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Finnish Minister Wants To Expand Pornography Censorship
New submitter jdela writes "Finnish Minister for Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson backs expanding FInland's child pornography blocklist to also include websites with animal porn and largely-undefined 'violent pornography.' Her proposal does not have the unanimous backing of the Finnish government, with Minister of Interior Päivi Räsänen doubting the need to expand pornography blocks. Under current law, adopted in 2006, the Finnish NBI maintains a blocklist of foreign sites linked to child pornography. This blocklist is enforced on Finnish Internet users."
the way to hell is paved with good intentions
animal porn
Watch out, Finnish bronies.
Päivi Räsänen
Ok, now that's just umlaut abuse.
Define animal porn. Will Animal Planet be banned?
Says who? It's sexual freedom at the very least which is a form of free speech. Having undefined "violent" pornography one could easily find consensual BDSM, rough sex, rape play, homosexuality and other sexual acts which are very normal.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I think animals should be able to watch whatever they wish...
well the problem is what happens if you decide to make a semipolitical comic blog featuring a family of Vulpine Anthromorphs??
Would you land up on the block list if a comic featured a pool scene (with the young daughter in the pool) and the Father had a shovel/rake/bat in his hand??
but anywho
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_amendment
the text in question is
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
and says NOTHING about political speech
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This Slashdot submission is about Finland. It's a different country. Different countries have different consitutions. The First Amendment to the US Constitution does not have any legal force in Finland.
So you can't get animal porn and violent porn. Are you missing anything important?
I don't need animal porn on the Internet, I can just observe my cats and dogs in the privacy of my home. As for "violent", well, they bite sometimes.
Ezekiel 23:20
The blocklist is a joke that can be circumvented with a minimal effort, largely consisting of dead sites, legal(mostly gay) porn of various flavors and some real head-scratchers like this: http://lapsiporno.info/
That is a page that analyzes and critizises the blocklist itself. It's now removed from the blocklist, but only after an arduous court battle. There is also some info in english.
I agree in that.
However, pornography isn't speech. It's an entertainment product.
If someone were writing books about how we should be able to violently love animals, that would be speech and should be protected.
That's different from a bunch of people wanting their deviant porn, approval of which would suggest approval of deviancy and thus marginalize those of non-deviant lifestyles.
Define animal porn.
Female human, Muppet drummer.
This Slashdot submission is about Finland. It's a different country. Different countries have different consitutions. The First Amendment to the US Constitution does not have any legal force in Finland.
This comes as a shock! Time for US to invade Finland?
:-) Nice one!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Let's think about this. They're looking at expanding an anti-child porn blacklist to include animal porn and "violent" porn. Unless they're referring to young animals or violence against kids, this is no longer a child porn issue. At this point it's just a matter of a block being put in place because the subject matter offends someone using the umbrella of "think of the children". Never seen that one before!
Define pornography then. It's easy to slide from repulsive stuff to weird stuff to kinky stuff to vanilla stuff to any sex stuff to nudity to romance to clothing and social situations.
IMHO, if it is between consenting adults, it should be allowed to happen, and to be filmed. That does rule out child porn, and I'm not sure about animals (I'm not a fan of that kind of porn, but then, animals probably prefer doing that to going to the slaughterhouse). As for violent porn, what I've seen was very obviously fake and consensual. I'm assuming anything really hurtful would fall in the "non-consensual" category ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
This is a drawn comic, right? Like in the Mike Diana case?
I think the point is that filmed pornography and written/drawn content are quite different and merit different rules.
I always wondered about the sanity of the jurists who convicted Mike Diana, since his comics were obviously very fringe and not purely for prurient gratification. Same way with the court cases for Ulysses and Naked Lunch
Those however had something of literary importance to contribute. Porn contributes nothing. It's another product.
mind giving us the Chapter and Verse for the Finnish version??
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So you can't get animal porn and violent porn. Are you missing anything important?
If anything, this act is pure sanity by defining "free speech" not as any speech, but as political speech, which was most likely the original intent.
Pornography isn't speech.
If the girl is wearing US flag stud earrings, it's political speech. Hell, if she's even thinking about her tax return while blowing the guy, it's political speech.
Otherwise, who gets to define what is politica,l protected speech and what is not?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
Indeed. And I find your willingness to arbitrarily define things as "not speech" to be deeply unhealthy. For my children's sake, please go offline immediately.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The law actually says the list is supposed to be used against sites outside Finland. Not sites residing in Finland. And even then this particular site has no child porn on it. And why would you block a local site ineffectively when you can just go and take the server out?
Remember the censorship and blacklist has been in use for years. Matti Nikki found out that many of the sites are totally within laws and has been compiling a list of them. Curiously, many of the false positives contained gay porn.
This story is about expanding the censorship, but it's already being used to block other than child porn sites. I'm not quite sure about the situation nowadays but originally there was no way for you to file a complaint about ending up on the list. If I recall correctly, Matti Nikki found out that apparently the police compiling a list does not constitute an official ruling, so there's no way to complain about it.
You know the major ISPs in Finland already block The Pirate Bay? It's painful for me to say, but the good thing in TPB block is that at least it got done by a court order. One way or another, sites like lapsiporno.info and TPB are going to get blocked. Then there are the online casinos, "extremists" and you know, all the Bad guys(tm)...
Tapio 'itn' Nuutinen
Think of the animals!
I thought Finland was one of those "free" countries that we always hear about.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
Yes, no unhealthy behaviours like homosexuals, mixed races, ugly people, fat people.
Do you have any science for your definition of "healthy behaviours"? I know that God killed many kittens for my behavior, but my behavior isn't unhealthy: God's reaction is.
... Finland was seen as the world leader in free and open internet communication? This would be bad news anywhere, but coming from .fi it's particularly sad.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Here's the Finnish constitution, translated into English. I haven't read it all, but it doesn't seem to say a lot about freedom of speech other than in the context of the parliament.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
It seems like you've made a political decision here, which is that every behavior should be accepted.
Not everyone agrees.
Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
And here we have a perfect example of someone willing to impose their viewpoints on others while bristling at the thought of others exposing him to things he thinks are "bad". What a hypocritical control freak that doesn't have a clue what he's proposing.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I 100% agree with blocking ALL child porn, it's a horribly offensive and wrong media type. However even though I don't take part in Animal or Violence porn they don't fundamentally violate the rights of a non defend-able group. I don't think it's right to block access to something which isn't fundamentally wrong.
The child porn blocking is enforced only on DNS servers. It is not mandatory, so ISP may opt not to block traffic. And of course you can run your own name servers (provided your ISP does not block port 53) even if your ISP blocks child porn.
I would assume in "circles" it is known how to circumvent this blocking. And I guess many will use TOR or some VPN to hide their tracks. DNS-level blocking just makes it more difficult to police to pick the "easy ones" who would not use any hiding techniques if everything would just work by default.
And DNSSEC breaks with DNS blocking, as designed.
The same happened in Denmark.
The DNS blacklist was introduced as a "BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN!11!" (and with a "it will only be used to block child pornography" reassurance). Fast forward to now, and it's being used to block online-gambling, pharmaceuticals, The Pirate Bay and more. There's no warning, no legal process, the list is secret, the domains are not reviewed, and a leak sometime showed that it contained domains not even covered in the above - it was recently used to block a site for alleged trademark violation.
At least it's just a DNS blacklist. For now.
Presumably animal porn and violent porn are important to people who access them since they do so. Simply disagreeing on the importance of particular material is not justification to deny others access to it, nor is finding it personally distasteful.
Since we have a politician pushing for a law denying access to specific materials, these materials have been politicized, even if they weren't political originally. Anna-Maja just made posting pony porn a political act. I'm sure the various imageboards will be extremely pleased with her.
Accessing or hosting pornography is communication, and it's dangerous to start excluding forms of communication from being (free) speech, since what's to stop the tyrant from excluding anything he won't want discussed?
But even ignoring that argument, just why do you think either you or a politician should have any say in what third parties are allowed to communicate to one another? Who are you to judge something important or unimportant on someone else's behalf?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Isn't that what you're doing to me?
"Accept animal sex, or you're a fascist!"
You're joking, right? or are you 13?
Section 12 - Freedom of expression and right of access to information
Everyone has the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate and receive information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone. More detailed provisions on the exercise of the freedom of expression are laid down by an Act. Provisions on restrictions relating to pictorial programmes that are necessary for the protection of children may be laid down by an Act.
Documents and recordings in the possession of the authorities are public, unless their publication has for compelling reasons been specifically restricted by an Act. Everyone has the right of access to public documents and recordings.
Actually I would call you being very close to Taliban and well the Taliban are a control group. (also the iranian revolutionary guards are!)
If you want to have no unhealthy behaviour you actually need to extingush all unhealthy behaviour or what you define it as.
And when it comes to death penalty, most pro-lifers become very con-life.
And the funny thing is you actually speak "NAZI" language, and perhaps you have been acused of being a facist more often (judging by your post history)- but wrongly a facist is the inbetween of oligarchy and government - however you expressions are discriminating - HOWEVER you are free to do so thanks to FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
HOWEVER we - the liberal anti control group - use our freedom of speech to show you the darkness and evil which lies in your soft toned words.
Any law like this, no matter how well intentioned, becomes used for something else and gets expanded.
Who wouldn't object to child porn being blocked? Who wouldn't object to violent porn being blocked? Who wouldn't object to animal porn being blocked? Who wouldn't object to gay porn being blocked? Who wouldn't object to all porn being blocked?
These things seem to pretty much always go through scope creep in the worst possible way.
It becomes the morality clause.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In older times, movies were subject to censorship.
The history is long and involved, a struggle between powerful parties, but the long-and-short of it was that many state and local "censorship boards" would cut movie scenes which were below the community moral standards.
Predictably, this led to inconsistent views applied across wide geographic areas - censors bragging about how they had cut "the kiss" from "Gone With The Wind", and so on. ("You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.")
The end result was a mess. No two areas saw the same movie, artists complained bitterly about the integrity of their vision, movie makers were discouraged from breaking new ground and so on.
Around the 1960s the movie industry adopted a saner approach: allow any movie to be made, and assign content ratings so that people know what to expect.
That put the decision of "what to see" in the hands of the individual viewer - it neatly sidesteps the conflicting viewpoints of community standards. Everyone gets the freedom to make their own decisions, there is no need for centralized control. Community standards are what the community chooses to see.
===================
Perhaps we should adopt a ratings standard for pornography. With computers and the internet, a ratings system should be straightforward; for example, with four levels of explicit and some attached categories for style.
The porn industry might welcome such a standard: it would help their customers better navigate the topics, and reduce accidental outrage. It would present a framework for automated control at a personal level; ie - parents can set the computer to prevent displaying sites/movies with certain ratings to the kids.
The only debate would be in assigning (and enforcing) the ratings.
With a clearly defined set of descriptions, that's a much simpler task than censoring the internet.
And you've made a political decision by saying it's up to you to decide what should be accepted.
Some of us don't give a crap about your kids -- we don't wish them harm, but the existence of your children should not be a short cut to abridging the rest of our rights. Raise your children however you like, but you don't get a vote on how the rest of us live our lives.
And if you're so deluded to believe that you will ever exist in a world where only healthy behavior exist ... you're a little out of touch with reality.
Yes, it's called their own homes and lives, and you can mind your own damned business. Nobody is asking you to participate in any of this stuff ... but if you think it's your right to tell others what they can and can't do, you're mistaken.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
/signed another parent
I've seen suppression and repression backfire over and over again, including with regard to my own parents' handling of me. When you make something as basic and integral as human sexuality a secret, taboo thing, it drives anybody with initiative and intelligence straight into it. I took it as a personal insult that fundamental knowledge was being hidden from me, so around the age of 10 I started a clandestine campaign to learn everything I could on sexuality. I was reading sexual self-help books in public libraries (this was before the internet was common) before puberty, riding my bike to convenience stores to scope out the smut mags, etc. Not because of peers, or "the sexualized media" or any of the bullshit moralists decry, but because of my parents' own apparent disrespect for me. I wouldn't stand for it, and, as an adult and parent now, I can realize that it was an unhealthy way for me to have explored human sexuality, alone and indignant.
If a child is old enough to ask an honest question, they are old enough for an honest answer. That has been the lesson I learned from my parents' mistakes, and the philosophy I've lived by as a parent myself. The goal of parenthood is to make children as responsible as possible as quickly as they are up to the task. Children must know in order to understand, and understanding is the only way they can build a framework to live in the real world responsibly and safely. Prohibition and proscription DO NOT WORK. Each person, and children *are* people, must develop in themselves informed reasons as to why certain behaviors are not healthy for them. They cannot be made proxies for the mores and tastes of others by rote indoctrination, at least, not for long. Doing that sort of thing is like coiling a spring, and as soon as they break out on their own, all of that is very likely to explode, and some don't actually survive the experience.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
And how do you define 'healthy'? Wanting to exile everyone different from you seems pretty unhealthy to me.
Do you have some science for that?
No, but enough anecdotes to be confident of the outcome of any study that would look into this. The exception would be homosexuality, which has been widely studied and found to be very normal - both in external behavior, as well as frequency across time, religions, social structures, genders and even species.
It seems like you've made a political decision here, which is that every behavior should be accepted.
No, the decision here is that behavior which has no visible impact on society at large should be accepted, and not be subject to random moral and religious whims.
Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
Define healthy. Now compare and contrast that definition with the one from 10, 20, 30, 40, 100, 500, 1000, 5000 years ago. Considering we're still around, I'm pretty sure that your definition of "healthy" is irrelevant to the advancement of mankind and society. Finally, you want your kid to grow up surrounded by only healthy behavior? I suggest you kill off every other human being, because that's the only way your vision is going to come to pass.
We want people to go experiment elsewhere, and face the consequences of their experiments without dragging us down with them.
Sweet! That's what we all want. Oh, you mean that "elsewhere" does not include the privacy of ones bedroom? Or consensual acts between adults?
Wow, so you're actually not at all saying that you're ok with people experimenting elsewhere. You actually want to control what people do. Here's a thought (and keep in mind you're a significant minority regarding your particular definition of "healthy"): move to an island somewhere, and be a control group there. Leave the rest of us to live our lives, and stop butting into consensual acts taking place between adults in a place you have no access to.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
If I may quote you: Do you have some science for that? Do you have science to show that homosexuality isn't a healthy behavior? Or that rough sex isn't? Or anything else on that list isn't? Because we have had a lot of research over the last decades to show that so called "deviancy" isn't unhealthy. It doesn't lead to social ills.
I think you protest too much...
What do you know I wrote a novel
Animal porn and violent porn are already illegal in Finland. Violent porn is obviously not completely undefined but it may be a bit unclear. I found a blog in Finnish with some references to clarifications. Violent porn that is "playful" or shows explicit consent is legal.
I don't think that Kielistic was trying to imply that you believe that homosexuality, mixed-race relations, etc are unhealthy or bad. S/he was pointing out that if you asked 10 different people what behaviour is unhealthy and should be banned, you would get 10 different answers. Who are you to decide that X should be banned, but Y should be allowed? Moreover, who are you to judge people who are considered by society's standards to be overweight?
May be she has acted in one of them and doesn't want the others to see it.
Define animal porn.
Humans are animals. To disagree would mean you don't grasp basic concepts like Plant vs Animal Kingdoms. Do you FUCK? Well, then you're an animal, and a video of humans practice-mating is thus animal porn. Bestiality is interspecies porn... They could have said interspecies porn. Oh, but white folks have Neanderthal DNA, so what then we outlaw the interracial porn too, eh?
Will Animal Planet be banned?
Who gives a fuck? You think banning anything actually keeps people from seeing it? Censorship laws are disgusting and ineffectual. They're simply the tools of a police state. The more stuff like this is illegal the more chance they'll find some excuse to throw you in jail if they don't have a legitimate reason, other than wanting you in jail.
To the folks who don't care if "Child Porn" or "Violent Porn", or "Animal Porn" is criminalized: Any web site you visit the world over could have a 1x1 pixel iframe that points to barnyard or kiddie porn, and your browser will happily download that smut without you ever even knowing it. This shit isn't hypothetical, this is what script kiddies do for fun when they get a XSS or SQL Injection exploit to work -- You don't even have to be going to anywhere in particular to get illegal 1's and 0's on your hard drives now. Why would they do this? Simple: Point out how Fucking Stupid Censorship Laws are to regular folks. Joe Sixpack won't fight back until they feel the boot of oppression at their own throats. Cleaned this crap off a client's Wordpress install just last week, wiped it out of few phpBB install a month before that. They had CP, and Snuff sites in the URLs. I don't condone or participate in such malicious behavior, but I can sure as hell understand their motives.
Now, go clean your web cache, you donkey molesting, murder masturbating, pedophiles. Don't forget to forensically shred the empty space on your drives to make sure it's really gone -- Got SSD? Bah, you better have already been running with whole drive encryption then. Oh your not a "pervert"? Are you sure that's what your Internet cache will always say? You trust the security of everywhere you go online? Oh sure, it was an "accident", you had no idea how that sort of illegal content got on your system. Then why do the logs show you regularly visited those perverse sites, at times when we know you were the only one at home to do so... Pray the site owners will back you up -- If you can even determine which ones they were in order to contact the sysadmins.
What a trivial and obvious "point," which defaults to an argument that health standards are arbitrary.
I contend they are not, especially in the case of obesity.
Even rudimentary data collection, doctors' experience, and so on, show us that obesity leads to health problems.
It's not an arbitrary choice.
The same is true of many other factors.
Claiming that reality is subjective is the oldest fallacy in human experience!
> Some of us want our kids to grow up in a world where only healthy behaviors exist.
What's unhealthy about homosexuality or BDSM? And why do you get to define what "healthy" and "unhealthy" are when it comes to sexual expression? Maybe I think your prudishness is more a threat to my children's well being than seeing a man have sex with another man, should I be able to censor your views?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Comparisons to various dictatorial ideologies are perfectly valid in a discussion about censorship. After all, controlling what is and is not allowed to be discussed is what allowed totalitarian ideologies to wield sufficient power to perform their atrocities, and the justifications to establish such censorship in the first place are similar to those used by those who want to censor pornography.
Pointing out that a politician is sounding like a fascist is not an ad hominem, it is a perfectly valid political argument.
This, on the other hand, is an ad hominem. And one that hints that you are still unsure of your own status as an adult, for why else would you instinctively assume that an unknown audience would assign any importance on whether they're thought to be at least on their mid-teens or not?
That made no sense whatsoever.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"If you want to have no unhealthy behaviour you actually need to extingush all unhealthy behaviour or what you define it as.
And when it comes to death penalty, most pro-lifers become very con-life."
its very simple
1 Existing is not a Capital Crime
2 And Shepherds We Shall Be: for some things you do you do not need to continue existing
(see The BoonDock Saints Courtroom speech for a discussion on this matter)
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Do you really think the world is this simple?
Allow everything then; now you've got maximal freedom and all our problems go away.
Right?
Oh -- that's not so. How could that be? It turns out that societies are defined by their values, not by allowing everyone to do everything (having no values).
The current dogma approved by your government, media and social group is that allowing any behavior is good, and restricting any behavior is bad.
