glad to these guys getting busted. Let's hope that law enforcement doesn't lose their momentum.

Re:One small step...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Glad to see legit owners of porn sites, who haven't done anything to hurt anybody, being busted?

Where in the money!

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew I was sitting on a gold mine!! *now where is that bookmark file?*

yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[levl289]

You do realize that there's a real vagina and penis (assuming that's what you're into) on the other end of the camera right? STDs, conception, rape, and abuse go on in the porn industry, so by these ppls logic, stopping the immoral demand will stop the immoral side-effects as well.

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[HeghmoH]

Forcing porn to go underground (anybody who thinks that outlawing it is going to stop it needs to be less naive) will certainly improve conditions for porn industry workers, in much the same way that forbidding drugs and prostitution has made life so much better for junkies and whores. Making it so a porn actress can't go to the police when something happens will certainly make her life so much better.

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[mattkime]

You do realize that there's a real vagina and penis (assuming that's what you're into) on the other end of the camera right? STDs, conception, rape, and abuse go on in the porn industry, so by these ppls logic, stopping the immoral demand will stop the immoral side-effects as well.

Hm, if only they were limited to the porn industry...

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[Doc Ruby]

Porn people are usually professionals, and their sex crime rate is lower than in the general population. And the same recorded act gets recycled as proxy for many individual acts. We're talking about minimization, not elimination, of sex consequences. In China, most people aren't geeks, and actual sex will continue in spite of porn.

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[Anonymous Coward]

!#@$!#@$!#!@@$! Your post is right on, but your fscking sig is getting to me. His name is GANDHI, not GHANDI. GANDHI dammit!

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[UFNinja]

And I'm supposed to care about the conditions of junkies and whores? They *chose* to be junkies and whores, much the same way pornographers choose to be pornographers. If they are treated like crap, it's their own damn fault for getting into the business. Maybe they should have chosen a real job instead of (quite literally) f*cking around.

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

So if you don't care about them, you don't want to legistlate their behaviour and spend my tax dollars enforcing it? Sounds good to me.

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[Anonymous Coward]

All the porns (I watched) at China are not made in China. So there is no porn inducstry worker involved.

Stop online porn?

[ArbitraryConstant]

Does it strike anyone else that that sounds similar to stopping spam, except less easy?

Re:Stop online porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're actually completely different: nobody wants spam, but everybody wants porn. :-)

Re:Stop online porn?

[eviljolly]

Actually I love spam, my name is Tom Hayes, send me all you want at Hayest01@odjfs.state.oh.us

Don't get it? check out...
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/09/174023 9

Yes, you can..

[VidEdit]

Yes, you can legislate morality. The question is how effective is that legislation? Murder is immoral, and we have laws against it. Yet murder still occurs. That doesn't mean that laws against murder are wrong or completely useless. So, just because a law doesn't stop all occurrences of an offence doesn't mean we should get rid of the law.

So, what does you can't legislate morality mean? It would seem that it means you shouldn't pass laws that are designed to suppress behaviors that should be personal choices or are part of an individual religious doctrine and don't rise to the level that should be considered a crime

However, we are supposed to be the people in a free society so I hope that John Ashcroft is currently prosecuting people for distributing sexually explicit adult only material and has promised that nobody is safe from prosecution, not even cable companies, I hope Ashcroft doesn't get any ideas...

Re:Yes, you can..

[bitwiseNomad]

A good philosophical way to look at the difference between murder and pornography is to think about them in terms of self-regarding and other-regarding actions. Murder is clearly an other-regarding action, and one that we can reasonably assume one of the two parties did not want to take part in. Put another way, a murderer imposes certain conditions on the murderee against their will (it's reasonable enough to assume that most people aren't looking to get murdered).

On the other hand, the choice to view pornography or to not view it is a choice that I as an adult can make for myself, and as long as it's done in the privacy of my own home, my actions do not affect any others (this is not exactly true in all cases, but most people try to make sure no one will walk in on them, etc). So pornography is a self-regarding action that happens between consenting adults (the consenting and adult parts are why child pornography is illegal).

The theory is that as long as something is a self-regarding action, an adult in their right mind should be free to choose what they want to do. This is what most people are talking about when they talk about "moral" legislation. In effect, it defines what adult citizens should consider moral and not. Many people (surprise!) believe that an adult has the right to choose their own "rules to live by" without interference from 2nd parties.

I hope that helps things.

Re:Yes, you can..

[VidEdit]

I'd have to say that that seems like a clear view. I admit that murder as an example of an immoral act that is also a crime lends itself to a critique of comparing crimes that affect the rights of others versus crimes that are "victimless." And yet the line is not so clear.

Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US. The fact that it is not a crime in the US is part of the proof that US law is not, in fact, based on the Ten Commandments. So, the question would be if committing adultery is a "victimless" crime of the type you characterized as a "self-regarding action" or is it an offence that harms the person being cheated on? Clearly adultery affects more than the person who commits it. My point is not to argue that adultery should be illegal, but that there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.

PS,
John Ashcroft is an example of someone who believes that his personal morality should literally be the law of the land.

Re:Yes, you can..

[MourningBlade]

The original quote (wish I could remember who said it, but I'm bad with names) concerned the fact that just because you make a law that says its so, doesn't mean people will think it's wrong.

I believe it was said in regards to civil rights laws, prohibiting people from certain forms of descrimination. The speaker was right, in regards to the fact that it still went on.

Morality can't be changed by a stroke of the pen, not even with the imprimatur of executive power.

In the case of murder, it doesn't matter whether or not it's seen as wrong by the perpetrator, we have decided that it's necessary in society to not allow murderers to go free.

As for pornography...as long as people don't feel it's wrong, the law won't matter. Heck, even if the people do feel it's wrong, it will probably continue. Prohibition in the US had very widespread support...but within a few years everyone was back to it again.

I think people need to realize that scale matters in moral decisions. We really do see little things as different from big things. Consumption to excess: bad. Minor consumption: fine.

Re:Yes, you can..

[xecl]

So, what does you can't legislate morality mean? It would seem that it means you shouldn't pass laws that are designed to suppress behaviors that should be personal choices or are part of an individual religious doctrine and don't rise to the level that should be considered a crime

More likely he means you can't force people to have decent morals through legislation. Murder is immoral and as such there are laws against it, but you can't force people to do the moral thing and not kill someone.

Re:Yes, you can..

[bitwiseNomad]

there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.

Agreed. I would give the name "moral" to any legislation which tries to define that line at all. Many people believe that that etherial line should be defined by an adult deciding their own code of morals.

There is another angle to look at this from, however. It is the consensus that government should only legislate regarding issues that pose a direct concern to the well-being of their governance. It is easy to see how murder, theft, rape, etc pose a direct threat to the health of a nation, state, city or county. It is not so clear the direct link between someone's unhappiness from having been cheated on and its effects on the safety / health of a governance. I can see cases where cheating would drive someone to murder, for instance. But since what happens is a function of the way the person feels about it, there is no way to show a direct threat to the safety of a city. Because of this, people concede that a government should be allowed to legislate regarding murder et al (which have direct consequences), but not regarding adultery (which has indirect consequences).

This is partly where the notions of liberal and conservative come from. Where do you draw the line on what is direct (read: the government should have control over) and indirect (what the government should not)?

Re:Yes, you can..

[VidEdit]

This is partly where the notions of liberal and conservative come from. Where do you draw the line on what is direct (read: the government should have control over) and indirect (what the government should not)?

I'd say that that is no longer true. The term "conservative" used to be applied to people who thought the government should be as small as possible and interfere as little as possible with our personal lives. Those conservatives claimed it was liberals who sought to enforce a social morality such as state sponsored healthcare and welfare through "big government." Increasingly, it is the so-called neo-conservatives who seek to regulate morality through legal means, including superceding states rights with a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Such an amendment clearly falls into the definition of an attempt to regulate a behavior (getting married) based on a religious view of morality. Thus, I would say that vague terms like "conservative" and "liberal" are of little use in discussions about government attempts to regulate morality, rather the discussion should be viewed in a larger, better defined context.

Re:Yes, you can..

[cinemabaroque]

i draw a line between physical violence and social violence. I'm ok with the former being illegal but any attempt to make the latter illegal will generally be impossible to implement. Adultery is definately social violence.

Re:Yes, you can..

[hab136]

Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US

It is still illegal in most (all?) states, just very rarely enforced - usually only in divorce cases where one side is being a jerk.

Re:Yes, you can..

[Feanturi]

the choice to view pornography or to not view it is a choice that I as an adult can make for myself

Just to play devil's advocate here, I think porn is fine, but... Your (my) choice to view pornography supports a market where exploitation and drug use just might be hurting someone, and influencing their personal choices in negative ways. It is harmless for me to sit and watch it, but was it harmless when it was being produced? Quite possibly not. And if I, and you, and billions of others chose not to support that market, it would shrink in size, and some of the people currently involved in the industry might have better lives as a result, perhaps more 'moral' ones. On the other hand, without a porn career there's always prostitution to fall back on, so maybe it doesn't matter after all.

I guess my point is that when one chooses to use a product or service that only appears to be affecting ones'self, that is not necessarily so.

Me smoking pot, by myself, affects nobody else right? Right, though somebody had to grow it and ship it, while taking risks with bikers that might beat them up or kill them, or perhaps they risk many years of jail to get that product to me. If that dealer goes down, demand will bring in another, to take similar risks. All just so I can 'harmlessly' spark one up.

Re:Yes, you can..

[WhiplashII]

Not that I necessarilly disagree, but let me point out what the opposition says. To them, pornography is not between consenting adults - as said in a previous story posted to slashdot, "no amount of juice could stop a monkey from looking at the hindquarters of a female in heat" (or close to that). So, if the pornography industry is taking advantage of the weak minded (that are unable to look away), wouldn't that be wrong? The same with drugs, but even more so - by selling drugs to someone, you decrease their ability to turn you down in the future. Essentially, you are taking away their ability to choose - isn't that wrong?

To me, the question is more one of enforceability. There are fewer drunks now than in early times because the drunks have a tendancy to die before reproducing, so the problem goes away if ignored (I think Larry Niven wrote about that). But throwing the drunks (druggies, porn viewers, etc.) in jail doesn't really help anyone - it just makes the streets look cleaner.

Re:Yes, you can..

[WhiplashII]

I think that laws such as Adultery should be a contractual matter, not a "law." For example when someone gets married, instead of assuming that there is an unwritten "understanding" that marriage means no sex, or blow jobs, or whatever - write it down in the form of a contract. Say "if a partner has intercourse or oral sex with a third party that partner will give up X% of the equity of the partnership, and the partnership will be disolved." The problem with just telling everyone that it doesn't matter if they have an affair is that it does hurt people. Lot's of single moms and dads out there lost everything they had to get away from someone who was abusing them emotionally through a marriage relationship. They should not have to abandon everything they have made together because the other partner decided to have an affair.

Re:Yes, you can..

[WhiplashII]

This is not really a valid argument for making something illegal. Now that porn is legal (possibly even mainstream), there are far fewer cases of "porn-rape." If drugs were legal, terrorists wouldn't find it lucrative enough to participate, and those biker risks would go away as drugs would be shipped by normal delivery trucks.

The real reason for making drugs illegal (apart from moral reasons) is that the sellers of drugs are "taking" the freedom of the drug user away. Many drug users are esentially slaves to drugs, and creating the slavery is illegal.

Of course the person that bought the drugs also had some say in the matter - but in the US it is illegal to sell someone into slavery, even yourself.

Re:Yes, you can..

[Feanturi]

I didn't claim it was a valid argument to make something illegal. What I said was that if enough people chose, together, a different moral path, the world might be improved. I didn't intend to imply that this would need to be forced. In the case of porn, oh it's definitely not going to happen. I was looking at what could happen if people simply chose to amuse themselves some other way.

My point was that just because you can do a certain thing alone, no influences on anyone else, doesn't mean that someone else didn't have to sacrifice something or suffer somehow in order for it to be available to you.

Re:Yes, you can..

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot legislate morality...

and neither can you realistically prohibit anything in law. Morality begins with the individual, it is not universal concept, it has no supreme definition or authority by/to whom the world consents to be subject to.
You cannot define an image as good or bad, images do nothing, they do not act or make decisions their mere existence has no repurcussions. Only people in conjunction with the inanimate in their actions or decisions can be considered morally 'judgeable' and even then only from an individual context.

Re:Yes, you can..

[mochan_s]

Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US.

I think it's only against women though. I don't think any country has adultery laws against men (that makes it a crime).

So, the question would be if committing adultery is a "victimless" crime of the type you characterized as a "self-regarding action" or is it an offence that harms the person being cheated on? Clearly adultery affects more than the person who commits it. My point is not to argue that adultery should be illegal, but that there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.

I think the reason laws are there is so that if a wrong does happen to you then you don't have to feel that you have to avenge. In mafia, someone kills someone and it's upto the family to avenge the murder. By writing in clear terms and relinquishing our control for murder to a higher authority, we know what murdering will get us. So, it can't be done for conflict resolution or gain since the cost is very high as punishment. Since humans existed before people thought up laws and such, this was the mechanism we choose to resolve.

Our morality on adultery stems from the fact that we don't cheat because we don't want to be cheated on. If you don't care if you're cheated on, then people do cheat (as can be seen many situations).

But we are capable of handling audltery on our own. There is no need to relinquish the control the government for fairness.

Re:Yes, you can..

[LakeSolon]

Minor consumption: fine.

Google://Minor Consumption: Fine. Ya, there's a fine for Minor Consumption in most places alright.

~Lake

Re:Yes, you can..

[JohnFluxx]

As long as the contract also says their partner has to have sex with them so many times a week, with blowjobs being 10% of the time etc.

And neither partner is allowed to get drunk more than X amount, etc etc.

Re:Yes, you can..

[Omestes]

The "in the privacy of your own home" argument doesn't hold as much water as you would like. Being that there may be negative social consiquences to viewing porn (demeanment of women, inflating abnormal urges, etc). Not all things that do not directly effect another do not have social consiquences. Also, being that China is worried about the morality of their people, it makes perfect sense to try to ban pornography, being that it does degrade morality, making women into mere sex symbols, especially if widespread enough.

Now, I do not agree with Chinas actions, I just understand them. Being that they are a "managed" country, unlike what the U.S. aspires to, they have every right to promote the public good in ways such as these.

But I am sick of the view that I have the right to do anything I want as long as it does not kill or maim someone. I think that the government has the right to require seat belts, being that it increases the public health/good, when the public are too stupid, or too apathetic to do it themselves. I think government is here for the good of society, and not for the good of the individual, and the good of society includes its (as populariliy accepted) moral character. Everything you do has some social consiquence down the road, and thus most of it is social buisness. It comes down to weighing the harm to society, against what good it causes the individual. Too bad this is a sticky measurment, since the larger consiquences of our actions are not immediatly appearent most of the time.

Re:Yes, you can..

[bitwiseNomad]

That's very true. In my post I was talking about classical liberalism and conservatism, and I should have said so. Politics has traditionally been looked at in three different realms: the economic, the regulatory (which is supposed to cover stuff like law enforcement and other laws to keep people orderly, health care, etc), and social.

The "old" notions of conservative and liberal dealt primarily with the first two realms of lawmaking (mostly because people felt that no one would even think of violating social taboos). The current Republican leadership seems to be less concerned about their role in regulating the economy, education or health care and more about regulating what happens in peoples' bedrooms. That's not to say there aren't people who care about the economy or health care in the Republican leadership, but as a whole they seem to not have a unifying policy or plan regarding those two issues (which is probably why nobody in the Replublican party really talks about it). This contrasts with the older Republican party, which believed that the role of the government was to stay as far out of the economic and regulatory realms as they could and let people sort things out for themselves.

The Democrats are also not as unified as they have been in the past, but there seems to be some semblance of a direction they believe the country should take regarding the economic and regulatory realms. Ironically, it looks to me like Democrats are more "conservative" than the new Republican party is. This is evidenced in the fact that Clinton managed to have a defecit surplus for the past few years of his presidency (which is evidence of less government spending and hence less involvement in the economic and regulatory realms). This is not exactly true, though, since much of the "cut budgets" were military. So they might have actually had bigger social programs while spending less overall.

I digress. I have tried to talk about the way politics have changed since the Reagan years. The most important thing to see is the way people have changed the way they think about laws since then. The old "conservative" and "liberals" were concerned with making laws telling the government what they could and could not do. The new "conservatives" and "liberals" look at laws as dictating what citizens can and can not do. Laws and policies that place restrictions on the government are called liberties. These are things like your "right to privacy". Laws and policies that obligate the government to provide servies to citizens are called rights. An example is the "right to a fair and speedy trial". Since both categories of law are referred to as "rights" things get confusing. But looking at it this way, it is clear to see that the current political parties are much more concerned with our rights than they are with our liberties even though this wasn't always the case.

Re:Yes, you can..

[dillon_rinker]

"...you can't force people to do the moral thing and not kill someone."

Yes you can. That's the theoretical basis for the death penalty - to prevent repeat offenders. Timothy McVeigh will never bomb another federal building. Ever.

Re:Yes, you can..

[AlinuxNCSU]

This is a very valid point; however, most people who support government legislating morality don't think like this. They think that pornography is morally decrepit. To them, if the government does not stand specifically against "moral decrepitude", that is the same position as condoning it.

Add to that the more forceful argument that allowing such actions to continue will only cause it to spread until even the children are exposed daily. Won't someone think of the children!

You make an excellent point, but it won't convince the people who think like this. And as long as those people vote and occupy a large group of the citizenry, your position (and, IMO, the public's liberty) will be disregarded. Any ideas how to convince them?

-Alex

Re:Yes, you can..

[xecl]

That doesn't prevent the next guy from doing the same thing if he wants too.

Yeah...Clean deeds done dirty.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...because as history has shown us, the best way to keep people from doing the things they want has been to make those things illegal."

I hereby make bathing illegal!.

Imagine if Japan did this...

[korea]

If it were Japanese pornographic content, their economy would collapse and hundreds of thousands of greasy teenage boys and overweight teenage girls across America will get a check in the mail or at the very least an I.O.U. for a consumer electronic product.

