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Censorship in Oz - We need help!
Gimila writes "Despite previous proposed censorship being decided against here in Oz our esteemed leaders (*sarcasm*)have decided to introduce internet censorship legislation to buy one uptight politician's vote on a GST tax - he holds the balance of power and wants to "protect children from the internet", while the government want to intoduce a GST *roll*. 'Net users in Australia need to act now to prevent the proposed legislation - see the EFA Action Alert for more information. The government are ignoring all past and present expert advise including their own studies. We need a backlash down here!
" Yeah, yeah, I know--that's the America Declaration-but it seemed appropriate.
Update: 04/22 06:08 by CT : Hemos needs some more high school: "We the People" is
from the Constitution, not the D.O.I.
All such legislation does is offer small top-level domains (like Christmas Island) a new opportunity to build huge server farms, then leave the content alone. It's a time of unparalleled opportunity for them. Legislation of net content is useless, except for when the cynical (politicians) are selling to the ignorant (PONAs).
Will someone give a capsule here of Australian principles that govern censorship?
As an Australian I feel there is little chance the internet bill will be passed.
I agree that Australia could do with a bill of rights. Except for that "right to bear arms" stuff. (each to their own, not trying to start a flame war)
However all in all I'm pretty happy with my government.
Jeffery Elkington
Standing in the Sunlight Howling at the Moon.
http://www.iinet.net.au/~westjim
a government will say "We're going to institute censorship", and we will say "No, you're not", and we will win.
If it's just to protect youngsters from hardcore porn and bombmaking instructions, that's fine and dandy. Censoring the exchange of ideas among responsible adults would be a whole `nuther matter.
Gimila's style leaves me with the impressions that he's kind of young. Maybe it's just because he's really upset, but he comes off as a teenager.
(The great thing about being an anonymous coward is some kid in the throes of a troubled adolescence can't track you down and firebomb your house.)
...I'm so glad Hitler's damn birthday is OVER.
Canada has more so guildlines, basically the same as the states does.
In a lot of Canadian cities, our women can walk around topless if they want.
I know, thats kinda fucked, right?
Hey! No pr0n on TV!
Shoppin NaKKiD? why not, have fun.
Canada is a awesome place to live, but it needs some spam removed at the government level for sure.
Oh, and we should kill our PM for pepper spraying peopel who had a right to be where they were.
Jesus. Its that simple isnt it?
Microsoft: We are coming out with Windows 2000!
Us: No, Your Not.
Microsoft: Doh!
I see it's advantages but what makes me wonder is the line
The fact of the matter is, the Internet MUST BE REGULATED in certain enviornments.
Why is this. in the example you gave some school kids saw some porn whats the big deal every kid growing up sees porn. Why do we(like idoits) try to hide and cover up stuff like this it just encourages people to seek it out
BOB_III (ohhh nooo I saw a titty now I am gonna blow up my school)
(And so, probably, will the rest of the /. readership. )
If you're going to slam a philosophical concept, at least make sure beforehand that
you understand exactly what it is you're disparaging.
The purpose of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is to insure for
*individuals* *and* *the* *State* the right and ability to self-defence. It's
not about hunting. It's not about target-shooting. It's not about gun collecting.
It's certainly not about legalized murder. It's about the right to self-defence.
Period.
I really do wish people could get this *one*, *simple* concept straight.
Btw: You prefer the Napoleonic Code to English Common Law? Never been
able to understand that one.
My kids are 9 and 14, and you're right that we cannot
supervise them every minute. But that doesn't mean that I'd
want the government supervising them and everybody else
in the country.
Plus, "involved" parents generally do have an idea of what
their kids are up to. I see that my older daughter's attention is
mainly focused on music, makeup, and clothes, and so I'm
fairly trusting (with occasional checks) about her web
browsing.
I applaud you, whomever you may be. Straight to the point and spot-on!
> Your post assumes that the right to bear firearms is a fundamental human
... Sorry.
> right. In the United States this is true. In other nations it is not.
Incorrect. The right to self-defense is a natural right. As things
presently stand, the U.S. stands alone in recognizing that right.
> Enjoy your freedom.
Such as it is.
> Enjoy paying for the largest prison system per capita in the world.
Straw man. Besides: a goodly portion (more than 50%, perhaps?) are
drug law offenders. Is that too the fault of our "liberal" gun laws?
> Enjoy having a government controlled by lobby groups such as the NRA.
It's an unfortunate fact of life. Are you somehow deluded
into believing that whatever government with which you are saddled
is any less corrupt? Hahahahahahahah
> Enjoy having your children go to a school where a disgruntled teen is
> going to use them for target practice.
If you check your recent history, you will find that this kind of
senseless mass-violence would appear to be on the rise everywhere.
Not just in the U.S. It is not a firearms availability problem. It
is a social problem.
We merely have to prove a need for them. (Sport
is considered a need - that's the Aussie
lifestyle)
Obviously the sort of person who wants a gun but
doesn't have a good reason why is the kind of
person who shouldn't have one.
Of course the laws have changed recently in
in the wake of some morders with a powerful
firearm that was not allowed in any other state
than the one it was in. So do they change the law
in that state to fit the rest of the country?
No, they change the federal law to be far harsher
than any of the existing state laws, and 10 times
as strong as it needed to be to prevent the
massacre - and in the process, making it
impossible for many people with genuine needs to
own appropriate guns.
So yes, we are allowed to own and use guns if we
have good reason too, but sometimes these days we
are not allowed to anyway - because of new laws
nearly as silly as the proposed censorship ones.
-Greg Mildenhall
The purpose of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is to insure for *individuals* *and* *the* *State* the right and ability to self-defence.
Technically the Second Amendment only insures the State the right and ability to self-defence. Individuals only have those rights (in regards to bearing arms) that States allow them to have. The Bill of Rights does not grant individuals the right to bear arms.
The bill of rights explicitly empowers the individuals at the cost of the government specifically for the purpose of protecting the individual from the government.
The Second Amendment does not empower individuals at the cost of the government. The Second Amendment explicitly protects States from the Federal government. It does not give individuals the right to own guns.
I thought that was wrong, and I'm a bleedin' foreigner. How are we supposed to cope when you don't know the difference?
Still, most of us Brits are no better, not knowing what our own country is called 'alf the time.
If you're going to be cheesy and use Parliamentary Procedure in /. posts, you could at least use it correctly.
Perhaps you should visit the American Institute of Parliamentarians website. (Their mission statement is especially silly).
Sorry, I couldn't resist pointing this out, since Parly Pro is one of those morsels of worthless info I store for really important situations like this...
As Robert Heinlein wrote (or perhaps stole): "an armed society is a polite society."
Horsehockey. The above statement parrots the argument that the 2nd ammendment is a collective, rather than an individual right. The most recent federal judgement, US v. Emerson, has a detailed discussion of this issue http://www.nraila.org/emerson.html. The judge completely demolishes the collective right theory, which is too long to adequately discuss here. For those of you too lazy to read the entire judgement, consider this: the 2nd ammendment reads, in part, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It does not read "the right of the militia" or "the right of the states", it reads "the right of the people". Now, look up the constitution and see where else the phrase "the right of the people" is used. Why that phrase mean one thing (i.e., collective rights) in the 2nd ammendment, when it means another thing (i.e., individual rights) in the 1st, 4th, etc. ammendments?
you dumb sh*t. porn is a $10 billion+ industry. More than 99% of men alive have seen some porn. Your statement would indicate that 99% of all men are ruthless killers who like violence and torture. Man youre really dumb.
The above statement parrots the argument that the 2nd ammendment is a collective, rather than an individual right.
Actually the above statement "parrots" a Supreme Court decision. Last time I checked the Supreme Court's opinion -- being the high court of the land and all -- overruled lower federal courts. Unless and until the Supreme Court changes its ruling the Second Amendment is a collective right.
mentioned that they were known Satanists. If this doesn't raise warning flags, you have problem.
Why should this raise warning flags? I see very little difference between this and any other religion.
AFTER 20 INNOCENT CHILDREN WERE KILLED IN COLORADO YOU HAVE ENOUGH BALLS TO BREAG ABOUT OWNING SEMI AUTOMATIC GUNS!
THese werent people who were killed. They were children. ITs because of liberal gun laws made by NRA extremist who only make up 3% of America's population. ITs embarasing calling myself an American while all the Canadians and Europeans scratch their heads at us. THe constitution says that in case the government becaomes a tryant and abasues its pwoer then we as the people must bear arms agaisnt the power. NOT OWN GUNS! Read it yourslef. THE NRA missinterprets the constititon for their own greedy agenda. WHy would the framers of the constitution and the bill of rights mention personal firing arms when discusing how to build a governemnt. The whole idea of the framers thinking about oppreson and liberty all of the sudden think aobut their own personal fireamrs. ITs obviously out of context. The nra supports crazy stuff like ammo that can peirce bullet proof vests of police officers (I can't see how this would benifiet deer hunting)and making it legal to conceal a semi automatic weapon in your jacket. I heard on cnn in Missouri the nra tried to do just that. Missouri made it ilegal in the 1800's when outlaws were everywhere and the crime went down when criminals couldn't hide pistols in their coats. Now tell me how concealing semi automatic weapons benifets deer hunting or even shooting semi automatic weapons on rural property for fun. Their is no need to conceal them. THe NRA are nuts the constition does not state to own weapons but rather bear arms agaisn't the foriegn or dictatory power. Jeez
For all you europeans and australinas reading this, remember that the vast majority of Americans don't agree with this madness but are rather captive by powerfull nra politicians.
Bill Gates is having a fund raiser to raise money against the volience of handguns. This is the only thing I have common in Bill Gates.
I think websites should have some obsenity number. xxx=5, x or sex=4. r or discusions of sex=3, heavy kissing or game sites=2 (some schools don't want teenagers looking at game sites are having fun.)regular browsing=1. Perhaps ftp could =2 or 3 for schools or comapnies that down't want people downloading softare. I heard that their is a plan to make all porn sites start with a xxx instead of www. Perhaps the xxx could = a 5 rating. This should be part of internet2. Lets make up a scheme to the www organizationf for rfc.
To say that everyone who owns a weapon is a killer is a little harsh, after all if this was the case there would be no one left in the USA. It should also be noted that however you feel, the right to bare arms is part of the American culture and it would be difficult to make any changes, as the process would last years.
On ther other hand considering the recent events in Colorado, USA, I think it could be a good idea if first time gun owners were given free gun handling lessons.
I don't know whether it is a symptom of the 90s, but I feel that politicians, where-ever they may be don't really represent their voters anymore. It is starting to feel like a money before people democracy.
To say that everyone who owns a weapon is a killer is a little harsh, after all if this was the case there would be no one left in the USA. It should also be noted that however you feel, the right to bare arms is part of the American culture and it would be difficult to make any changes, as the process would last years. On ther other hand considering the recent events, I think it could be a good idea if first time gun owners were given free gun handling lessons. After all what harm could it do?
I don't know whether it is a symptom of the 90s, but I feel that politicians, where-ever they may be don't really represent their voters anymore. It is starting to feel like a money before people democracy.
- their rights derived from that document, or
- they had no rights other than those written in the document.
These criticisms are all the more reasonable today, when people try to use the US Constitution as a moral authority ("the Constitution says you have a right to...", "the Constitution doesn't say you have a right to"). Skip relying on a Bill of Rights, and keep thinking about what rights you really do and don't have, rather than relying on an enumeration on a piece of paper.It's still a vile idea, one that can only work if it's mandated by a government. Otherwise, many people, including myself, are going to work to make your idea fail.
If that's the case, Bundy's statement is worthless without more info.
Does porn lead to an increased chance of killing? If so, increased by how much (percentage-wise)? In countries where pornography is effectively censored but all other relevent (particularly social) factors are the same (good luck finding any), how is the murder rate equivalent?
If one takes a person who is, by other metrics, likely to become a murderer (harming pets, for instance) and stops them from viewing pornography, does this decrease their chance of becoming a murderer? If so, is it because of the lack of pornography or the closer monitering involved in enforcing the no-porn restriction?
There is NO SOLID EVIDENCE backing your statements. Considering how serious the means you propose are (universal restrictions of freedom), I'd damn well better see some strong evidence before I support your view.
*grin* I'm just over 30 and a girl! :P
:)
The government is trying to sell their censorship legislation as protecting "children" from pedophiles and "obcene" material on the net - but the actual proposed legislation has *much* more widespread implications for internet access here.
The response from the Department responsible has been to point out the lack of a significant response against the legislation - when a large proportion of the population doesn't even know its on the cards or what it entails. The government is also trying to rush it through parliament (I heard mention of June - enough time for them to try and avoid any thorough public discussion of the implications).
Yes I am upset about this - a lot of people I know are. I'd rather be active and outspoken in my opposition than join the apathy of the masses thanks. I've seen the type of pages selected against by various filtering devices and it isn't intended to simply filter out the stuff they normally claim it does. Its also the thin edge of the wedge - once its in place its easy to extend its scope (and that can be done quite quietly). Many ISPs have offered filtered accounts here already with a very low take up. Schools have their own systems in place. The majority of the material that is claimed to be the target is already covered under present legislation.
It also fails to take into account that a lot of what people jump up and down about is available in libraries (I remember one of your american talk shows where some girl brought up being able to access bomb information on the 'net to Hillary Clinton and everyone was nodding and agreeing about limiting that sort of access - the girl said that she had "booted into encarta" so she wasn't on the 'net she was reading an encyclopedia *roll*).
Anyway, 28th-30th are the days of action in Australia - people can contact the EFA web pages for information on what they can do. Ideas on things to do are also welcome
Gimila
Now all HEMOS needs is to take an english course. I can't make sense of this paragraph.
But will breaking the new law be a bootable offence?
I'd have more sympathy if Oz didn't inflict their lame soap operas on us (^_^).
Perhaps before he pontificates about somebody else's censorship, Taco Boy should look into his own closet. Slashdot is one of the most heavily censored sites on the Net. And don't let Taco Boy fool you with his 1984 Orwellian-speak. He doesn't "moderate" anything. It is not obscene material, and it is not libelous material that Taco Boy censors. Make a post that is strongly critical of one of his pet hobby horses and it will disappear. Cmdr Taco even removed the whole thread following Linus Torvald's interview over the Net. It seems Linus said some things that weren't particularly politically correct so Cmdr Taco just zapped the whole story. Stop the hypocrisy Taco Boy. It seems that four years of college taught you very little about free speech
I'm in... how much do we need now? :P
Basically the Australian government is attempting to treat the internet as just another broadcast media like radio or television. Commercial television stations have adopted an agreed-upon set of standards for the times during which certain levels of sex or violence are permissable etc. (although these too have recently been made much harsher--you will now never see as much violence or nudity on australian television as a 15 year old can see at the movies). Anyway, this proposed legislation promises to review international web sites that have been the subject of complaints; if they are found to breach the standards put in place for other media then some attempt will be made to block access to that site from within Australia. There is also a move to ban all such material that eminates from within Australia. The government is counting on the support of ISPs here in both cases, which is a bit of a joke. And it suggests that such censorship will be carried only when it is economically feasible. I'm inclined to think that the legislation is being offered so that the government can appear to be doing something about the "problem," while in fact little will be done because it will be too expensive and will dramatically reduce the speed and quality of internet access in the country. The Australian Minister for IT shows once again that he hasn't got a clue.
Ahem. You _will_ get flamed for this. What's more, the people flaming you _will_ be right to do it.
Australians are subjected to "The foo and the bar". This is the worst soapie in existence. We also get all the b-grade US sitcoms. Yeah, I know our soapies suck planets through a syringe. But don't pretend that yours dont (-; On a positive note, thanks for Twin Peaks and The Simpsons
/. is guilty of censorship. . of course
this willl probably get 'moderated'
oh yeah 'moderation' is totally different
from censorship.. and you only 'moderate' stupid
people anyway
well....
F U C K Y O U Y O U N A Z I P I E C E O F G A R B A G E
Not as broad as some...
And yet our children don't have anymore and from some of the stuff I have read they have less 'problems' with it than other more regulated places.
I don't like the government being my mother or father. The sooner they stop trying the better of for all of us. Attacking the problem at the cause makes much more sense to me then just sweeping it under the carpet.
The bigger question is how does one make a parent act like one? We can't although education would at least help. Does that then mean the rights of those that do do some actual parenting and thier children should be penalised. For some the answer is obviously yes.
I is easier to let someone else do our thinking and work for us I guess.
Steven.
I noticed a lot of defence about the 'right
to bear arms' coming from US based people.
None of you seem to understand the difference
between a right and a priviledge. You certainly
have the right to self-defence, but carrying
a weapon (of any sort) is a priviledge. With it
comes a responsibility. The responsibility is
simple, and was around long before your
constitution. I can't believe I'm quoting the
bible, but the phrase is (do unto others as you
would have them do unto you). This includes
making sure your weapons are maintained securely,
and accepting that they are your responsibility
even if they get into someone else's hands.
The impression I get (from Australia) is that
we accept that people aren't as responsible as
they should be, whereas the in US, freedoms are
not restricted at any cost.
And in all three cases above these are words backed with guns.
AC cause I'm at work
You make the obvious mistake of assuming that all Americans agree with American law, or that American law is even self-consistent.
What?? Since when has the media 'debated' anything in a fair fashion? And what have these 'passionately supported' gun laws achieved? Nothing - and nor wil they, just look at the other countries that have tried this non-solution! You just want to stick your head in the sand and go for the media fed bandaid solution.
Gee, guns have been around for a long time you know. Long before all the these school murders occured. Can you stretch your mind around the fact that there may be other causes involved here - not just the big bad NRA? No, I doubt it - you're just too stupid for that.
Senator Harradine doesn't really have a history of making sense. Nor is he known for his political correctness. He just lives in his own fantasy world and exercises his balance of power.
Almost endears you to a vanilla two party system, really. Almost.
For those interested here are some of the more recent events/quotes (largely from the aussie-isp mailing list which is running hot atm).
n line.htm
"Our contacts in parliament house tell us that the Government plans to prioritise the Bill to get it through before 1st July. They're planning to allocate 4 hours for debate." - so much for a thorough discussion of the issues and implications of the implementation of the bill.
In "The Australian" newspaper (230499):
"Harradine courtship is given top priority...
THE Howard Government yesterday accelerated its tax and Telstra courtship of
balance-of-power senator Brian Harradine by making its crackdown on Internet
pornography a higher priority for Senate debate than the Kosovo refugees and the
Budget supply Bills."
Copies of the Bill and the Second Reading Speech are available at: http://www.dca.gov.au/mediarel.html (Note: They are both in the search category under primary legislation.)
The IT Select Committe met today to discuss the Bills which were referred this morning. The Committee is currently scheduling public hearings to take evidence on the Bill. The Governments nominated reporting date was the 11th of May, with submissions closing on the 30th April. This timeframe is considered unachievable, and it is anticipated that the report back date on the Bills will be the 25th of May. Submissions to the IT SelectCommittee can be sent to it.sen@aph.gov.au
Kimberly Heitman, Chairman of the EFA (http://www.efa.org.au), urges ISP's and
Internet users in Australia to protest this by making submissions to the
Senate IT Committee, at
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/ADVERT/o
One ISP is going to "attempt to implement the legislation" on the day of action (28th)"to educate their users on what the
Australian Government is attempting to do to the Internet in Australia."
Another has issued a
press release stating that it would be offering 5c/min long-distance phone
calls to the USA, New Zealand, South East Asia, and Europe should this bill
pass as drafted.
"Internet costs set to rise as government attempts to block adult material. Vic Cinc, General Manager of Connect Infobahn Australia (www.cia.com.au) and a
director of the Internet Industry Association (www.iia.net.au), said today that
tabled government legislation to force online blocking of adult material was
unwanted, heavy handed, dishonest and failed to address the alleged task of
protecting children from "paedophiles and drug pushers". The government is playing up on parental concerns and the lack of public
understanding about the Internet in what seems to be an effort to capture
Senator Harradine's vote on the GST, Mr Cinc said." The IIA is finally getting involved (they've been highly abused over their lack of action in "representing ISPs").
Gimila
The EFA pages in the original post is probably the place to find more information.
The only problem with schemes like PICS is that nobody uses them. It shouldn't be compulsory, but
it would be great if lots of people voluntarily rated their pages.
It would even be okay if it were illegal to rate your page as "more naughty" than they really are. (i.e. It's up to you as to whether or not you want to rate your pages, but it's Bad(tm) to lie about the rating.) Then if you had an organisation where you absolutely had to filter (e.g. a primary school), all you have to do is block anything that isn't rated.
On the other hand, I guess, some Brian Harradine of this world would then try to pass laws outlawing non-rated content. You can't win.
Unfortunately, the government isn't just training it's guns on the internet. Movies that were shown uncut on TV in 1992, are now having the scissors applied now (exzmple: M Van Peebles' "Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasss Song". Salo has now been re-banned. This government wants to take us back in time to the 1950s. It's embarrassing.
When Pauline Hanson was shooting off her mouth John Howard was the first to defend her right to say whatever she wants. Yet when, for example, Gerry Adams was here, he was warned not to say anything inflamatory or he would be kicked out. The explanation? Howard is an English biggot. Even a state MP from his own party described his cabinet as "the white supremacists in Canberra".
Uh huh. Firing guns at rogue politicians is really going to further your cause.
I'm amazed at the number of people with opinions at what Australia should do who don't understand Australians. Here, gun advocates are usually thought of as Queensland or Tasmanian country hicks. Using guns to further your cause only makes you look stupid here and is a great way to help people ignore your speech totally.
> The fact is that a large majority of Australians fully and passionately support the gun control that Australia has
Speak for youself. Where did you find this rediculus statistic?
Well, we've veered W_A_Y off topic but this is a fun one..
It's always amusing to hear a true American patriot, Oliver North style, espousing the greatness of the US of God's Own A.
The problem with a bill of rights, which is shown int the extreme case in the US, is how ONLY the rights which are expressly specified are protected. Why is America the only "developed" country with such extensive poverty, violence and unbelievably bad health care? Because they're not Bill-of-rights rights.
As for guns, why would any sane urbanite want to own one, any more than a bazooka or nuclear weapon? I have never seen a firearm in Australia that was not held by someone in uniform, who would be in extreme trouble if they used the thing without reason.
Back to Oz; I suspect the government's proposals will fail, not because of any opposition, but because they're technically impossible. What's to stop someone setting up a proxy offshore which encrypts content to prevent monitoring? And users would be willing to pay to see forbidden fruit..
What you say is logical. But what about this, 20,000 people in America are killed by handguns each year, 10 a year are killed in Australia (1.5 million people are incarcerated in America). They are still lots of guns in Australia, just not lots of automatics (which Americans seem to need to catch those vicious deer's in the woods). I am not after attention to get flamed here, I just find it hard to understand the violent American culture.
By the way the same sort of thing that is happening in Kosovo is happening on Australia's door step in East Timor, you know people being massacred etc by Pro Government forces. I wonder if Clinton could care. Its funny how he got found GUILTY of contempt of court while all this was going on, most people would get thrown in jail for that, I wonder how many people in America know that he was found guilty of this serious offence.
I think some great things come out of America and I agree with your point about governments not acting smart.
MAX.
WARNING: THIS POST WAS CENSORED BY SLASHDOT THUGS! Perhaps before he pontificates about somebody else's censorship, Taco Boy should look into his own closet. Slashdot is one of the most heavily censored sites on the Net. And don't let Taco Boy fool you with his 1984 Orwellian-speak. He doesn't "moderate" anything. It is not obscene material, and it is not libelous material that Taco Boy censors. Make a post that is strongly critical of one of his pet hobby horses and it will disappear. Cmdr Taco even removed the whole thread following Linus Torvald's interview over the Net. It seems Linus said some things that weren't particularly politically correct so Cmdr Taco just zapped the whole story. Stop the hypocrisy Taco Boy. It seems that four years of college taught you very little about free speech. ~
Only the anoited few can be elected to office in America. See Who Rules America?
My god, you are the kind of idiot that lets these legislations live.
Does it have advantages in that the Internet is "safe" everywhere? Yes. Does a Dictatorial Police state have its advantages, in that the streets are largely free from crime? Yes.
Discussions such as this are based on principles of freedom, not on advantages and disadvantages. So they are telling us we can't see pron because it is "dangerous", maybe we don't care to much. But what will the state define as "dangerous" tomorrow, and do I really want to get into a situation where someone else is deciding what I can read, and by extention think and not?
So the Australian government has stripped us of our priviledges, not our rights. Either way we lose because of a ridiculously tiny proportion of idiots who really should have been better cared for by their community. Americans will have to learn to identify these people, and respond. This is a positive response. Legislating away "priviledges" is negative.
I prefer the American approach. Freedom is bought with blood. The cost is ongoing. Think of it as insurance against oppression or even genocide. This seems harsh (the Colorado shootings are very troubling), but consider:
Do you think Kosovan refugees favor the right to bear arms?
Really, and just which Supreme Court ruling was
that? The most recent SCOTUS ruling on the 2nd
ammendment that I'm aware of was US v. Miller
in the 1930s. I suggest that you don't bring
up Cruikshank. That case is not very compelling
for your argument.
> Did you know that the head of every household in colonial America
> was required by law to own a firearm?
Um, you may have one on me here, but are you sure about that? Or could you
possibly be confusing colonial America with pre-colonial-America Great
Britain?
Once-upon-a-time, English law required that the head of all households (of
loyal Subjects, of course) be armed for the common defence and to deter crime.
An able-bodied male Subject could actually be prosecuted for failing to
be properly armed or failing to do all within his power to thwart a crime or,
failing that, apprehend the perpetrator after-the-fact.