But life isn't that simple, unless you're talking about a loyalty test to an authoritarian regime.
This blocklist does not make this problem of illegal child porn go away. Something needs to be done about it directly (taking the web sites in question down is a good start). The blocklist just makes it hidden. They do nothing to solve this criminal activity or prevent it. Something of that nature needs to be done. Current "solutions" are no solutions at all.
What she is suggesting does in fact not solve anything and never has solved anything.
Use the traditional test: is it only for prurient interest (titillation) or does it offer some other content?
The form of ad hominem:
"My opponent is an x, so his argument cannot be valid."
Here's your statement:
Totalitarian ideologies also prohibit murder; should we legalize murder then to avoid being totalitarian?
Your argument presupposes that the source of totalitarianism is censorship, when in fact the source of totalitarianism is total state control.
Similarity in argument doesn't make a valid comparison.
Then you reveal for the second time you don't recognize the ad hominem format. This is the statement you claimed was an ad hominem attack:
Doesn't fit the form. An ad hominem of the same would be:
"This guy is 13, so his argument can't be valid."
There was nothing in that post that can be described as an "ad hominem" attack, or even as an attack of any kind. As for obesity being 'normal', I suggest you take a look around you. The word 'normal' doesn't mean "they way we want things to be", it means "the way things are".
I realize you're probably just typing in a meme by reflex action, but here's the definition:
Now let's look at the rest of what you typed:
The point is that many of us don't want to live in a society where deviancy is the accepted norm. Legalizing animal porn takes that away from us.
I summarized your statement in the title, and turn it around on you:
You're telling me I have to live around animal porn in a society that demands it be normal. Who gives you that right?
See: you're stupid.
Porn doesn't assault people online. It doesn't jump out from the shadows. Porn doesn't stalk people and attack them from behind. In fact, the viewer has to take some deliberate action to end up with porn on their screen. If porn itself isn't the problem, is it the children? Are they what we are trying to save? In that case wouldn't it be better to watch who goes to child porn sites and then investigate them to see if they are abusing children? Wouldn't that protect far more children than trying to ineffectually block porn sites? You CAN stop bank robbers by closing all the banks, but wouldn't that be a stupid solution?
You said:
In reference to my statement:
I'm going to just leave this here to show how radically different the two are.
Your entire argument rests on that misreading. I am sorry to inform you of this, but your argument just died.
I think it's interesting no one posted all the good things that were going to come of this. What you posted were fears (OMFG fascism) and somewhat circular reasoning about permissiveness.
No one mentioned anything good.
In substance, not much different than the original 1st amendment:
Basically, you can express any idea you want, no matter how unpopular.
It has never had any bearing on pornography, which isn't an idea. It's just entertainment.
I can sort of get banning animal porn as the animal is not able to consent, but I would be interested in hearing why is it ok to kill them but not ok to fuck them? As for "violent" sex, please define it and we can talk. If all the the actors involved are consenting adults then why would you ban it?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
First, your society is signaling to its own member that (x) is not just accepted behavior, but thus is recommended behavior. If we legalize eating raw octopus, we have said nothing is wrong with it; that puts it, in the binary of behaviors described by government, in the "approved" category by not being in the "disapproved category."
Whoa there. That's a big leap you made there. Allowed/Illegal is not the same as Recommended/Illegal. Pickup trucks are perfectly legal; does that make them government-recommended? No - they're just another option that's out there. Talking about your kids and dope: I'm pretty darn sure there are no laws against bad oral hygiene. Yet you still teach your kids to brush their teeth, no? Do government laws/lack of laws really have that much influence on what values you impart to your kids?
Second, that means more people are going to do it
This may or may not be a problem, based on #3.
Third, this means that all of us are going to experience the social consequences of it. We are all subsidizing it, in effect, even if we disagree with it.
Agreed. So what would be the social consequences? The social consequences of allowing pickup trucks on the road are a decreased average mileage of all automobiles and a general increase in air pollution. To what degree? How much benefit would banning them create? Is that benefit worth the loss of freedom involved in not letting people choose their own car? That's what you should have your debate on. Debate the consequences, great! But don't say that allowing pickup trucks imposes on the freedoms of everyone who wants to drive a subcompact, because that doesn't compute.
Fourth, you have eliminated my ability to have the society I want, which doesn't include it.
Tough. That's not how a free society works, because everyone wants something different out of society. A lot of people want a society without black people, but they don't have the freedom to live in a society without black people. There is no imposition going on there.
There are actions which are justifiably illegal. We restrict the freedom of pedophiles, of murderers, etc. We do that because of the societal consequences of their actions, as you stated above in point #3. So debate that. But please don't talk about "imposing". Nobody is restricting your actions or your freedoms by allowing something you don't approve of.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Not to disagree with you, nor even to suggest that you're a Democrat, but has anyone else noticed that sexual freedom seems to be the only kind of freedom Democrats still believe in?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Your #4 sounds much like the bigot's call for tolerant people to tolerate their intolerance.