Re:Imagine if Japan did this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh .. but they do.. every year.

This years orgy was a little more discreet. So the official position is orgys are OK, but straight internet porn is not. Bloody good foreign income, and protection of rich tourists/travellers is obviously exempt.

September 28, 2003

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese people were up in arms about a three-day orgy allegedly held by a group of Japanese tourists and hundreds of Chinese prostitutes at a hotel in southern China on the anniversary of Japan's occupation of China. ...
Prostitution has become a common phenomenon at Chinese hotels, even five-star establishments, in major cities, with prostitutes openly propositioning guests or calling them in their rooms.

Re:Imagine if Japan did this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn is already censored in Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pornograph y

Anything that isn't is illegal.

Didn't you notice the blur on tubgirl's vagina?

Christopher Reeve dead at 52

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - actor Christopher Reeve was found dead in his New York home last night. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

http://freenet-china.org/

[Anonymous Coward]

http://freenet-china.org/

In communist China..

[modifried]

.. porn pays you.

You just gotta love...

[EvilNutSack]

... the irony of communist leaders having a sense of morality. Next they'll be offering to pay for for the bullets for your execution just to show that 'they really do care'

Well then...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm packing off to China to make my fortune.

Goatse'd

[antikarma]

I'm guessing President Hu Jintao got Goatse'd.

Am I the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

who was reminded by this to exercise one of their rights as an american?

In the long run,...

[wasted]

...China is probably moving toward a capitalist republic at a slow pace. Having had the chance to observe the mistakes made by the Soviets, they may be trying to convert slowly to avoid some of the hardships.

Or, I could be wrong.

Re:In the long run,...

[Afrosheen]

I think you're on the right track. Although the majority of Chinese people I know still talk about the Chinese government in hushed, conspiratorial tones (which frustrates me, they're hard to understand to begin with), the Chinese authorities realize the importance of commerce.

Not too long ago, China didn't want or need to do business with anyone. Once they discovered international production and business, they reluctantly joined the game. Next thing you know, everything has a MADE IN CHINA sticker on the bottom of it. China has a glut of super cheap labor, and most of it is skilled. They also have a wealth of natural resources. An EE friend of mine was accustomed to fixing problems at the circuit level because labor is cheaper than parts in China. Here, his boss asked what was taking so long and told him to order a new control panel rather than replacing parts on it. It's a completely different paradigm over there.

Re:In the long run,...

[superpulpsicle]

IF you people ever really went to China and study their culture, you'll know that the government has ZERO intention to block porn and internet sites for the benefit of the people.

They are STRICTLY blocking it, to create a secondary revenue stream of access to these same blocked materials.

No different than Cocaine. You can sell it on the street legally for $10. Or sell it underground illegally for $1000 of the same amount.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

That's it, I'm heading to China right now and reporting slashdot.

legislating morality

[einhverfr]

I think it is more proper to say that one cannot legislate sexual morality. Legislating against something which has a clear and direct interpersonal effect such as murder is different. (Yes, you can argue that drugs, porn, etc have these effects but it is neither inherent nor direct).

Indeed, legislating sexual morality is a great tool of dictators.... Which is what I find so interesting about the politics of sexuality in this country....

Re:legislating morality

[Grant_Watson]

Indeed, legislating sexual morality is a great tool of dictators.... Which is what I find so interesting about the politics of sexuality in this country....

You may oppose such regulation, and perhaps you're right... but a tool of dictators? Where does that come from? How would regulating sexual morality be more useful to a dictator, than say, regulating political speech?

Re:legislating morality

[jcr]

How would regulating sexual morality be more useful to a dictator, than say, regulating political speech?

It's useful as a premise upon which you incarcerate your opposition. It's rather like the USA's war on some drugs in that respect: if anyone sasses the cops, you can plant some porn or some pot on him, and throw him in the clink.

Dictators are often careful about preserving the appearance of law and order.

-jcr

Re:legislating morality

[einhverfr]

You may oppose such regulation, and perhaps you're right... but a tool of dictators? Where does that come from? How would regulating sexual morality be more useful to a dictator, than say, regulating political speech?

Here is what Wilhelm Reich had to say about this topic (a bit dated-- written during the early years of WWII, but quite insightful, I think):

To comprehend the relation between sexual suppression and human exploitation, it is necessary to gain insight into the basic social institution in which the economic and sex-economic situation of patriarchal authoritarian society is interwoven.... The authoritarian state gains an enormous interest in the authoritarian family: it becomes the factory in which the state's structure and ideology are molded.

Reich's argument derives in part based on a look at the rise to power of the Nazis, their social base of power, and a look at the forces of the proto-sexuality in children that Freud wrote so extensively on. He therefore argues that the sexually repressed individual is more likely to eventually lead (as man or woman) an authoritarian family and support an authoritarian state.

It is a valid question whether Reich puts the cart before the horse (whether the ideology if family as authoritative is what might cause the sexual repression rather than vice versa) but I find it interesting that these seem to go hand-in-hand.

But it boils down to this (well witnessed in Communist China) that if you control sexuality, you can control the family structure, and if you can control the family structure, you can control the society. In this way, it is more subtle and more and hence more dangerous than outright censorship.

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

In communist China, the porn watches you?

Morality

[linuxhansl]

Can anybody explain to me what is so bad about consensual sex and looking at other people doing sex (as long at the images were also taken consensual and do not involve abnormal things like child-sex)?

Is anybody worried about looking at voilence and death? Is anybody worried about public brain-washing propaganda?

We live in strange times! War and soldiers and stylised to glory and heros, while sex and other fun and is somehow dirty and should be avoided. A strange so called "Morality", indeed!

In Body Pleasure And The Originbs Of Violence James W. Prescott relates the tendency towards violence to general sexual opression. It's worth a read.
(James W. Prescott was employed at the US Public Health Department and layed off five years after he published this document (in 1980), because he wanted to conduct more studies in the area of child abuse and neglect.)

I don't get it.

Re:Morality

[DigiShaman]

Could be why the Taliban and Al Qaeda are so vilolent due to their extreme views of Islam. They cover up women, live a life of rage and hate, and have highest rate of spousal abuse. Yet...they all dream of herem vergins when they die.

Interesting to note, they hate western civilization because they cannot have what they so desire. All of course, in the name of Islam. Talk about a life of confusion. Oppress human nature of sexuality, or go against a lifetime of faith.

Re:Morality

[Big Nothing]

Most Europeans don't get this. It's mostly a US-thingy. And Islamic countries such as Iran and Pakistan.

Re:Morality

[Deternal]

It is solely a question of ethics and moral (where ethics is the restriction someone takes upon themselves, while moral is the guidelines society bestows upon you).

It is obvious that if a society deems that something is counter-productive or has negative impact for society they will make a moral guideline against this behaviour. Not quite so obvious humans have a tendency to equate anything which remotely resembles A to be equal to A.

The argument about whether or not this is bad for society is mute, since it according to chineese moral is bad it is logical to outlaw it and try to remove it.

This even though it might not be against the ethics of most chineese.

Re:Morality

[t_allardyce]

Its true, infact I know in Iran that the guys are just as obsessed with sex as anywhere else in the world and everyones doing it. Because the whole thing is pushed under-ground it just leads to issues, teenage girls worry about not being virgins so they go and have hyman replacement operations, while their dads (who'd be fucking pissed off if they found out) are in bed with a different woman each night. The whole thing is a total farse, and you can bet your ass I know why:

Stupid old men. Don't mean to disrespect the ruling religious leaders but thats what they are. They are so out of touch with reality you could put a crack addict in charge and he'd be useful. It also doesnt help that anyone in power who actually has an ounce of sanity is probably too scared to say anything incase they decide to lynch him (they love hanging people from construction cranes, sick, but i guess its more humane than Saudia Arabia).

Re:Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

The simularitys between US and Islamic states is amasing.
Both hate sex, both love guns.
Both have relougus fantics as leaders.

Re:Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

...and do not involve abnormal things...

You can answer your own question right now if you think about what you are saying.

Hint: define 'abnormal' without referring to yourself or a specific society you belong to.

Re:Morality

[DerWulf]

yes. This posts illustrates how any flavor of collectivist 'ethics' can not oppose tyranny. Its even inviting it. Communism will always create a earthly hell precisly because your line of reasoning is the logical one if you elate the community above the individual.

Re:Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up

"custom is king" - Herodotus

Yes you can.

[autopr0n]

You know, the original "you can't legislate morality" quote comes from someone arguing against racial desegregation. Obviously, that person was wrong (in the quote and in general). Why do people keep repeating it?

Re:Yes you can.

[Unordained]

Because sometimes good ideas pop up in unexpected places, perhaps? If Hitler himself were to utter words of wisdom (actually good wisdom), would you turn away just to spite him? How very foolish.

You cannot legislate morality: morality, honor, ethics, and law are distinct. Legislation is law: it is a list of punishments for actions. The rest are things you can try to teach people in your home, school, or church. Law is about changing the cost/benefit ratio associated with an action; the rest are about changing your motivations, your conscience, appealing to your wish to "belong", etc. Law may punish that which your morality believes to be wrong, morality/ethics/honor may inform the legislative body, but you cannot legislate morality itself.

Re:Yes you can.