I do not recall how much of this was pre-Magna Charta. Some of it was.
I would note, in passing, that the 2nd Amendment was largely based on
English Law with a further attempt by the Founding Fathers to eliminate
what defects the latter contained, in their considered opinions.
You compare conventionally armed individuals to governments with control of
nuclear weapons?
Ahem.
I have far more faith in the sanity of any particular citizen on the street, as it were,
than I do in *any* politician or bureaucrat.
Just a few minor points of orderhere:
1. the Federal Government of Australia cannot make laws relating to gun control, for according to the constitution of oz, that is up to the states of australia
2. Australains do have a right to own firearms, just not machineguns or semi-automatic rifles
3. The right to bear an AK-47 does not necessarily confer the right to freedom of speech
4. Australians have been idly sitting back & letting their freedoms being taken, eh? And what percentage of americans actually get off their arses and vote?
5. I'd rather live in oz (which has been an independant nation for nearly a century, hardly a fledgling of the British empire) than the USA
For the former read the latter throughout.
For the latter read the former throughout.
It's called MMP - mixed member proportional.
50% of members get elected on a first past the post system by standing in electorates (like the old UK based system), the remaining 50% are allocated seats according to the party vote. So, when you vote, you get two votes: one for your electorate, and one for the party of your choice. The number of list (party) candidates is determined by this party vote. To stop too many smal, single issue parties, you need to get one electorate seat, or 5% of the party vote to get into parliament. The party vote ensures the number of members your party has is proportional to the vote it recieved.
The system actually works very well - we have the most representative parliament ever, with (more) women, Maori, Pacific Islanders and an Asian, which would not have happened on the old system. Under this system, everyone's vote counts (In the old FPP system, if you lived in a safe National (conservative) or Labour (left) seat, and you supported the "other" party, you were effectively wasting your time. Only a handful of marginal seats actually had any bearing on the outcome).
Sure, it has its problems (there has only been one election under this system), but at least it is representative (hell, that's was why it was called the house of representatives).
(NZ was the first to grant women the vote, btw).
I have more freedom in New Zealand than you do in the US. Freedom of movement (I can travel where I like in the world), freedom of association, speech etc. etc. Just because I can't carry a gun down the street in no way affects my freedoms. Hell, it may improve it, since I have little chance of being shot (yes, it does still happen occassionaly, but it is rare).
And, I have little chance of being shot accidentally by the police, because they (generally) don't carry guns either. Neither do security guards.
We use something called democracy - you vote the offending party out of office. And, (start of sarcasm) get this, we have a choice of more than two parties (end sarcasm)
I would reckon that I would have more freedom in Oz too.
Oh, and onto another freedom while I'm here - free trade. Something the US does NOT believe in - ask any NZ or Oz farmer, steel producer etc. etc.
Lets look at coutnries that allow guns and coutnries that don't allow guns.
England=no guns (the safiest country in europe.)
France=only hunting riffles (THe second safest country in europe.)
Germany=no guns (The number 3rd safest country in Europe and guns were allowed there in ww2. After ww2 Germany stoped selling guns to civilians.)
Canada=no guns Safest country in North America.
Austraila=no guns. Another safe and civilized country.
No civilized country excpet America owns guns. AMerica is one of the most dangerous countries in the civilized 1st world countries. Iraq did have guns before the rebelion agaisn't Saddam by kurds. In the American revolution ammo and guns were made by the poeple and very few were bought. Remember that britian baned the sell of guns during the revolutoin and metal gates and statues of the king were melted for bullets by the people and muskets and cannons were made by the people as well. THis is why microsoft wins every court case made by the doj. People have competition because they can make there own os. Linux was the result. If linux can be made by abunch of anti-microsoft volunteers and the courts agree that linux is a competitor then people can make their own guns. IF a foriegn power did invade us then you can imagine a whole underground movemnet would form like the french one in ww2. Gun companies would form and give away guns and ammo to soldiers just like France did in ww2. As you can tell by my arguements with microsoft that I am a conservative just like you. However I prefer to look at statistics before making a desciion and their is no reason why I want to own a gun to give myself a false sense of security.
Wait a minute...I did mean liberal. hmmm...What was I on?
Not quite. If you point out that their laws are unworkable, they will make them work. Doesn't really matter to them whether they are workable or not...
And to point out a common misconception in Australia, fuelled by the current government : the government does not have a mandate - Parliament does. That's the whole point of a bi-cameral system of government.
>As for television, the founding fathers did not foresee the establishment of the Fed.
>Communication Commission.
>OTOH, the censorship on TV in the US is easing up (thank you R. Murdoch and the Fox TV Channel).
hehe Rupert Mudoch is (was) an Australian. It takes an Australian to ease American censorship laws.
It was a non sequitur, but "non sequitur" is spelled "non sequitur", not "non sequiter".
You obviously don't live in America. I would rather have a gun than be a victim. Spend 1 day in New York or Philly and you will see just how you need to protect yourself.
Do you live in the suburbs of some utopia or something? Just a question.
I lived in Toronto for almost a year and I know that the government has some censorship over the media. Mostly involved with porn. But I see Canadian women with no tops at the beaches so I am a little confused here coming from an American perspective. I believe Britain and all its protectorates do believe in censorship if it seems appropriate. This is why the term freedom of speech is used in the constitution. However I relise the British government did this because of the crazy riots and chaos in the American Revolution. I could be wrong. Could anyone from Australia tell me if the Australian government ever had censorship or is this some new thing? Censorship
If, in your absence, your child is going to go and
search for materials that you feel they shouldn't,
then you have already failed in your duty as a
parent. If you have instilled in them the idea
that this material is interesting and desirable,
then it's _far_ too late to run and hide behind
your government and expect others to foot the bill
for your mistreatment of your own children
-Greg Mildenhall
The Second Amendment uses the words, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
The most recent Supreme Court decision in this area holds that the Second Amendment is a collective right. It has nothing to do with any supposed right to self-defence by individuals. As I said, this is the Supreme Court's latest stance. However, a lower federal court (US v Emerson, I think) said that it was an individual right rather than a collective one. (cf Hickman v Block, Love v Pepersack, US v Warin, Cases v US, Hamilton v Accu-Tek, and US v Miller.)
I'm not sure how exactly that all gets sorted out but I think that since the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land their opinion holds more weight. However the Miller decision is pretty old (60 years ago).
With any luck the more recent Emerson case will end up before the Supreme Court and they can make a more definitive ruling. Regardless of the ruling I doubt it will stop advocates on either side from trying to pass the laws they want.
We the People leads off the American Constitution. The Declaration starts off "In Congress..."
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
...the Bill of Rights has had the effect of implying that the government had sufficient authority as to threaten those rights. If it weren't for the horrendous overinterpritation of the elastic clause, the government wouldn't be able to violate peoples' religious rights -- nothing in Congress's enumerated powers allows such an action.
Amendments limiting the states' laws (for instance, preventing any state from permitting slavery) I can see as essential in rare but existant situations. Allowing the federal government to outlaw slavery directly (with the usual Congress-may-make-laws-to-enforce-this bit), however, allows excessive top-level government. Not a good thing.
These parents do indeed share moral responsability for what their children did.
How in hell could any responsible parents not notice SOMETHING to be up with their children constructing bombs and procuring guns? Not very easy activity to miss. For that matter, it's very likely that there was some other incident/warning sign (harming animals or the like) that they missed.
It's not the school's responsability to be sure that children are psychologically well-balanced (censorship being part of this). It's not the government's. It's the parents.
I wouldn't exactly go as far as saying these people should burn in hell (be jailed, whatever) but they'd damn well better get some solid child psychology education/counseling and apply it to their practices towards any other children they may have.
Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):
/* Insert fifteen minutes of horrific details told by a young woman whose family will first find out about the event when they play this, on the news because the athoraties haven't had the opportunity to notify families yet because they're still busy resolving the crisis */ "Well, there's the shocking facts folks. Now back to Bob at the studio for the the latest on sports where another superstar has gotten off scott-free after beating his wife into a coma while pumped up on illegal drugs!"
"Television in the US is censored like you would not believe, with the stark exception of the news where they have no problem showing you anything and everything."
This is where I see the problem. From my own experiences the VAST majority of children have little or no difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It's the reality that they see on the news what does the most damage.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the news in and of itself is a bad thing, its just the way it is presented. "Bad thing numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 happened today as well as pointless things 1, 2, and 3. But first, we bring you, LIVE, the horrific event of the week in full color!" "Excuse, me Miss, I appologize for stopping you on your way to get that nasty injury taken care of by those nice paramedics, but I really need to fill some time here, so I'm going to subject you to a fifteen minute interview while you slowly bleed to death."
Is it any wonder why youngsters today turn to violent acts when they are desperate for attention? That's all the news media cares about, and in far to many cases, it's also the only time they get any feedback from their parents.
The entertainment industry doesn't force anything down anybody's throat. It produces what sells. If we're worried about the content, lets figure out why so many people go for violent content and fix that, not sue the entertainment industry into the stone age.
Posted by illodius:
This seems to me to be the attitude of the typical American redneck when subjected to anything they don't like. "Lets go find the person that we think is responsible, and shoot them. What could be more American than that?"
Do you support the actions of the youths in Colorado that decided that they would start shooting people in a school randomly as a valid form of protest? I don't think that getting a gun and going to shoot politicians is going to get much of a better response from anyone.
In this particular case, the government is trying to buy the vote of a key member in the Senate by pushing fluffy happy 'Family Values' legislation through. That's great, because we all want to live in Pleasantville, USA right?
.. D
An interesting aside, the 2nd ammendmant has been considerably watered down. It was drafted in the first place with the intent that citizens should have a level of firepower equal to that of government forces. After all, all the government had at the time was rifles and small cannon.
Today, we the people are not allowed anything like what the military has. Step by step, the class of weapons included in the 2nd ammendmant seems to shrink. Pretty soon. we'll be allowed a bandanna and a rock at most.
Enjoy paying for the largest prison system per capita in the world.
Several years ago, the town of Kennesaw, Ga. passed a law REQUIRING a handgun in every household. (In practice, the requirement isn't strictly enforced). Crime went down 33% there, and has stayed down. Less crime, less prisons.
Other countries may have found even better ways to keep crime low, but there is no evidence that gun ownership (in the general population) has any effect on crime rate.
I'd like to know which spoken words can kill.
How about 'Deutsland uber alles?' For more examples, visit any KKK or Neo Nazi site. You will find many words with the potential to kill. And in each case, I will support their right to say them even if I lament their desire to say them.
I agree that parents can't be everywhere all the time. Especially in today's two income and single parent households. However, the idea is to come up with the least restrictive system which can be made to work.
Personally, I support standardizing ratings tags on websites. The tags should be strictly on a volenteer basis. The browsers should support a maximum allowable setting as well as an option to not display unrated material.
Personally, I am a male in my 30's w/ no children. I find pornography mildly offensive, but prefer to click the back botton rather than have censorship and the associated risk that the definition of obscene material will gradually expand to include 3rd party cantidates' websites, or anyone else who is politically inconvienient
I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception,every one of them was deeply involved in pornography . . .
They also all went to elementary school, let's ban that too.
And in all three cases above these are words backed with guns.
These days, the Neo Nazis mostly back their words with chains and knives. The KKK seems to have always preferred ropes, wooden crosses, and gasoline, and a mob. They used the guns because they were there, and their victems might have them. If they hadn't had guns, do you really think they would have just called the whole thing off?
Hi We are having similar issues here in the UK and Europe. Checkout Stand.org for a nice idea on how to corral support. Martin
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
One thing never ceases to amaze me when I go to a gun shop or firing range. Everyone always has good manners. It is such a relief after day after day of dealing with dozens of rude, inconsiderate people to go to a place where everyone smiles and makes eye contact when you say hello, says "Please" when they need a favor, "Excuse me" when they need to pass, and "Thank you" afterwards.
People keep to their best behavior when they know it is in their interest not to piss anybody off.
That works much better than any legislated politically correct behavior ever will.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
It may not suite some people, but it has its advantages. For one thing, Internet access can be made available anywhere in the country (resteraunts, schools, kindergardens even) without having to worry about people visiting offensive sites, and causing problems for everyone.
Problems for everyone? Or problems for a few people who care a bit too much about what other people are doing, whether or not it hurts others?
I'm not saying that I promote censorship, nor am I saying that I'm against it. I'm just saying, it has its obviouse advantages.
Yeah, so does living with your parents. The question is whether or not one wants to move out and grow up some day.
Personally, I prefer being a grownup, even when it's scary.
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
So you'd turn the world into a nursery so your children can be safe?
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
if you can't handle those sites, turn off your machine. geez lately all of todays society is taking the easy way out, ban this, ban that. get real! the parents are the ones who should be supervising their kids and not some stupid ass 'guessing proxies' as they propose!
it is so typical as of late in this world, everything has to be politically correct, sociably acceptable.. how's about a bit of commons sense people, and we all know that our politicans have none, they're the biggest crooks around!!!
well.. personally, kick the parents up the bum and tell them to start parenting like they should. nuff said!
long live the corporations!
-- cx
Check this out. It's the email the government is sending to ISP's in australia. Helluva lot more recent news than the /. item, which details nothing I coulnd't have told you a month ago.
http://greek.blm.net/augov-censor.html
got some good ideas there, i especially like the adopt a pollie concept, rather like guiding hedgehogs across a busy motorway....good lord some .au pollies need some education. despite the best technical reccomendations of the csiro ( http://www.csiro.com.au, Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)) has decided to try to censor the internet to save australia from that nasty information we can get from overseas....check out this official press release, http://www.dcita.gov.au/nsapi-graphics/?MIval=dca_ dispdoc&ID=3648
The Government will introduce stronger measures to protect Australian citizens, especially children, against illegal or highly offensive material on the internet, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, announced today. The internet, and other online services, have the capacity to significantly improve the lives of all Australians by providing access to services, by creating new jobs and new categories of jobs, and by providing access to information and entertainment sources around the world. But the internet can also be used as a forum for the dissemination of offensive or illegal material. The Government takes very seriously its responsibility to provide a workable and effective regime to prevent the publication of this material.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
source http://www.dcita.gov.au/nsapi-graphics/?MIval=dca_ dispdoc&ID=3648
comment i'm no expert on this subject but digesting the article found on this page I figure that the government is trying to regulate the internet muck like it does with other media, classifying content deemed as unsuitable with a rating system.
if a piece of online content is deemed unsuitable for australain audiences (epecially all those kiddies) the australain government will try to block the site if possible, password it or notify the host country....
so they are going to attempt to apply the same australain classification system that we have to film, books, videos, tv and radio to the internet.
but here's the real sinister part.....
the internet can also be used as a forum for the dissemination of offensive or illegal material. The Government takes very seriously its responsibility to provide a workable and effective regime to prevent the publication of this material.
lets them block embarassing leaks, comments they dont agree to. Nice way to use a law to block freedom of speech?
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Australia has never had a bill of rights, and has had British-style obscenity laws, though we've generally been too laid-back to do much with them. Until a rabid God-botherer got the balance of power in the Senate, and is using his power for evil (Saudi-style Internet regulation, more TV/film censorship, &c).
As for Canada, they're a bit uptight and they've got some loopy Marxist-feminist ideals in places. I recall reading about some Canadian who was convicted and fined for defamation against the concept of women and children. That would be equivalent to an American being fined for saying bad things about motherhood and apple pie.
Don't know about the current state of free speech in Britain, except that public performance of some types of electronic dance music is illegal under the Criminal Justice Act, a law passed specifically to demonise ravers. Things may be more liberal now that the Tories have been out of government for some time though.
Why pay all that money for high-speed access and then not get a proxy? Caching proxies not only allow logging and blocking, but can speed up access. I don't think the blocking is desirable or necessary. Logging, however, means that if anyone pulls a stunt like they can be tracked down and disciplined. If students know that, they won't do it.
This thing about protecting children is the most overused excuse for censorship ever invented. In reality, censorship will never protect children, and frankly politicians don't care. Taking away someone's rights is not protection, it's a direct attack on that person.
No emotional appeal for protecting the innocent among us, should allow political leaders to seize the rights of the people and hold them hostage. This is a problem in America, in Australia, and all over the world. There is never a point where some group of people needs protection so badly that the government should take away the rights of everyone.
The world has always been a dangerous place for those who aren't wary. If a child can access X-rated web sites, that reflects on the child's parents more than on society as a whole. Parents should be the ones who protect their children from perceived threats, not the government, and certainly not the whole of society. The idea of censorship is and should be repugnant to a free society, let us take steps to protect the freedom that we have been given, and prevent its sacrifice for some utopian vision derived from political whim.
Loader of Code and of BricksI have to agree that Americans can be somewhat schizo when it comes the Bill of Rights. However, the BOR's is the one thing that keeps this heterogeneous country, which is an incredible mixture of people from around the world, from self-imploding. The BOR's keeps America from bouncing from one extreme to another depending on the latest whims of the people. America survives despite the "good" intentions of it's citizenry. And these include the stupid people.
As for looking down on other lowly nations, I wonder about that sometimes because Americans are essentially immigrants from these lowly nations. Perhaps, this looking down is due to the fact that established Americans judge a foreign country by the immigrants or tourists from those countries. These people can't speak English, have strange customs, strange food, etc... I would also guess that if your neighbor was Canada, you too would gain a feeling of superiority.:)
As for television, the founding fathers did not foresee the establishment of the Fed. Communication Commission. OTOH, the censorship on TV in the US is easing up (thank you R. Murdoch and the Fox TV Channel).
And for your last point, America needs to be very careful about implementing laws that supress the rights of minority groups. In fact, the US needs to be very careful not to pass laws that infringe on the BOR's. I cringe everytime there is talk about laws prohibiting the burning of the US flag, or about allowing prayer in public schools.
Very well written and thought out; I wish I had wrote it myself. There is one key point that is forgotten at times that would like to add. The empowerment of the individual at the expense of the government essentially means that the government has implicit trust that the people will do the right thing. This trust forces the people to address the *root* of any problem that we face. Not by legislation, but by looking at the foundation of American society. It is easy for the government to pass a law that superficially "solves" an issue. However, unless the fundamental problem is addressed, it will still remain festering till another crisis arises.
When the government loses this trust that the American people can find a solution to a problem, it essentially is saying that our society has failed.
I don't want to be totally apologetic but the timing of this Oz censureship posting could not have come at a worst time. The shooting in Colorado has caused emotions to run fairly high in the US. Needless to say, the discussion and debate has not necessarily been level-headed.
Central to all of this is the explosive issue of gun control and the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Most Americans probably know only three part of the 10 part BOR's; free speech, right to bear arms, and the right to remain silent. Unfortunately, the internet censorship issue falls within the domain of free speech (in the US), and hence, this Aus. censureship issue is being swept into the vortex that surround the Colorado massacre.
Also remember that the *only* thing keeping the CDA from being fully implemented are court rulings that this bill violates the US Constitution (1st Ammendment, free speech).
Once again, sorry. But emotions are running pretty hot in the US right now.
Senator Harradine doesn't really have a history of making sense.
Actually, he seems better informed than the Minister for Communications at times; it's just unfortunate that he's on the wrong side, so to speak.
I miss Meept.
Note: There was heavier censorship in the fiftiess and sixties. There always is under liberal government.
I think you mean "Liberal government". Despite their name, the Liberal Party is conservative.
I miss Meept.
Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts?
Minister...minister......ministry...
Let me see...I seem to recall reading something about a ministry somewhere...
Oh, yes!
``1984'', by George Orwell. The ``Ministry of Truth''!
Listen, you beady-eyed little bureaucrats, look at my sig and realize the truth of it. You cannot ``censor the Internet''. You can only restrict people's access to it; restrict the free flow of information. Which makes you no better than the dictator your planes are bombing now, or the people who ordered the tanks into Beijing.
No better.
What is this about? Porn?
Young people are more harmed by guilt that is instilled by a repressive Ministry of Information, than they are by viewing non violent sexual or erotic imagery.
The only persons who have any business protecting children from certain material are the children's parents.
Period.
If your society has declined to the point where the government believes it has any role in how children are raised; keep your guns close, because the time when you must stand with your fellow freedom loving citizens against it is near.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Yes, Ted Bundy, one of our more prominent sociologists.
Bzzzt!
Try again!
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
"NO SIR!!! We don't take that kind of shit in America, Sir!!!
The bill of rights thing is a joke. It's just an attempt by very activist lawyers to increase the power of the judiciary. Our constitution has served our rights very well. Either there is a commitment to rights in a country or there is not - a piece of paper really doesn't have an impact.
Believe with me, my saplings.
I was against the republic simply because the whole movement is a joke. It was a diversion the former prime minister introduced to try and take people's attention away from spiraling unemployment, a crashing economy and high foreight debt six or seven years ago. There's nothing even slightly wrong with the current system, and no reason to change. Having said that, I think I'll be likely to support the model come the end of this year, simply because it's better we get the two-thirds parliamentary system now, than have the possiblility of getting the incredibly stupid direct-election model at a later date.
And yes, I realise this has almsot nothing to do with the article at hand. Appologies to the annoyed.
Believe with me, my saplings.
http://gomed.rodos.net/censor/bill- summary.html
The summary of the summary is
In summary, individals in Australia will :
It's worth mentioning that in practice , despite our weak constitution, by and large, Australians do quite well in terms of rights compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world ( INCLUDING THE US ... )
Labour can and should kill this deal. The liberals probably aren't too happy with it ( though their far rightists would like it ) since it is a big vote loser ( most Aussies do not approve of censorship )
BTW, Harradine is a fruitcake. His only notable acheivement was using his balance of power to kill a budget , losing a fortune for his country. The only reason he got into senate in the first place was because our proportional representation system of senate elections allows people to gain senate floor space with a very low percentage of the vote. Unfortunately, the tendency of Aussie politicians to blindly vote on party lines means that 1% of senate floor space often amounts to 1/3 of the power-share.
cheers,
cheers,
Meanwhile, you guys have your guns, but how much has it helped you really ? Guns will not help you deal with the tough issues like homelessness, drug abuse, health, crime , and education. And guns have not saved you from the censors.
cheers,
--
I didn't know about the primary vote( Im an expatriate so dont follow closely ) I guess this weakens the lib's position. Still, I'm a firm believer in *NOT* blocking budgets.
Of course, you'd be perfectly justified in pointing out that the libs hardly have established a long precedent of fair and unobstructive opposition ...
cheers,
--
Do the football team that win the most games deserve to top the ladder , or the team with the highest percentage? ( for the benefit of non Aussies, in Aussie football, percentage is basically your goals scored divided by goals against you )
The answer is simple: the team that wins the most games deserves to be on top , because it is a consistent winner.
Likewise, parties that can not get any support outside their "heartland" do not deserve to win.
If Australia was gerrymandered the way QL was under Joh's tyranny, you'd have a point. However, it's not clear that the electoral boundaries are overwhelmingly pro-Liberal. They certainly haven't been subjected to much political abuse favouring the libs, since labor had the lions share of political power ( federally ) in recent years.
You'd do your POV more service by pointing out that the libs only have a slight majority in the house ( as you'd expect given the vote ) and this weakens their mandate.
I love the way some Americans stand on their Bill of Rights and look down on the other lowly nations around the world who don't allow you to do anything you want anytime you want to anyone and then are totally shocked when the shit goes down (and you know what I mean). On another note, Television in the US is censored like you would not believe, with the stark exception of the news where they have no problem showing you anything and everything. In light of that how can you oppose similar censorship of another media format. I'm not advocating censorship but what I do advocate is laws that may ruffle the odd "right" or two but some people can't be trusted "to do the right thing" and we need to protect them and the people around them from their own stupidity.
Styx.
Then in this case we must obviously conclude that government knows best, as the wide-scale distribution of firearms has been a social cataclysm for the United States.
u re/g
I respect your opinion, and believe that you think big government does know best. I am not trying to change your mind, I agree to disagree.
I just prefer people to be consistent in their beliefs. Here is a unix helper, apply it to the above quote:
s/firearms/freespeech/g
s/firearms/freedomofassembly/g
s/firearms/freedomofreligion/g
s/firearms/freedomfromunreasonablesearchandsezi
s/firearms/presumptionofinnocence/g
You get the idea. All of the above have been a "social cataclysm" in many ways at many times. You believe that the best protection is for the power to reside with the government, I believe that the best protection is for the power to reside with the individual, neither of us has a perfect solution, both of us would like it to be better.
Bill "Not trying to start a fight" Kilgallon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
Don't ever link freedom of speech with firearm ownership.
Are you trying to limit my free speech?
:)
(sorry, could not resist)
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
I couldn't help notice a curious inconsistency here between this story and the Colorado shooting story (which I believe does not belong on Slashdot, but since it is there I will respond).
.001 percent.
Anyway, a number of posters from down under stated in the other thread about what a stroke of genius it was for the Australian government to make it completely illegal for private individuals with no criminal background and no crimnal intent to own a firearm.
Presumably, this was done because the benefits of the vast majority of legal firearm use and ownership (I bet around 99.999%) were deemed not as important as the damages caused by the remaining
Well, Australians, make up your mind. Here in America we have the first two ammendments to the consititution, the first protects the right to free speech, the second protects the right to own firearms. The founding fathers knew that both of these rights will cause some damage, but that also knew that each was far more dangerous in the hands of the government then in the hands of the individual.
Guns and words are both very dangerous. The spoken word has killed far more people then firearms ever will. If guns kill people, then words kill nations.
The founding fathers of the United States got one thing right... Governments are far more dangerous (and as an aside, far more stupid) than individuals. The bill of rights explicitly empowers the individuals at the cost of the government specifically for the purpose of protecting the individual from the government. Both the first AND the second ammendment are critical towards those ends. The first two ammendments protect each other... they simply make Tyranny mathmatically impossible.
So I guess what I am saying is that you should either decide that the government knows whats best and should have strict control and licensing of all dangerous behavior (like free speech and firearm ownership), or you should decide that the individual knows best and minimize governmental controls wherever possible (like limiting free speech restrictions to libel laws and limiting firearm restrictions to preventing felons and psychopaths from possessing firearms).
Make up your mind!
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
I would like to make a couple of points about the conversation so far.
First, I am a little discusted that what started out as a plea for support against a fairly ill-informed and poorly motivated piece of legislation, to do with Internet censorship, turned into a round of US-based Aussie-bashing.
This is particularly disturbing when coming from Slashdot subscribers, which, until this point, I had considered fairly open-minded and intelligent.
Second, I find the notion that Australia's restrictions on gun ownership and Internet censorship being related in any way absolutely ridiculous. The fact is that a large majority of Australians fully and passionately support the gun control that Australia has, and the issue has been debated heavily though the media and in public.
However, what has not been debated or even explained fully is this legislation on internet regulation. The current government (in Aus.), is trying to ram through a piece of legislation aimed solely at satisfying a poorly-informed independent senator on a morals campaign, in order to get his crucial vote on tax legislation. It has nothing to do with the good of the people, nor have they checked whether or not the legislation is actually capable of achieving its goals. Its a pity this situation gained no sympathy from Slashdot, given the stand they have taken on CDA.
BTW, if a half-hour, grossly-inaccurate, though somewhat funny Simpsons episode is all you know about Australia, then please refrain from commenting on it. To the rest of the world you merely look ignorant (and arrogant).
Matt.
'sapientia potestas est'
Buy an island somewhere, and form the the Free Slashdotian Nation!
Hehehe. Personal T1 for everyone! All the porn you can choke down! Choose any OS you want! Paradise.
But that is just me.
This sig is false.
And you feel comfortable letting Big Brother do it for you?
You know, you shouldn't have to police your child at all. If children are raised right, they will make the right decisions. If you allow porn, or even TV or violent video games take the place of a parent, they won't make the right decisions. But that is just my experience.
This sig is false.
And you feel comfortable letting Big Brother do it for you?
You know, you shouldn't have to *police* your child at all. If children are raised right, they will make the right decisions. If you allow porn, or even TV or violent video games take the place of a parent, they won't make the right decisions. But that is just my experience.
This sig is false.
See subject.
This sig is false.
...three times over who also thinks you're full of excrement on this particular matter. The government (and especially moralists who want to control the levers of government) has NO BUSINESS dictating what my kids may or may not see. You feel comfortable with that sort of thing? There are plenty of banana republics with military juntas out there you can move to.
Be careful what you wish for... if the government legislates what your kids can see, guess what?? They'll also get a specific political and moralistic agenda pushed down their throats... for 'their own good', of course.
Well, it's obvious that this poster has no idea what a fallacy is. Can we say non sequiter?
The incident in Colorado reflects only on two disturbed teenagers who didn't get the help they needed.
In the same way, people are individually responsible for their actions. Censorship only serves to make the censored material more interesting. The censored material is a convenient scapegoat for those who demand to find a cause, even when there isn't one, or when it is based on complex interactions that we cannot yet understand. The cries for censorship are the result of hysteria on the part of those who want to be protected from something they can't understand, and who are willing to make things worse in order to give themselves the illusion of security.
Alan R. Light
Monroe, North Carolina
Social cataclysm?
Over a century of domestic peace, the longest-lasting constitution in the world, and you call it Social Cataclysm?
Any credibility you may have had has now been lost.
Alan R. Light
Monroe, North Carolina
Don't ever link freedom of speech with firearm ownership. What do you think the flipside of "an armed society is a polite society" is?
I quite like the fact that I can walk down the street without every disgruntled One Nation voter having the option to blow my brains out because they don't like the way I dress.
The gun lobby has made the American government gutless. Fortunately we haven't let that happen here.
"We won't use guns, we won't use bombs, we'll use the one thing we've got more of, that's our brains." - Jarvis Cocker.
... so sprach Graham the Happy Scum
Hell yeah. I can call you a bastich and you can't shoot me for it! Ain't the internet great? :-)
... so sprach Graham the Happy Scum
Indeed. (actually, technically she's the Queen of Australia, she just happens to be the same as the Queen of England.) Actually, we're going to have a referendum on this question later in the year, unfortunately a group of elitist republicans, the Australian Republican Movement, gazumped the Constitutional Convention last year and pushed through an entirely unsatisfactory republican model where parliamentarians will appoint the president, which will serve as the "Yes" option in the referendum.
The ARM had the somewhat patronising attitude that the Australian people shouldn't be allowed to actually elect the president directly, which really isn't much better than having a foreign monarch. And as for the monarchists...
Consequently, even though I do definately want an indigenous head-of-state, I am still in two minds as whether to vote for the status quo (the constitutional monarchy) or the degenerate republic-lite later this year.
I should also add that Australia is already technically independent, and has been so since the 1930s, with Britain relinquishing its remaining privileges since then. But an Australian head of state still has an symbolic importantance.
But this getting way off topic, isn't it?
... so sprach Graham the Happy Scum
Hahahahahah! Oh yeah. Well, for a start most of us have never really had guns to start with. And those of us that do tend to use it for sensible uses, instead of trying to hold off the coup etats you lot richly deserve.
Sad sad Americans, who will never truly know freedom.
... so sprach Graham the Happy Scum
Well, I'm an American studying in England, and I know a lot of Australians here. In my experience, the Australians are the only ones who call the place Oz.
If you want to see where it comes from, try saying "Aus" and "Oz" or "Aussies" and "Ozzies" and I think it will be pretty clear.
Sorry to nitpick, Jeff (Hemos), but the words "We the People" appear in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. Of course the Constitution is the right document to cite, because it is its amendments which did the most to establish the rights of Americans.
Funny, my mom raised two kids, and while i was living at home, she was able to keep my brother out of the porn and violence that resides online and in games (i was old enough so it didn't matter when i got the computer). it's not that difficult. if you can't monitor what your children are doing on the computer at home then perhaps it's time to move the computer or restrict access.
So, by following the primary vote, One Nation (8.4%) should have more seats than the Democrats. Do you really want to just go by the primary vote?
In my state, South Australia, the ALP did not gain a majority of the "primary vote" (42.05% vs 34.48 and that is just the Libs, not the coalition - the National party is small in SA). The Coalition EASILY won the two party preferred tally (53.11% vs 46.89%). The Democrats won 10.14% of the primary vote in this state (in the Lower House, even).
There have been numerous times the ALP has not won a majority of the primary vote but they have still formed government.
The fact remains that the Liberals went to this election with a policy to introduce the GST, and they won. Or should we overthrow our political system just when it doesn't suit our favourite party? Even the Democrats are willing to negotiate with the Government about this.
Yep (NZ was 1893) and South Australia followed a year later. South Australia was also the first place in the world that allowed women to enter Parliament.
You let them take your guns, now they can do anything they want.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
Wasn't it Howard Rheingold that said "The Internet treats censorship as a routing failure and routes around it"?
Well, why not use that FreeS/WAN thingy to make a pipe out from Australia's pristine shores to a server in a more enlightened place and circumvent the national restriction?
C-x C-s
Brian-bloody-harradine shouldn't have the ""monopoly"" he has with the current government situation. It is just a joke. Why should howard and the other senators reach out to harradine's every wish?
BTW I'm not pro those kinds of sites but i am really against net censorship. We should be responsible enough to look after ourselves....
- An Unbelieving Aussie
NeuRix~# mail sniper02@hotmail.com
Subject: Assassination
Please assassinate brian harradine - money's in
the usual place
^D
:)
- NeuralAbyss
~^~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~~^^^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Real programmers don't comment their code.
Topfree is legal here (stateside) as well. A friend of mine was one of the women arrested in an act of CD to get the sexist law thrown out. Thanks to her and her friends, it is now legal for women to dress the same as men in public places.
BTW, nudity/naturism is not the same issue as censorship, even though censorship is sometimes a factor with nudists/naturists. Censorship is an evil that is much more pervasive than just affecting body parts and their display. Much!
(This is NYS law, btw. YMMV. IANAL. blahblah #include std_disc.h)
Why should the labor MPs vote for the GST? They were elected by people who are under the impression that labor will oppose it. You could say all that all the labor MPs and senators who were voted in had a mandate to try to prevent the GST. I guess the mandate argument only works when it is for something that you are in favour of.