And in your #3, do the social consequences suddenly pop into being when X is legalized? Usually X creates more problems when illegal and the problems can be addressed through legalization , as in the case of alcohol and pot.
Your 1 and 2 aren't well-supported either. Most parents tell their kids not to do all kinds of things that are legal, personally I had no idea that legality ever factored into it. Religious parents will burden their kids with tons of rules about things that are otherwise legal.
2 is a possibility and depends on what X is. If you legalize suicide I don't think the frequency will change.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Argument by appearance: found nowhere where the intelligent gather.
Because it's not arbitrary. Some things work better than others. A society of obese people is going to have health problems.
Further, you could argue that we need to break up into sub-societies for people to have their own standards. But that sounds awful like the states' rights argument the Confederates were advancing.
And yet most of the european countries, even if they dont say it outright or exactly as we do, have similar legal precedent and culturally accepted mores of similar individual freedoms. Many of those countries apply and their citizens expect rights very similiar if not identical to those Americans do, even if not explicitly spelled out. Our own constitution almost didnt spell them out, but then some folks decided they didnt trust anyone in power to not abuse something not explicitly stated.
Oh, and, here....Finland Constitution, Section 12:
Section 12 - Freedom of expression and right of access to information
"Everyone has the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate and receive
information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone. More detailed provisions on
the exercise of the freedom of expression are laid down by an Act. Provisions on restrictions relating to pictorial
programmes that are necessary for the protection of children may be laid down by an Act.
Documents and recordings in the possession of the authorities are public, unless their publication has for compelling
reasons been specifically restricted by an Act. Everyone has the right of access to public documents and recordings"
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Neither fits the form. Now you're arguing like an AOLer.
If ABC news dedicated its resources to publishing nothing but Nazi propaganda, and started gaining in popularity, would you have the same view?
Thank you for that addition. It's an important point. In the US, anyone with enough popularity can lobby for their propaganda to be taught in schools, which then causes large interest groups to drown out legitimate opinions.
It reminds me of something Stephen Pinker said in The Blank Slate, or maybe it was Socrates in The Republic. When something gets repeated enough, it builds inertia because people are personally terrified of not being part of the trend, and yet aren't brave enough to speak their minds otherwise, which is the one thing that could deliver them from their terror.
This has been discussed for a long time, create an XXX or PORN domain. Block all porn on .com .net .org, etc... and "encourage" those domains to be used. Then it'd be a snap for each individual household to block or allow that content. Just like if I don't want to see that stuff in the book store or video store, I just stay out of that area. Same idea for the internet.
I know it's not that black and white, b/c who decides what needs to be on the new domain .... but it's an idea to talk about anyway.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
You are telling me that it's great if someone wants to publish violent animal sex pornography; I am asking if the same applies to propaganda of another sort, and to make it interesting, presupposing that it was done with the force of commerce.
Actually, to look at it more clearly, you're arguing for people to create objectionable speech. I'm suggesting that it will change society in ways that may not be positive. To a bigot, their preaching of bigotry (let's pick a neutral target and say they are bigoted against global warming) is harmless to you. You, on the other hand, don't want to live in a society where that is the norm.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I want to be,
Pony trekking or camping,
Or just watching TV,
Finland, Finland, Finland,
It's the country for me.
You're so near to Russia,
So far from Japan,
Quite a long way from Cairo,
Lots of miles from Vietnam.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I want to be,
Eating breakfast or dinner,
Or snack lunch in the hall,
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
You're so sadly neglected,
And often ignored,
A poor second to Belgium,
When going abroad.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall,
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall,
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Finland has it all...
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I do think drug use is on par with what type of car you drive, in the sense that any debate on them should be focused on societal consequences rather than on a single person's belief system. A car that spews Sarin gas out the tailpipe would understandably be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I drive small cars and I object to SUVs because I don't like the way they look" would not be a valid reason to make SUVs illegal. Likewise a drug that turns anyone who uses it into a zombie should be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I have a value system that objects to it" would not be a valid reason.
The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values.
And nobody is compelling you to do so. You're not being compelled to do anything. But your value system does not extend to that random guy walking down the street, unless he's actively causing you or society harm.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Let's look at marijuana.
1. We legalize dope. You now have no reason to tell your kids not to do it, since gov't thinks it's OK..
Actually there are many reasons other than gov't thinks it's OK to support a parent telling their child(ren) to not do it, health being first and foremost.
2. People smoke more of it.
Citation needed.
3. Whatever social consequences of pot-smoking occur and we all pay for them instead of putting that money toward other things, like space exploration or ocean renewal.
Oh, you mean, like the costs of putting people in prison and paying to support them for non-violent offences that don't cause any more harm to society than offences related to legal activities like alcohol?
4. I lose the ability to live in a society where pot-smoking is not normal. I may want this for moral reasons, ethical reasons, or even scientific reasons. But either way, I'm deprived.
Deprived of defining society for me, instead of with me ... I say Hell Yeah to that. You don't get to choose for me when my choices don't bring harm to others!
You've fallen into a fallacy:
You're looking at a change in state of the law, not a change in state of society.
Either way, permission or denial, a change has been effected and that changes the overall experience of the society.
Calling it "freedom" (etc) is just a linguistic and political trope in this case, as it doesn't relate to the effect of what you're describing.
Permissiveness is not victimless. It is simply a change in status, much like denial. Thus, any condition is an imposition in effect.
Currently, our society has a bias in favor of permissiveness, using the "it's not a change to you" argument that you outlined above. However, this is fading, since people are seeing that all these permissive changes have long-term social consequences starting with the perception of approval.
Hope that cleared it up for you.
So we're talking about the forward progress of a free society; seriously, don't let the door hit you on the way out into your controlled, utopian society, I'll stick with allowing people to choose for themselves and their offspring when those choices don't adversely affect others.
Hope that cleared it up for you.
Allowing (x) to happen does several things: 1. Signals social approval of (x)
That is, unfortunately, a fundamental fallacy that our society has embraced.
"moral" and "legal" are not synonyms and should not be treated as synonyms. They are separate concepts. Something may be moral and legal, moral and illegal, immoral and legal, or immoral and illegal. If more people understood that the culture war wouldn't be so bloody and we would have a much freer society.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
So long as the bigot doesn't reach out and grab the object of his bigotry, then yes his intolerance should be tolerated. The bigot mustn't be allowed to force an unpleasant interaction, but neither should the person the bigot dislikes. Both should have the right to be left-alone by those with whom they disagree.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Finnish Minister Wants To Expand Pornography
Censorship.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
You're attempting to blame me for lacking wisdom while in a state of ignorance. For a child, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to wisely act while also being ignorant, hell, it's hard for a child to wisely act even with knowledge, but at least there is more rational case to be made for culpability/responsibility ("you knew better"). Parents are supposed to help children develop the circumspection and discernment necessary to approach things of which they are ignorant with some baseline of wisdom. What I had at age 10 was insufficient to the task and compounded by the fact that everybody around me was attempting to obstruct and suppress rather than enlighten and explain. It turned the effort into a battle, which is exactly what caused my 'overreach'. This is not a self-sourced catalyst no matter how hard you try to blame me. I, being an ignorant child at the time, did not have a framework in which to say to myself, 'I'm going to find out all the craziest shit' because I didn't even know what that was. My bumblings about were based on a elementary understanding of how to look for things and hearsay. So, your attempt to shift blame upon my child self is demonstrated false.
What I am doing as a parent is nothing like having 'no standards'. The primary difference is that I refuse, under any circumstances, to suppress information when asked a direct and specific question. From there, I certainly am not going to say to a child 'go do whatever'. I routinely proscribe activities I feel my daughter is incapable of doing based on my assessment of her maturity and competence. However, I not only have no illusions that those proscriptions on action are temporary, but as soon as I feel she's up to acting I tell her so. (In fact at such points I usually *mandate* that she start acting.)
Proscription cannot be treated as some kind of fire-and-forget solution to parenting, and I've seen that done both personally and to 3rd parties, frequently to great detriment (but that's the kids' fault, according to you). It further seems to be your attitude, since your hangups and repressions seem to range far afield to all manner of *adult* interactions.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Define violent porn.
Is it only where someone is being raped?
What if someone gets slapped?
What if someone is a bit enthusiastic and bites or scratches someone?
Where do you draw the line?
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
--
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a reward of US$50.00
FTFY
This space unintentionally left blank.
is finnished.
> Do you really think drug use is on par with what type of car you drive?
Yes. Personal choice mainly affecting the user, with some effect on those around them (depending on the specific drug, minimal in the case of marijuana)
> The main consequence is that it determines what type of society you live in: does it have standards and values, or not?
If 'standards and values' means your prohibiting me things because you disapprove of them, even though they don't directly harm you, then please keep them to yourself.
> The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values. That doesn't mean there are no rules or standards.
Rules preventing people from actively harming other people (rape, robbery, etc) are one thing. But you seem to think much wider rules than that are desirable, right? You value your right to 'live in a society where X is not normal', is that what you mean by standards? To me, that's naked, unjustifiable desire to control what other people do even when it's none of your fucking business, just because you say so.
If that's an essential part of your definition of a free society, sounds like you're the one who's confused.
LOL someone sounds a bit worried there.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Define animal porn.
Humans having sex with non-human animals.
Will Animal Planet be banned?
Don't be an idiot.
Look, if bestiality is illegal in your country, it is logical that animal porn is too. If you think bestiality should be legal, fine, try and convince your politicians to change the law if necessary.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Says who? It's sexual freedom at the very least which is a form of free speech. Having undefined "violent" pornography one could easily find consensual BDSM, rough sex, rape play, homosexuality and other sexual acts which are very normal.
