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British Video Recordings Act 1984 Invalid
chrb writes "BBC News is reporting that the British Video Recordings Act 1984 is invalid due to a 25 year old legal blunder. The Thatcher government of the day failed to officially "notify" the European Commission about the law, and hence it no longer stands as a legal Act. There will now be a period of around three months before the Act can be passed again, during which time it will be entirely legal to sell any video content without age-rated certifications."
What are we going to do with it?
Can a British lawyer please tell me at what point notification of the European Commission became a requirement for an Act of Parliament to become legally binding? Surely such a surrender of sovereignty was exactly the sort of thing Thatcher opposed?
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
So when society DOESN'T collapse into anarchy, are they going to realize this law was idiotic and unnecessary and not pass it again?
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
When the British Video Recordings Act 2009 is passed, it will be more restrictive than the original 1984 verson. I mean, why would any good centre-right, middle-class courting, focus-group driven pack of fear-mongers pass up a perfectly good opportunity for a moral panic? Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"Existing convictions will stand"
In other words "existing convictions will collapse as soon as they are challenged in court, but let's lie about this and hope that everyone believes us".
If all of the judges in the land believe it is within their power to continue with the lie and refuse to hear appeals based on this, guess what happens?
Thats not how we do it in the UK mate. Here we make as many laws as possible, criminalizing as many people as we can. This so that when we decide we don't like them anymore there's a quick exit waiting. It also makes it easier for the police to root out the bad guys. When everybody has committed at least one crime, gives them leverage.
This was an embarressing oversight, normal service will be resumed shortly.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
I'm glad you've been marked "troll" because you're flat wrong.
Time-and-time again laws have been declared unconstitutional and the prisoners freed (see my previous post filled with quotes). Just watch Henry Fonda's excellent movie "Gideon" for an example which is about a real man who stood-up against tyranny, and won.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What are you talking about? Britain doesn't even have a constitution.
No problemo. They can take ours. We're sure not using it.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I think Tom Lehre said it best in his song called Smut.
I do have a cause though. It is obscenity. I'm for it. Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it owing to the nature of the laws as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on but we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days I have here a march for mine. It's called...
Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut,
If it's uncut,
and unsubt- le.
I've never quibbled
If it was ribald,
I would devour where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he
acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."
Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.
(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties,
samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers,
Lurid, licentious, and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
(Let's face it, I love slime.)
All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan,
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will,
If it is swill
And really fil
thy.
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all
away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words,
Smut! (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut,
I don't know what
Compares with smut.
Hip hip hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Yes, because this is SUCH an emergency. Kids will turn into goat slaughtering satanist child molesters INSTANTLY because of this, mark my words!
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress