Slashdot Mirror
Social Networking Spurs Activism Against Repression
The New York Times Magazine is running a story about the rise in political activism in Egypt through sites like Facebook, which allow citizens to gather and share ideas in ways they otherwise aren't allowed. A state-of-emergency law has been active in Egypt since 1981, which, among other things, "allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government." As affordable internet access has spread throughout the country, the government is having a much harder time keeping wraps on the ideas of dissidents. Blocking access to the sites isn't a good solution for the government, because many non-dissidents use it for mundane communications. As Harvard's Ethan Zuckerman puts it, "...doing so would alert a large group of people who they can't afford to radicalize."
Translation:
The people living there, if given the freedom to decide their own fate might decide to do do something I don't approve of.
Hence only I deserve such rights.
The ideas they espouse are disgusting, and yet they manage to obtain web hosting services in the United States.
Of course, it would be even more disgusting if they were not allowed to get a website BECAUSE of their ideas.
To paraphrase Churchill, free speech is the worst form of public discourse, except for all the others that have been tried.
Look, if we could censor only those people who advocate "religious rule, genocide, or similar," that would be great ... but who gets to decide what falls into those categories? You? Me? Glorious Leader? No, that's too personal. How about a committee of anonymous bureaucrats? Hey, I like that idea -- we could give it a catchy name, like, say, "The Committee for Public Safety," or maybe, "The Committee for State Security." Because that always works out so well.
There is no one person, and no group of people, good and wise enough to be entrusted with that kind of power. Good people, with the best of intentions, given the authority to decide what kind of political speech is and is not acceptable, will inevitably turn that power to evil. One day they're locking up the obvious loons, the next day they're locking up the maybe-loons, and by the third day it's anyone who disagrees with censors in the slightest. Because how can you disagree with us? We're Good! Good people don't do Bad things! If you disagree, you must be Bad!
Free speech is messy. It's often unpleasant. Sometimes it's actively dangerous. But the alternative is worse.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Not at all. Get your priorities in line, man. It is MORE important that people survive than that they're free.
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom".
Or in the South Park version:
"Gobble, gobble gobble gobble, gobble gobble gobble gobble, gobble, gobble gobble, GOBBLE!!!"
And I seem to recall a gang of rebels, oh-when-was-that-around-1776-I-think, who'd rather die at the hand of their oppressors than pay taxes if they didn't have seats in the government.
And I'm sure you can find other historic examples of people willing to die for freedom.
Just something to consider...