[WhiplashII]

I believe the grandparent had a point - the person quoted was wrong, but there is more to it than that. I believe that the real truth to be learned is that you cannot legislate morality short term, but that long term (more than one generation), you can!

Segragation caused many problems in its early years, but now is accepted as the only fair possibility by the vast majority.

2 things

[Lord_Dweomer]

First, might this kind of be like how the cable companies used to show special "messages" to people who pirated cable telling them to come claim their prize and then busted them?

"Show us those porn sites you've found and get $$$!!!"

Also....I've got to say....if there's one straw that will break the camel's back, or in this case Communist China's back...its porn. Thou shalt NOT deprive a man of porn. Although they haven't really put an effort to kill their sex industry, so who knows.

My Next Job:

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Working with some hayseed name company, set up a script that sets up arbitrary pr0n sites with a specific set of images to choose from.

Stuff like KRGKGE.com or 3495ww43.com, etc.

Once the site is up and functioning, I contact a "citizen" in China, who reports the site to the authorities. We split the difference. I keep him fed with pr0n sites, and he sends me money for "finding" them.

Stupid fucking commie bastards. I could set up 50 sites a day. At $125 per, that's a nice piece of green...

RS

RS

Re:My Next Job:

[CanadianCrackPot]

Don't forget money from site subscriptions, very nice green, or blue, or purple (depends on the color of your currency).

I don't get it.

[edunbar93]

Why the hell are they so terribly concerned with the porn "problem" and not in the least bit concerned with the [blink]SPAM PROBLEM[/blink]?

A [sticky] Situation?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wankers of the World, UNITE!!!!"

So that's what they mean by sticking together?

That's kinda backwards...

[Skudd]

Here in the US people pay for being able to see pornographic sites...

Over there they pay for people to find the sites to exterminate them?

Imagine if they started using honeypots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the irony!

Yes!

[kcb93x]

Good = your team

Bad = their team

im sure its been said but...

[teknokracy]

In Communist China, Porno bans you!

I do, it's called...

[Anonymous Coward]

Christianity.

Any chinese reading /. ?

[Kynde]

For a 50% cut I can set up thousands of porns sites if someone in china can claim that $240 per url...

Think Long Term

[tomsuchy]

Isn't it true that the percentage of votes a candidate's party gets determines their likelyhood of getting taken somewhat more seriously in the next election? I remember hearing that somewhere. If this is true, it's something to think about, especially in the longer term, as your 3rd party might benefit, even if they lose this time around.

that does it..

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm never moving to china ;-)

Re:Yes, you can...CORRECTION

[VidEdit]

I should point out a typo: I don't "hope that hope that John Ashcroft is currently prosecuting people." That should read, "I hope that John Ashcroft,**who is** currently prosecuting people...doesn't get any ideas..."

Nice post, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

you're supposed to save that post for when china blocks political dissent. for this article, they're just trying to block images of vaginsas.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not fair!

[Lord Kano]

Because those Chinese chicks are so hot.

LK

Re:Not fair!

[DigiShaman]

Chinese/Caucasians! Now THOSE are hot, sexy, and cute at the same time. Nothing like those perfect breasts (C size with a nice nipple), black hair, and smile to die for.

My favorite kind of course. To each his own. ;)

up to $240?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they only pay the maximum for the really good ones?

Maybe this just is a way for the powers-that-be to avoid all the subsriptions and build a really cool collection.

This is why...

[dwellersire]

I'm proud to be an American! I mean, who is going to fund innovation when there's no pr0n? Must be why those Swedes are so smart ;)

Dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to replace Rob with Chris several times in this recycled troll.

Prosperity in society

[tod_miller]

I say good luck to them. A society has a right to govern moral law and try and limit the accessibility of corrupting information.

Bear in mind that as China races towards being a superpower (huge oil wars ahead unless China invent some really cool thingTM that replaces it) they might actually increase their prosperity and thier societies performance by removing such a tempting way to while away a few hours at night.

Or is that just me? :-)

On the other hand, increased access to all the asian oriented (pun intended) porn, or the delectible other varieties of ethinic porn available, they might stem thier mad population grow, and increase tissue sales instead!

Appendix:

- Salt (one pinch of)

Re:Prosperity in society

[be-fan]

A society has a right to govern moral law and try and limit the accessibility of corrupting information.
No they don't.

Re:Prosperity in society

[tod_miller]

A society has a right to govern moral law
No they don't.

So we have no right to state that murder is immoral? Only illegal?

Hmmmm. You type before you think. Just because you dissagree with thier practices, perhaps their society as a whole wants to crack down on this.

Perhaps they would preffer less readily available outlets for thier pornography needs.

Just as a society can police murder if it so chooses, it can police pornography, you on the other hand, should not consider your own opinion relevant to thier actions, because:

1: You are not governed by them (and if you are, then go through political change)
2: You actually don't care (unless you run a porn site with a target audience of 1/6 of the planet who speak various chinese dialects)

OK.

Demolition Man

[vyke4lyfe]

You guys remember that movie (okay it was horrible)? But there was a scene in the movie where Sandra Bullock says lets have sex, and Sly thinks hes doing the real thing but instead she pulls out that machine that simulates it in the brain. I think thats where China is going to go these days. They'll just use in-vitro to have children.

Re:Demolition Man

[jonwil]

Be a great way to enforce their population control policies too (especially since anyone having a baby without government approval can be locked up, tortured, executed or more likely all 3, see movies like Fortress for examples of what might happen :)

Looks like it is a precursor of the CAS regieme!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they equally ban the channels aired via
satellites etc. And totally ban all forms of porn.

Another way to make money from this:

[tod_miller]

Link all thier sitched websites to a googleable (what is the 'official' spelling for all stems of google?) site that is inaccessible from .cn but ives is .westerners a chance to have lots of free porn listed! They can be the worlds biggest benefactor from Google ads.

1 billion porn hunters!

It is like google, but better! (unless Chinese have some other interesting fetishes that haven't been absorbed into the western conscience.)

Firewall != filtering content

[majid_aldo]

enought said!

Inquisition

[pablodiazgutierrez]

It is always interesting to see how far extremes end up touching each other. This example of moral censorship is quite similar to that the Spanish Inquisition used to perform centuries ago, although the former is communist and the later was christian fundamentalism.

I don't get...

[jeif1k]

Seeing news items like that, I just don't get what the Republicans dislike so much about China. I mean, think about it

• it's a law-and-order country with harsh penalties for drug use and pornography
  
• justice is swift and harsh, with lots of death penalty cases and without inconcenient rules that impede the legal process and create unnecessary expenses for tax payers
  
• it manages to successfully combine a strict adherence to Taoist values with a strict separation of church and state (just like the Republicans want to combine a strict adherence to fundamentalist Christian values, norms, and rules, with a strict separation of church and state)
  
• it values family deeply
  
• any kind of socially disruptive or disharmonious behavior is strictly suppressed
  
• the media are carefully regulated in order to keep smut and dangerous ideas (which might corrupt the young) out of them
  
• it's a republic for the people and by the people (that's why it's called the "People's Republic" after all)
  
• the way politicians get into power is carefully controled so that there are no unpleasant, non-conforming surprises to mess up the political, economic, and social system that has been so carefully built
  
• and, perhaps best of all, free enterprise is allowed to flourish, with few inconvenient and inefficient regulations to stifle workers and with excellent government support of entrepreneurs and industry (in return for "campaign contributions")
  

Seems to me that that's what many politicians are working towards in the US. When they complain about China, are they perhaps just jealous that the Chinese leadership has achieved what they haven't (yet)?

Re:I don't get...

[laserbeak]

No they are afraid of socialism and communism. According to the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: Capitalism is a progressive stage that leads to Socialism and the stages are required or the worker class will not rebel and therefore there is no Socialism/Communism without an oppressing government based around Capitalism. For the proletariat's to rebel it must be a forceful action in which the overthrow of a government is required and hence cannot be achieved via peaceful means.

China may be communist in nature, but is by no means a true communist nation in the initial definition.

Re:I don't get...

[News for nerds]

>it manages to successfully combine a strict
>adherence to Taoist values with a strict
>separation of church and state (just like the
> Republicans want to combine a strict
>adherence to fundamentalist Christian values,
> norms, and rules, with a strict separation of
> church and state)

China is a communism country, not 'Taonist'. Do you know what Karl Marx said about religion? The US is just so much backward as to adhere to specific religious values.

Re:I don't get...

[0x0d0a]

and, perhaps best of all, free enterprise is allowed to flourish, with few inconvenient and inefficient regulations to stifle workers and with excellent government support of entrepreneurs and industry (in return for "campaign contributions")

Actually, I thought that China was kinda bureaucratic.

Other than that, though...that seems to be a pretty accurate and interesting look at things.

Re:I don't get...

[Knara]

I'm kinda wondering how you "strictly adhere" to Taoism anyway....

Re:I don't get...

[BgJonson79]

Like John McCain?