Sexual freedom is not absolute, otherwise you would be free to torture, rape and murder someone if you got a sexual thrill out of it.
All the activities you mention are legal between consenting adults. Children and animals are not capable of informed consent, it's as simple as that.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make, but are you suggesting that animal and child porn should be freely available as an educational resource for children?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sure an animal can't really consent in any written or oral form, but if two humans are horny and want to fuck, they can go at it without each side having to totally confirm the other really, really wants to either.
That is a pretty feeble argument. Human beings can always say no. Animals can't.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Let's look at marijuana.
I wouldn't recommend that as a line of argument on slashdot. If there's one thing slashdotters like more than the freedom to watch child pornography (even though no one actually watches child pornography, of course) it's pot.
You're allowed to say that pot is safer than alcohol or tobacco, and has no physical or psychological long term effects, but that's it. Otherwise, you might as well say that Windows is a better OS than Linux.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values. That doesn't mean there are no rules or standards. If anything, you've shown why our society has become "un-free" with the adoption of forced pluralism.
I was sort of with you up to this point. But you're wrong here.
Pluralism doesn't say "as a minority Muslim/Jew you have to eat pork because the majority of people here enjoy bacon." It says "as a minority Muslim/Jew, you're free to choose not to eat pork despite the fact that the majority of people here enjoy bacon".
Now, if your views are that (say) homosexuality is appalling and should be illegal, tough, it's been decided by society that it's not. But no one's forcing you to have gay sex.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The Soviets tried that twice during WW II, it didn't go too well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
Short version for those who don't want to read the link: The Soviets lost both times, to the tune of well over 1.1 million casualties, compared to ~300k for the Finns.
It wasn't pretty.
Pointing out that a politician is sounding like a fascist is not an ad hominem, it is a perfectly valid political argument.
Not really, because "fascist" is used by most people as a vague term of abuse, especially on the internet where "liberal" can mean anything from "classical laissez faire capitalist" to "extreme left wing revolutionary" depending on who's using it.
Fascism in the proper Franco/Mussolini sense has fairly specific characteristics, e.g. see here for a quickly googled list which looks about right.
Simply approving of a partial restriction on absolute freedom of speech and action does not make you a fascist, although the slippery slope libertarians would disagree.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Fair enough, but I would reiterate that animals can't give informed consent any more than children.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Now this is getting silly:
Decisions that affect the health of a society are different from the type of mundane shopping decision you're arguing. Do you really think drug use is on par with what type of car you drive?
I absolutely do. Perhaps I don't approve of caffeine use. You don't use caffeine, do you? The horror! What about aspirin? Nasal sprays? Antibiotic soaps? Pesticides around your house? All chemical / drug uses that have significant effects on society and the environment around you. What? You don't agree? Shocker!
I think you're confused here as well. The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values. That doesn't mean there are no rules or standards. If anything, you've shown why our society has become "un-free" with the adoption of forced pluralism.
The only confused person here is you. You are confused that your desires, even if it seems reasonable to you, and you feel should be universal, are not considered reasonable by us to be imposed upon others, even if we have no desire to do said activity ourselves. The only actions we agree should be restricted are some of those wherein actions harm others other than the actor. For examples where this is not done currently are the practices of piercing babies ears, or circumcision.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Allowing (x) to happen does several things: 1. Signals social approval of (x)
That is, unfortunately, a fundamental fallacy that our society has embraced. "moral" and "legal" are not synonyms and should not be treated as synonyms. They are separate concepts. Something may be moral and legal, moral and illegal, immoral and legal, or immoral and illegal. If more people understood that the culture war wouldn't be so bloody and we would have a much freer society.
Unfortunately, you're applying rational thought to an inherently irrational data set. The people that wish to control other people's actions care little for a free society, nor are their areas of control really rational, no matter what they say. The reason they're bloody is that those that wish to control must be defeated, no more or less than the Mongol horde had to be, for people to live free.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That is a pretty feeble argument. Human beings can always say no. Animals can't.
Heh! Well unless you tie ropes to it, a horse has some pretty emphatic ways of saying no, many of which are hazardous to your health.
But I would be against bestiality for the same reason I'm against child porn -- all partners should be able to give informed consent.
1. We legalize dope. You now have no reason to tell your kids not to do it, since gov't thinks it's OK..
I disagree with this very strongly because it implies a permission-based model of government, that only activities the government declares are fine are valid or moral, instead of a model where certain activities are banned by the government while everything else is allowed. It also places what is moral and what is not in the government sphere, and I object to that as well -- the government can only decide what is legal. It has historically been a terrible arbiter of what is moral, and I would tell my kids there is a big big difference between what you are legally allowed to do and what might be moral or wise to do. I personally feel that smoking, whether pot or tobacco products, should be legal, but I also strongly, strongly discourage it.