Re:Morality....is relative and reflected by laws

[majid_aldo]

i don't care if you're american or dutch (where prostitution is legal) both democracies claiming no interference in people's morals and separation of church and state. laws are made/changed by the people of a country; where these laws represent their morals.

example: in the US, why is gay marriage becoming 'ok' while (hetero..) polygamy has such a bad stigma?! i would imagine polygamy being ok first, then as attitudes change gay marriage being ok. i guess it's just what people want to happen..that's all.

yes, china isn't a democracy. but if the gov. were SO out of line with the people, i'd think they wouldn't exist anymore. to me, the differences in the forms of gov. is just how easily (elasticity) they react to the demands of the people.

oh, my comment is just a comment. i haven't argued for or against any particular side.

one of the big issues

[Exter-C]

This is an important development in many ways for the internet community. Having a higher level of internet censorship in china will result in a lower level of child porn etc.

Recently there was a report published that outlined the large and growing problem of child porn sources from asian countries. One of the issues within that report was the chinese security issues resulting in a large volume of child porn being stored on "cracked" servvers.

Hopefully this will help reduce SOME of the problem. Every little bit helps. Obviously its not just aimed at this type of content.

Old Biddies

[MourningBlade]

When I first saw the headline, my first thought was: you know, in this country full of busybodies, I'm certain if such a thing were enacted we'd see quite a bit shut down. I've seen too damned many people too damned interested in other people's lives and bedrooms.

You know, if the sodomy laws were re-instated and the police paid $200 per "tip leading to the arrest of," the phones would be ringing off the hook from the fuckers.

Pisses me off just thinking about it.

Postcard??

[Magickcat]

How do I get a postcard of the great firewall of China?

It's like "The War on Drugs" in the US....

[spamfiltertest]

Here is the funny thing about that statement...

You are right that as long as there's a demand, it'll be there - but even if that demand is met, it will always be there... just in a different form.

If the US were to legalize drugs, controlled by the government, the "demand" from the consumer is now being met and the users will no longer have to buy it illegally. However, now the criminals are no longer making money. So, the criminals will then take to selling other drugs - or other illegal activity. Likewise, if China were to "legalize" porn, controlled by the government, the consumers demand is being met - but the "criminal" will turn to something else which the government has outlawed.

So, demand or not - the illegal activity will always be there. As laws and times change, so do the "illegal" things.

Its zai jian, not zai zhen

[Anonymous Coward]

parent needs to work on his chinese

but *is* it a different society?

[Trepidity]

It's possible that banning porn is popular in China. But given that their leaders are not elected, it's hard to say. All we know is that the leadership wants to ban porn. There's no information that I can find on whether the society itself thinks that's a good idea. If it doesn't, it'll just drive things underground.

whitehouse.com

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, now give me my $240.

did you try going to sensitive sites?

[Trepidity]

Random stuff like CNN usually isn't blocked, but I'm guessing that you may have found it difficult to pull up the site of the Government of Tibet in Exile, for example. The Chinese-language Wikipedia has also been blocked on and off.

Sounds like a bug-fix bounty to me...

[Ben Jackson]

1) Put up a porn site,
2) Report it to Chinese officials,
3) Profit!

Re:Sounds like a bug-fix bounty to me...

[MonkeyCookie]

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the people reporting it were porn site operators themselves. They get to shut down their competition and make a tidy profit at the same time.

So we get a better business plan:

1) Put up porn site
2) Report competitors' sites to Chinese officials
3) Small Profit!
4) People come to your site because their options are limited.
5) Big Profit!

This is laughable. This isn't about porn folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys. This is/was never about porn. China is starting it's Jin Dun (Golden Shield) Project, which gives National Security Bureau sweeping powers to track every internet cafe, every connection, every dial-up call. The porn blocking is just a ruse to take down bbses and public forums.

Already, popular forums such as ytht.net are taken down, machines confiscated and scanned for violations of thought-crimes. Porn sites are still alive and well; but the forums are gone. The timing? The finalization on the grasp of power by the new leadership. Jiang Ze-min just handed over his chair on the Party's Military Comittee on the 16th Congress.

Long live Big Brother folks.

And am I the only one worried that the Chinese cracked MD5?

Outlaws

[AvantLegion]

Outlaw porn, and only outlaws will have porn!

And that's just not fair.

Morality, try Hypocrisy!

[Excen]

Does anyone think it is silly that they limit the number of kids that you can have, yet are blocking internet porn? I mean those people have to be majorly repressing their natural instincts, otherwise they'd be consuming a whole lot more condoms.

In China, porn sites pay you!

[kai.chan]

In China, porn sites pay you!

I boobled for it!

[Anonymous Coward]

plus it was recommended to me by a friendly policeman.

Chineese Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

They allow warez and rampant copyright infringement but find pr0n immoral.

Get to root level China!

[earthstar]

Hey China!
If you really want to prevent your people from watching pr0n , then simply 'vaccinate' ur men with ' anti sex drug' so that they lose all interest in sex....
[For Best results , give 2 doses , every 3 months after baby is born.]

1984 quote!

[klang]

Actually the water/air has actually become cleaner since Bush took office.
- George Orwell, 1984

Nooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly an evil empire :(

I'm on to you China!!

[IInventedTheInternet]

I figured it out, they're just knocking off the competition so the the Chinese Govt will assume control of the porn industry. Soon their population will be in the salty, sweaty palm of the chinese government porno-ganda. Doctored pictures of Mao's inspiring pillar, impregnating the female population with his values shall re-inforce the peoples belief in the communist system.
wouldn't be the first time in chinese history, check out the legend of King Chou-hsin.http://www.world-sex-records.com/sex-102 .htm

big deal

[pair-a-noyd]

They'll just hack dumb American DSL and cable subscribers and setup their porn there. Much safer, let a dumb American take the fall instead of one of their own.

hmmm

[t_allardyce]

1) Make dummy porn site
2) Tell someone in China
3) Split reward 50-50
4) Profit!

repeat..

No such thing as a fundamental human right

[VidEdit]

Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a fundamental human right. Human rights are only what we as a society decide they are. Rights are made by man and they don't exist in nature without man. Ask a gazelle what its rights are and whether it thinks it's fair that it should be considered a "prey" animal... There is no fairness or justice for individuals or even for species in nature. Things are as they are.

As humans, if you are lucky, you live in a society that is generous in deciding how we would like to be treated and how we should treat others but there is no inherent right to exist, to be well fed and sheltered, or even to be happy. If their was, the planet and all governments would be in contempt of that right.

Some will argue that only god can provide a moral framework, but since the world cannot agree on who god is and what god's will is, god's will as we know it is decided by men just as if god did not exist, only with more blind certainty.

So, there is no fundamental right to porn and no fundamental right for governments to ban it. But most of us on the forum live in the US where we get to decide what our rights are and that we should mostly be left to our own devices, but only if we don't let the secretive, moralistic, blind-faith inspired Bush administration back into office.

Just because a society is different, don't necessarily mean that its peoples are oppressed (and need 'liberating'). It's a big planet, there's nothing wrong with a little diversity

It also doesn't mean that that societie's people are free. Just because the planet is big and the oppressed people are far away doesn't mean that we shouldn't want them to have human rights as we see them. Unfortunately, there is just no getting around the fact that societies have to judge one another based on a provincial moral relativism. We can only judge them on what we think is right.

As for myself, I think that living in a police state is bad for individuals. Just imagine living in an oppressive contry where people can be secretly arrested and held secretly in jail indefinitely without being charged or be tried in a secret trial. That would be awful. I can't imagine how horrible that would be...Oh, wait, never mind...

spam

[batray]

now it they would hand out bountis for spamer web sites and spamers in China I might actually let my mail server recive email from CN IP space.

Communist leaders?

[Anonymous Coward]

China has long since ceased to be a 'communist' state. Communism is about how wealth is shared out and it doesn't take a genius to see that the new billionaires in China are more a product of capitalism than communism.

I know US citizens are trained from birth to have a knee jerk reaction to the word 'communism' and that the use of that word provides a convienient scapegoat for anything which seems threatening but you really have to see that there has been a corporate take over in China and that is where much western investment is headed now.

If the wealth created in China was shared out more equitably then you could maybe blame that on communism. The rest you'll have to blame on something else.

Read Animal Farm by George Orwell and you will see how the Chinese pigs are even now transforming.

Not a troll, read the book.

So where are the good Chinese porn sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of selling out to the opressive government, why not list the good chinese porn sites here for your fellow slashdotters. We may not have $250 to give you, but we'll appreciate it more and at least you can feel good about doing something positive for your fellow man.

China is not communist

[Anonymous Coward]

-except in name. In practice, most of the central political tenets of communism are gone from the way China is run. Modern China is better described as a fascist country.

Obligatory...

[BinaryCodedDecimal]

Kryten (reading poster on the wall): "Be a government informer! Betray your family and friends! Fabulous prizes to be won!...?"

Did you actually read the message you replied to?

[Dogtanian]

[Grandparent Message]: "Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture

[Parent Message]: Wow, what a fat lot you know about China and the CCP. I think what you say is mostly bullshit. Morality is actually important to most Chinese

Can I point out the bleeding obvious, which is that this is what he actually said?

Anyway, in response to the rest of your message: I didn't see Autopr0n extol the virtues of Christianity in his post.

In addition, I should point out that most fanatical (relatively speaking) Christians would support the censorship and supression of porn (whilst probably jerking off to it in private); you seem to have made the mistake of assuming Autopr0n shared the views of all fellow Americans, and (to some extent) that all Americans shared his views.

(*) IIRC Autopr0n *seemed* to be American, but I wouldn't bet my life on this.

From Dilbert, Wally sees an advantage -

[Anonymous Coward]

'I'm gonna post me a new minivan!!!'

Porn site list

[Anonymous Coward]

Post your favourite porn sites!

To start with:

http://www.thehun.com/

porn is the least of their worries

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in China recently.

The number and availability of prostitutes in the country is quite simply staggering. In Beijing you can't turn a corner without seeing a "barber shop" (indicated by the striped pole) with a girl smoking in the window. Need a haircut? Don't bother.

I'm scared silly about the impact of AIDs in the country once it gets going (if it hasn't already).

Re:porn is the least of their worries

[Anonymous Coward]

Viet Nam is the same way. They don't seem to go the barbershop route. but there are lots of prostitutes in discos nd such, and and you see quite a few streetwalkers as well. The streetwalkers are mostly not much to look at, but the girls in discos are usually pretty hot, and dressed to the nines as well.

However, it's best to keep your pants on. Prostitution where the customer is Vietnamese is mostly ignored, at least in the south (not sure about the north), but there is some enforcement where the customer is a foreigner. By "enforcement" I mean that the customer will probably be arrested; the girl will walk or get a slap on the wrist. This is possible because in Viet Nam it is against the law for a foreigner and a VNese to be in a hotel room together unless they are married and can prove it on the spot (this involves being able to present a copy of your marriage certificate; my wife and I carry it with us whenever we travel there).

The other reason to keep it zipped is AIDS; there are no reliable figures on it, but it's becoming a real problem. It spreads through both sex and IV drug use (sharing of needles there is very common) and as you might expect, there is overlap between the prostitution industry and the group of IV drug users. Combine this with insufficient condom use and insufficient knowledge of how to prevent AIDS and you have a high-risk situation.

So what we have here...

[Anonymous Coward]

is this:

1. Surf for porn

2. ??? (Just make sure you wipe up after you.)

3. Profit!

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

porn and prostitution are often NOT victimless crimes: 3 million people a year (according to National Geographic) are sold in to slavery to feed these "industries".

porn and prostitution have more victims than just about any other crimes in the world. Even in countries where such questionable activities are legal!

Everytime you get this fallacy in your head you should cruise the streets in some thrird world country and count the CHILDREN that are selling themselves in the streets for prostitution.

Porn and prostitution are a great cause of decay in society and both should be illegal. It's not about "just" about morality. It's about crime. And as another poster said, morality IS legislated.

Re:BS

[mrchaotica]

It's not a fallacy. Slavery falls into the "rape, murder, etc." catagory. If porn prostitution are legal then they can be regulated and, with proper enforcement, slavery and child* abuse can be more effectively prosecuted. It's simple: if you legalize prostitution etc. then you don't have to waste your time trying to seperate the volunteers from the slaves, because the volunteers will have no reason to hide.

Also, if you don't have effective enforcement then making MORE people criminals certainly won't help you!

*Won't someone please THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! -- Yeehah, appeal to my emotions rather than logic!

Re:BS

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

porn and prostitution have more victims than just about any other crimes in the world.

Those people aren't victims of porn or prostitution, bonehead. They're victims kidnapping and slavery and sexual abuse. If instead of selling people into slavery to grow drugs or produce porn they were instead sold into slavery to make clothes or grow food, would you propose we outlaw clothes and food?

Everytime you get this fallacy in your head you should cruise the streets in some thrird world country and count the CHILDREN that are selling themselves in the streets for prostitution.

And every time you get this fallacy in your head that these people are victims of porn, you should tour a textile factory in indonesia and count the CHILDREN that are making the clothes on your back and the shoes on your feet for 15 cents a day.

In communist China . . .

[theparanoidcynic]

Porn fucks you!

*ducks*

Heh, morals

[Zareste]

"Murderous psychos against porn!"

I guess that was the gist of the movement all along. No surprise here. Of course we're still dealing with those sort of people here in the US who want everyone to go to Hell if they're not deathly afraid of their bodies.

Get paid to look at porn

[quintessent]

Any takers?

Great!

[Dorsai65]

Now maybe the sites will load faster... Er... Wait a minute...

You know you're on slashdot

[kmmatthews]

when someone explains a concept by likening it to cellular function within a living organism. :)

Cos the Chinese are too soft

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC in China they don't execute children or the mentally disabled, unlike in the USA.

Official morality campaign?

[Quattro Vezina]

This ``morality campaign'' to eliminate pornography has just as much to do with morality as...well, as much as the People's Republic of China has to do with the people.

In other words, zilch.

heh USA is doing same but with normal ppl = terror

[Anonymous Coward]

heh i remember that the usa put up some websites at the fbi, cia and all those new gov/feds places to report stuff about joe avarage who lives next door to you and your neighbourhood.

accuse your neighbour of terrorism, put him to jail and all that shit.

now i call that more scary or more powerful, whatever you might call it.

the usa invented it first, and perverted it.

Or....

[CrazyMalaysian]

they could just google for porn, and take a couple of the first hits.

No, it's not a slippery slope

[karb]

Pornography has never been more legal in the history of the United States than it is now. The slippery slope has been headed firmly in the other direction for 40 or 50 years now.

This sort of thinking was exposed during the whole Janet Jackson thing, anyway. People claimed that free speech was threatened, but it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing has never been acceptable. Despite that we've maintained a thriving democracy with some of the best free speech protection in the world for more than 300 years nevertheless.

Only on slashdot could a story about the chinese communists cracking down on porn turn into a condemnation of american democracy.

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the parent post. In addition, I believe that porn *is* morally wrong. It leads to the destruction of families, not to mention the harm that it does to children who grow up without both parents and without moral direction in their lives.

Free speech is simply an ill-concieved excuse used to justify porn. It's social engineering -- to use a concept that we all believe in in order to weaken our resistance to filth and moral debauchery.

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of thinking was exposed during the whole Janet Jackson thing, anyway. People claimed that free speech was threatened, but it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing has never been acceptable.

Okay, I'll agree with you to a point, however how many women are fined if the top of their bathing suit comes loose in public? How many women are ticketed for accidentally exposing a nipple while breast feeding? How many women are ticketed for wearing a see-through shirt in public? Now explain to me why the FCC should have issued such a large fine for Janet exposing a breast? Are we not born naked?

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, blind fools like you aren't found just on slashdot. Otherwise, people would start disbelieving government FUD if people like you weren't around to set the record straight. Good job!

What you don't seem to understand, is that tendencies of government are more important than any given law. Why? Because if John Ashcroft and his happy fundamentalist Christian cohorts have their way, you'll be reading 1850's manuals on domestic affairs about how sex is dirty, and husbands should be ``trained'' to not request it. And incidentally, if you happen to watch porn, and some silly beaurocrat says that porn website is connected with *gasp* terrorists, (or is used to support them) suddenly, the whole tenor of things changes dramatically. Hehehe.

Remember, citizen - if you masturbate, THE TERRORISTS WIN!

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Simon Garlick]

it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing has never been acceptable

Maybe where YOU live. Outside the United States of Puritan Wack-jobs, it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing is totally innocuous. The only interesting thing about the incident was the way that Americans seemed to lose their minds over it.

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, citizen - if you masturbate, THE TERRORISTS WIN!

How do you think the slope became slippery?

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[MunchMunch]

"Outside the United States of Puritan Wack-jobs, it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing is totally innocuous. The only interesting thing about the incident was the way that Americans seemed to lose their minds over it."

As an American, I couldn't agree more.

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[svallarian]

They only lost their minds because the media told them to.

and the "One Million Moms" folks went absolutely batshit.

Re:No, it's not a slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

It was only a big deal to the idiots that kept covering it on tv over and over. I know nobody that really gave a shit about it.

Wake me

[user no. 590291]

when they start doing it for spam. Shows that they can censor effectively, which proves the PRC government complicit in the torrent of spam rushing from their borders.

Dont Dictators learn from history......

[Insipid Trunculance]

If you want people not to question things around them, make sure there isnt much free time for them.

If i were chinese gov i would make lots of noise but do nothing to cut down on pr0n. Tianmmmen(sp?)happened because a lot of young people , with lots of energy , had lots of free time.

Make sure the people are too busy watching pron and there wont be a problem.

Dont make people's life drab, make them colorful and they wont worry about lack of political freedoms.

Hong Kong and Singapore are both excellent examples.

I will bet even money that if US became a military dictatorship tomorrow , there will be about 3 protesters . The rest will be watching cable TV, and wondering which SUV to buy next.

Re:This is laughable. This isn't about porn folks.

[user no. 590291]

Good thing we have freedom in the U.S.A. and that political sites aren't being taken down under false pretenses, cough, Indymedia, cough.

I'll bet the unwashed see not the irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this ironic, you might ask?

The answer is simple -- if you read the Communist Manifesto, you'll see that Marx was an ardent advocate of sexual immorality, and immorality in general.

Fate and Porn

[tilleyrw]

China is simply an example of a country that is dying slower than the USA.

You cannot successfully restrict man's base nature. While not advocating legalized violence, I am a proponent of adopting mature views of sex and drugs.

Has Holland descended into anarchy because prostitution and drugs are legal? No. Remember, you can only plug the dike for so long before cracks cause the wall to fall.

No more smut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Britney Spears just lost 1 billion fans.

In this context...

[Kjella]

...I would imagine that the primary meaning is "liberty" as opposed to "slavery". Everyone have the right to exist as an independent person, not as property.

Anyway, ask the UN. I'm sure you'll get a lot of different answers. Mysteriously, each country will fall under their own definition of "liberty".

Kjella

In China...

[Anonymous Coward]

...do you have to do it with the lights out?

Are dogs required to wear pants in public?

Trim that Snatch!

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, if I was running China, I'd be stamping out pr0n. Or at least, pass some mandatory "trim" law. Grass on the field, and all that. But hire a lawn service or something, you know what I'm sayin'?

America is a nation...

[0x0d0a]

America is a nation where killing can be shown on any broadcast television, but nudity is banned.

America is a nation where a thirteen-year-old schoolchild can be let in to watch a movie starring action hero becoming a vigilante and gunning down and knifing all the bad guys that have been trying to get in his way, but where that same thirteen-year-old cannot watch a movie where two people are making love.

America is a nation where exchanging money for sex is illegal everywhere but in parts of a single state of the fifty, but exchanging money to kill, becoming a corporate mercenary working in Iraq, is considered laudable and encouraged.

America is a nation where up until one year ago, thirteen states had laws banning consentual anal sex. Forty years ago, *every* state made consentual anal sex illegal. Fifty years ago, sodomy could widely be (and was) punished by "corrective actions", such as forced lobotomies. For those of you unfamiliar with lobotomies, they are commonly performed by inserting an ice pick through a patient's skull and swirling it around in certain areas of the brain in hopes of destroying portions of the brain that induce "deviant behavior".

America is a nation where (well, with the exception of San Francisco), being in public showing bare breasts (unless one is nursing an infant), genitalia, or one's rear end is grounds for lewdness arrest, but carrying a loaded gun visibily on one's hip is legal and acceptable.

America is a nation where a seventeen-year-old who convinces his seventeen-year-old girlfriend to send him a nude picture of herself has committed a felony (United States Code Title 18, Part I, 2251).

America is a nation where it is perfectly legal for an Olympic swimmer and lifeguard to stand by a pool and point, yelling insults and mocking, as someone drowns.

America is a nation where we cannot expose nipples, but we cheer on invading Afghanistan to "free women from the burka" and promote other human rights.

America is a nation that values free political speech, as long as it isn't:

(a) in Iraq and in opposition to the invasion (freedom of press was one of the first things removed from Iraqis, and newspapers and the only available television station were shut down for being critical of the invasion).

(b) Involving presidential candidates debating other than Bush or Kerry.

(c) Involve any Islamic advocacy. A student volunteer forum webmaster visiting the United States was charged with terrorist activities for running Islamic websites. The other side is well represented and permitted to operate, however -- consider the following quotes from this single forum thread:

My vote is that if they nuke us, we don't bother asking exactly where the bomb came from. Instead we turn ALL the likely sponsor nations into radioactive parking lots. The we tell the rest of the Islamic nations that if they don't get rid of their own terrorists, they will face the same thing.
*** ...I agree with your nuclear solution with one addition. As we find out the names of the people involved, we hunt down and kill every son, daughter, aunt, uncle, and every other relative they have on the entire planet right on out to the 8th cousin.

Payback isn't payback unless they continue to hurt for a long, long time. As each father, mother, and child is assasinated, it will be very hard for anyone to celebrate the conspirators as martyrs.

The message would be, "We won't only roast your damned nation. We will kill every last person on earth you ever cared about."
***
I take it one step further - desroy Mecca and Media. That's right nuke their holy lands - get rid of them and than start destroying the mosques. Sprinkle their lands with pig blood. We might as well face it - this is a holy war against us supported by Muslims (look at the

Re:America is a nation...

[haluness]

That thrad that you quote is *very* scary. I mean, this could be easily the 'terrorists' describing what they want to do to the Western world.

It all boils down to the fact that there are fanatics everywhere - Middle East, US, Asia, Europe and from every religion. Why all the Christian fundamentalism is OK (here in the US) but Islamic fundamentalism is beyond me.

Frankly it smacks of arrogance (and illiteracy). But then thats characteristic of the US (and much of western civilization)

Re:America is a nation...

[be-fan]

:: picks chin off floor ::

Who thinks, that if the shoe were on the other foot, it's these same people that would be on TV, beheading innocent captives? /hides under bed

A study on porn and relationship to sex crime

[0x0d0a]

Anyone with interest on the subject owes it to themselves to read this paper, which examines Japan's case. Pornography, Rape, and Sex Crimes in Japan

Japan underwent a massive swing from one of the most conservative nations with respect to pornography to one of the most liberal, and extremely accepting of fetishes. There was a corresponding *decrease* in sex crimes.

This isn't such a bad means of policy control

[jdmce2002]

Remember in all of this, that government isn't an inherently bad thing. Government, when it works right, is the collective will of the people. Of course, when it doesn't work right it can become an oppression of one segment of the population by another. All governments, even democracies, are located somewhere in this continuum. I kind of like the idea of using an economic incentive for enforcement because it is a proxy for the will and motivation to succeed. The Chinese government is putting its money where its mouth is. If they really don't want pornography, they're going to have to pay for it an amount proportionate to how much the public wants, or doesn't want, to go along with the policy.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

BULLSHIT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that a nuclear war was only averted because a single Russian submarine commander decided not to fire a missile. JFK very, very nearly destroyed the entire world.

To be honest, I had no idea about it. Could you please provide some links to read more about it, preferably on Wikipædia? Because, quite frankly, until then, I call bullshit. Thanks.

I'm going to be rich!!

[Fuzzums]

This sounds really good, From now on I'll find out where all those porn-servers in my spams are located.

1) receive spam.
2) locate server.
3) PROFIT!

How to make money off this

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Put a little soft-core on yahoo.com.
2. Report it.
3. Park a new domain pointing to your site
4. Report it.
5. Go to 3.

Deriving morality from first principle never works

[gyg]

It never ceases to amuse me how people try to derive pre-arranged moral conclusions from "reasonable" arguments. Take this one:

Attempts to externally enforce sexual morality are similarly founded on the survival of society.

What is society? Either it's just a bunch of people together, in which case its "survival" just kinda happens; or it's "the Society" of people who adhere to a rigid set of moral laws and tend to exclude people who don't - in which case, why give a hoot about its survival? Bring it down!

It used to be the principle on which premarital sex was sanctioned - it tends to create children in need of a home. It is also the principle on which gay marriage should not be allowed.

Excuse me? Gay marriage tends to create children in need of a home? Or do you mean that gay couples adopting children tend to create children in need of a home?

parent IS insightful

[joggle]

Wish I had some mod points. I was just watching an interview with Jimmy Carter the other night. At one point, he mentioned that he took some solice in the fact (while he was an acting president) that even if he were to make a poor decision that there were other branches of the government that could correct his mistakes.

The government is basically designed to prevent 'slippery slopes' by being able to correct trends in other parts of the government. It isn't fool-proof, of course, but it is ever-present on the minds of many politicians and especially the judiciary. That's a big reason, IMO, why the US has had such a stable government for such a long period of time.

Working from home now...

[OptimoosePrime]

Get paid by the Chinese government to look at pr0n all day? There is more than enough porn sites to make a decent living at this.

Re:Deriving morality from first principle never wo

[Anonymous Coward]

actually if you understand english, "creates children in need of a home" goes with the sentence about premarital sex. it has nothing to do with the sentence about gay marriages.

Modern Patriot

[Tablizer]

"Give me porn, or give me death!"

Good thing 9/11 never happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Bush did say many things before 9/11, that he didn't adhere to afterwards. Changing circumstances call for changing plans.

Heck, if you were planning on buying a huge house and a sports car, and then lost your job, you'd be stupid to go ahead with those plans and risk losing it all, right? So why is that smart, but when President Bush changes directions because of mass murder on American soil, that's deceitful?

Why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would powerful male atheists trying to limit human reproduction (one child per family) try to stop people from obtaining masturbation aids ?

1. They are powerful, this can not possibly affect their own personal happines level. If they just want an excuse to keep people down there are surely plenty of better alternatives.

2. They are male and thus understand the male drive. Some women are against pornography because they just don't understand the male requirement for release.

3. They are atheists, so there is no holy book or religious dictum to make them act stupid.

4. China is DEAD serious about limiting its population. Shouldn't they be PROMOTING masturbation?????

No, this is not a riddle. And don't tell me the Chinese leadership is dumb or ignorant or some such thing - they are not.

Is traditional Chinese family values THAT powerful on mainland China??? Do you have a better guess as to why??

Real Chistianity:

[Anonymous Coward]

For Christians, true morality begins when God changes the heart, and transforms from the inside, and finally manifests itself in external behaviour. World peace will never be achieved until Christ returns to destroy this universe and move all those who have been internally transformed to a new heavens and a new earth. (In some interpretations, there is first a period of 1000 years of externally enforced peace on this Earth with Christ as the ruler - which ultimately fails, proving the need to destroy this world and start over).

Christians who think that true morality can be externally imposed are heretics. The heresy is called "legalism" or "phariseeism" after the Jewish sect prominent in the New Testament. A more subtle mistake Christians make is to think that they, as an individual, can transform their own lives by imposing a set of rules on themselves. This is no more effective than having the government do it - the result is an annoying "holier than thou" attitude. In Christian doctrine, the process of becoming truly righteous must begin with a supernatural internal change initiated by God Himself.

Bravo !! This is the Christianity I was raised to believe (American Protestant independent). I am now an Atheist as I no longer believe in a God of any kind. But there is a lot of wisdom in the Bible and in religion, and its a darned shame that VALUES are not taught in American public schools (and either prayer or meditation - each child should learn and do one or the other or both).

Re:Real Chistianity:

[hesiod]

> its a darned shame that VALUES are not taught in American public schools

Thankfully, you are not in charge. "Values" is completely subjective & I would sue any public school district that tried to force my children to think there is a definitive set of values that are right & wrong.

ross perot

[Anonymous Coward]

How "Crazy" is he?
Comedians and Perot's critics routinely brand him as "crazy", and Ross himself acknowledged the charges, rather gracefully, by dancing with his wife to the tune of Patsy Cline's song "Crazy" in the last election. It's such a broad term as to mean nothing; no one is saying he belongs in a mental institution.

So IS he crazy? And what does that mean? None of us are psychiatrists, but a close look at Perot shows four traits that do in fact alienate him from reality. He is obsessive, delusional, paranoid and never wrong (in his own mind.) Like many conspiracy fans, he can explain away any unpleasant facts with "secret information" or conspiracies by his enemies.

His

obsessiveness

is evident in his focus on American POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War. He became concerned about them in the late 1960s, as a sincere and fervent supporter of the Vietnam War. He led a quixotic mission with food and other goods for American POWs in North Vietnam, which failed due to opposition from that country, Moscow and even Washington (after Perot refused to go along with Nixon Administration PR goals.) Fair enough.

But Perot has remained convinced ever since that large numbers of POWs are being hidden in Asia, despite massive evidence to the contrary. (In fact, there is strong evidence that most of the MIAs weren't even missing; they were shot down while flying illegal missions over Cambodia, Laos, etc. and the government called them MIAs rather than admit the missions.)

The Reagan Administration even gave him access to top secret classified documents in an attempt to answer his relentless criticism of them for not bringing the MIAs back, but Perot only saw what he wanted to, and remains unconvinced. In fact, this was the origin of his feud with George Bush; as VP Bush drew the unpleasant job of telling Perot they were cutting off his top secret clearance, and Perot typically started a no-holds-barred feud with Bush, which in part led to Bill Clinton's election.

Delusional
One of Ross' most dangerous traits is his unwillingness to admit facts he doesn't want to believe. If someone does this in an argument, but they know they are not right, we call them a liar. Ross does not seem to be a liar, though he says untruths. Instead, he refuses to believe the information he doesn't like. He changes his perception, not the reality, and this is the most "crazy" of his well known traits.

His own son, Ross Jr., says "If he thinks he is right, that's all that matters." (Posner, p128). There are many examples. Perot has his company's headquarter's grass spray-painted green during Dallas' dry spells. (p91) When some employees who had won the company's "Recruiter of the Year" award left EDS, Perot wanted to erase their names from the engraved plaque.

EDS briefly lost their biggest contract to a competitor, Bradford, at one point. Perot told his board "They are crooks! They bribed someone and we will find out who!" EDS's president, Mort Myerson, replied "I know one of their executive vice-presidents, and it's on the up and up." Perot's response was "That's the kind of soft-headed thinking that makes EDS lose business." (The company won the contract back with an effort combining political pressure, lawsuits, and an attack team that followed Bradford executives and the state officials who awarded the contract, dug up dirt on them, videotaped some Bradford officials with prostitutes, etc.) (Posner, p127-138).

Paranoia
Perot's paranoia is pretty well known, due to his announcement in 1992 that he was quitting the presidential race (in which he was a very strong contender) because Republican's were planning to disrupt his daughters wedding (by forging photos of phony lesbian sex.) But it has long been typical of him.

He thinks he lost his 1993 debate to Al Gore because Gore had a hidden earpiece, through which he was being fed answers, or possibly questions. (Posner, p330). While he was serving on a Texas anti-drug commission in the early 1980s,

idealists and the unreasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is scary. No wonder the country is
screwed up if people have given up on the concept of absolutes all together.

Sure Lenin, Mao, etc. all believed in what they
did, but so did Martin Luther King and Harriet
Tubman. Effective change has never come by people
who only believe in shades of grey. Why would
they bother?

Idealists and the unreasonable CHANGE THE WORLD.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

Re:idealists and the unreasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

The ambidextrous do both :)

Actually this is a great idea!!!!

[Adolph_Hitler]

The USA could do the same thing to stop kiddie porn, pay people to report it!

they c ould

[Anonymous Coward]

but you wouldnt listen

new business model?

[yo5oy]

1. set up porn site.
2. turn yourself in for reward.
3. ??? profit???
4. prison

The Internet for social change

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it sad that people have not discovered the fact that the internet is a massive opportunity to break down and replace the old restrictive layers (companies, countries, religions, races, etc.) which separate human experience. It seems that entities desperate to maintain their identity have reacted to the free flow of information on the internet with mostly scorn, anger, and even fear. They either try to pretend that the internet is no different then the way things were done before in the real world, or they enforce their own, selfish barriers. Instead of embracing new ways for content to be distributed and authors connect with their fans, corporations/media pass laws to restrict and control their "intellectual property". Profit before freedom. Instead of discovering the vast variety of ideas/information on the internet, which allows a person to change and grow, countries restrict control so that they can keep their population constrained in whatever perfect little moral bubble they see fit to describe. Socialism/brainwashing before freedom.

I'm NOT saying the internet is some kind of utopia that requires that things like property, identity, and category go away. What I am saying is that the internet is a kind of mirror into how much confusion and pain we've created in the world by unnecessarily trying to seperate people into different groups, groups which have no basis in reality, and which blind us to how connected we all really are.

Unfortunate it seems, that those in power would do everything possible to stop the internet from giving the power of information to normal people.

Thanks Ayn Rand

[autopr0n]

Now, go crawl back into your whole.

Better bust out the legal pad, then boyo

[autopr0n]

Schools teach tons of values. With a particular emphasis on Multiculturalism, Drug free living, and soforth.

Re:Better bust out the legal pad, then boyo

[hesiod]

> Schools teach tons of values. With a particular emphasis on Multiculturalism, Drug free living, and soforth.

True, although I don't believe it's their place to push those values either. They are there to teach the kids facts & the most common interpretations of those facts. It's not there to hold a drug rally. Multiculturalism should automatically arise through knowledge.

And in other news...

[cmdrwhitewolf]

"It is has been discovered that these communist leaders are financially backed by Bush's Moral Majority League, and the Porn Site operators feel particularly duped by a fellow named Oral Roberts..."

Re:OFF-TOPIC-RANT

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, he hasn't been heard of since 'the incident'.

On China, the news item of 2 kids run down by a train, the party blamed online gaming (fatigue).
This was used to help justify the crackdown on wayward internet cafe's.

Does anyone else wonder what games the kids were playing for so long? Or even if there weren't playing games at all, that the train was no accident? Not that I'm suggesting suicide at all, but the party must have found the kids at some stage (after or before the time of death).

Re:Deriving morality from first principle never wo

[gyg]

But the argument against gay marriage was drawn in analogy to something else: It is also the principle on which gay marriage should not be allowed. Unless the principle in question refers to the previous sententce, as I assumed, I think it can only refer to The healthy growth and development of children is best promoted by a stable two parent family. Which has exactly the same bearing on the issue of gay marriage as the premarital sex sentence.
So my point stands - pro-child arguments are either irrelevant to the issue of gay marriage or actually support it if thought out logically; and dumping all your favorite values into a vague pro-society pro-child ramble heap, while trying to make it look like a reasonable argument, is confused.

Indymedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Slashdot so eager to publish stories of censorship in China whilst ominously ignoring those in the west.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/37327 18.stm

Porn Laws

[webcite1]

Just bring the, so called, "Leaders" the real live (POOR) teenagers for a dinner and a "date". Right!!

Re:Islam

[CustomDesigned]

I did use the words "subject to" - which is the same as what you are saying in English. However, you say that this submission is "to God alone", whereas I characterized this submission as external to an Islamic government. The word by itself can't tell us which of these understandings is correct. I base my understanding by observing what Muslims have done or attempted to do throughout history.

Of course, similar observations of the actual behaviour of self proclaimed Christians by other posters in this thread have led them to conclude that Christianity is a similarly legalistic system despite explicit doctrine to the contrary in Old and New Testament and formal statements of doctrine from both Catholics and Protestants.

Are you claiming, like President Bush, that the Islam requiring forced submission of the whole world to an Islamic state is an aberration? And that the true Islam is one of internal submission to God alone? Can you quote an Islamic cleric that supports your view?