The independent senators only have balance of power when the two major parties disagree. What makes you think that Harradine should not be allowed to cast his own vote, rather than being forced to vote with the liberal? (the whole point of being an independent is not following a party line)
As for blocking the budget, the method of raising the money for the budget was by selling off a profitable publically owned company (Telstra for those who don't know). The majority in the senate were against loosing control of Telstra, so they voted against it.
As for the percieved problems in the distribution of power, you will never find a totally fair political system (I think some mathematician proved it once). I don't know what the best system is, but I wouldn't discard the current system just because of this problem. There are many systems that are worse.
Well I liked living here. But im starting to wonder. John Howard and his GST, trying to screw more money out of those who already make less money. I saw an analysis of his propsed GST showing how much better off the rich are and how much worse off those buying basic necessities are. The class tampons and ladies pads etc as luxury items, and tax these accordingly and lots of other rediculous crap. CD's here are $30, and a basic new computer will cost you 2500 to 3000 for a not too extravagent one. We already pay alot to live here, they keep bringing in "people with money" from overseas to help raise our economy supposedly. This only seems to push those of of here into "cheaper" accomidation as prices skyrocket. And yet of course the goverment is still not happy. We have high unemployment, and the while the goverment still pays benfits to "elderly" who may have lived here for two years 20 years ago then moved back to china, they are cutting out unemployment benifits. The amount of poeople living on the streets keeps increasing, but they move more people with money in from overseas. And NOW THIS! They are going to censor the net, not for votes, not for anything but for their own greed. This cant happen.
meridian at tha.net
Recently a film was also censored which showed the problem of pedifilia (sp?) which exists, and how a man is sexually attracted to his step daughter. While no sex occured in the movie (i believe) they censored it anyway to "protect us" even though the film was censored in no other countries i know of. Sorry forgot the name. Of course I always hear about books getting sensored. Basically any movie or book that raises an eyebrow by some stupid minority ends up getting censored it seems.
meridian at tha.net
I had a look at the speech (though not the bill itself). Unfortunately, it looks like a relatively sensible and well thought-out proposal. I say "unfortunately" because if it was as silly as some of the other proposed legislation, it would be a lot easier to stop (as happened in New South Wales). I don't condone censorship, and I don't think new laws are necessary here. Truly vile stuff like child pornography is illegal in Australia under existing laws, whether it's in print or on the Net.
Australia has a spotty history on censorship; mostly (as other people have pointed out) we're too laid back to make much fuss. One of the great ironies here is that X-rated material is banned from sale in all the states except the Northern Territory and the ACT (Australian Capital Territory, which unlike NT, isn't a state; it's like USA's District of Columbia: somewhere to stick the nation's capital so the government doesn't bother you while you're working). But - where was I, oh yes - sending X-rated material in the mail is *not* banned, so the ACT, and Canberra in particular, has become the centre of Australia's porn industry. At least Canberrans now have something to do when Parliament isn't sitting. (Imagine Washington, only twenty times smaller, and without the guns or drugs. Now take out the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, and anything else that might be interesting. Add a rather nice lake. Ta da! That's Canberra.)
And the Film and Literature Classification Board (newspeak for Censors) seem to be a bit confused anyway. Playboy's Book of Lingerie - which I buy for the articles, of course - will be "Unrestricted" one month (i.e. any 12-year old with too much pocket money can buy it), and "Category 1 Restricted" the next (Adults only and wrapped in plastic). And for the life of me I can't work out what criteria they use (I spent many hours researching this). Plus the stickers are really hard to get off...
And yes, they do put an "Unrestricted" sticker on it when it's unrestricted. Doh!
And yeah, if there's a protest march on in Sydney, I'll be there. A plague on Senator Harradine, and on Senator Alston too. Where have all the decent politicians gone? Come back Nick Greiner, all is forgiven! (Nick Greiner was premier of NSW, scuttled by his own Independent Commission Against Corruption, but later cleared in court.)
I shall put them on my list, and they'd none of them be missed...
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I really have no pitty for you fledgling remnants of the British Empire. You people are all sheep! What did you think was going to happen once your government(s) took away your 'Right to Keep and Bear Arms' (as it is known in the U.S.)?? The right of uncensored free speech is ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS destined for infringement in ANY society that disarms its populous. Can you say Soviet Union, Germany, Cina, etc.????
You might as will sit back and TAKE IT now, since youve all been sitting idle for so long as your freedoms are stripped from you one by one..
no pity,
KidGloves
Your freedoms are only percieved freedoms, you are at the mercy of special interests, business and governement like nowhere else in the world.
Our lack of a contitutuionally guaranteed set of rights hasn't stopped us from having a free, safe and largely uncensored society. I think Asimov said that 'Violence was the last resort of the incompetent' - if you need a guarantee to carry guns to feel safe there must be something fundamentally wrong with your society.
Our challenge in Australia is that people are charactising Internet Cencorship as a fight to protect children. Unfortunately it is really a fight to buy a vote and the real effects could be to lose jobs and opportunities for our children.
Why do children need to be on the Internet anyway - at their level of education a library is a much better resource for learning.
This is one thing I have never really I have never understood about the USA. Why on Earth should the right to kill someone (what else is a can a gun be used for?) come before that to make love and drink alchol?
I must admit, this one thing I prefer in the French culture - the ability to talk about most subjects without any hang-ups.
I know this is ls slightly off-topic, but I needed to share that.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Through most of the 1980's and early 90's, Australia lead the world in not censoring anything. In that time, the only things that were placed on the censored list were books containing detailed instructions for things like torture (this was an actual case. A book was distributed in the country for about a week on the subject, before being banned).
This is odd, considering Australia has a whole set of laws granting censorship powers to various arms of the government and public service (mostly resting in customs, and the attorney-generals department). The reason for the lack of censorship last decade was the decision of the attorney-general Michael Lavarch to deliberately NOT censor. This all changed when Government changed hands. Almost as soon as the liberals had moved into their new offices, censorship was a big issue.
The best solution to censorship is people in power who don't want to censor. That is, almost noone in our current federal government.
So, with this in mind, my best solution to Australian internet censorship: Don't push them.
The liberal government is highly reactionary. If you point out that their laws are unworkable, they will make them workable. I'm not saying ignore it and it will go away, so much as this is not a problem anyway. If you must have X rated material, you will get it one way or another. I can't see ISP's having even a 40% success rate at blocking any class of download. Especially if it is non-text based.
In addition, these laws are as you describe them, a dealmaker with Senator Harradine. The gorvernment is not so likely to put them on the front burner. Chances are, they will sit in commitees and review sessions until the next election, when the government will more than likely be voted out of power, as they nearly were last election. In the unlikely event of them reaching the senate, chances are they will be blocked by the Labor party and democrats until the government is either forced to give up, or call a referendum (unlikely).
Summary: Just because Australian politicians say thy're going to do something, doesn't mean they will, or even intended to in the first place.
This is a VERY valid point. (even though it seems to be a tautology.)
One of the hallmarks of a successful modern nation is a free press, and by extension minimal censorship. There are very few countries which could be deemed successful economically, which have anything but the most minor censorship.
By economically successful, I mean nations with high GDP, low poverty rates, and acceptable foreign debt.
I made a comment further doen the list onm this subject (Australia and Censorship)
A summary of Australian censorship powers is as follows:
The Government has the power to censor anything, if they see fit. It's in our laws.
Freedom of the press is NOT assured in Australian law at all.
The bulk of censorship power is held by the customs office, whose policies on the matter are set by the attorny generals department. For most of the last two decades, the attornay-general's policy was not to censor. This seems to have changed with the new government.
Australia is the least censored country in the world, or at least it was in '95, when I researched all this stuff.
Essentially, the only reaon Australians have ever avoided censorship, is because the government didn't want to censor.
Note: There was heavier censorship in the fiftiess and sixties. There always is under liberal government. Just adds weight to the argument that anyone claiming to be liberal just wants to tell you what to do "for the sake of society."
I accept that I am a male between the ages of 20 and 30. I also accept that I have neither begat nor raised children. That said I disagree with your entire angle here.
Childraising should not (in my inexperienced opinion) be about policing your child. If you teach them right from wrong when they are young, they will most likely figure out the right thing to do in most situations. You don't have to watch their every move. Sure, they'll go off the rails here and there, but they will more than likely straighten out with a little help.
If you look on childraising as a "police" situation, they will view themselves as criminals. The best way to raise a problem child is to punish him/her for every grievance without explaining why what they did was wrong. It teaches them to push you until you snap. Soon they realise they can keep pushing a long time.
Admittedly, censorship laws could aid the parent, but so could laws against private cars. You teach your child how to cross roads. If you teach him/her that it is wrong to look up porn, they probably won't much until they are at least 13, at which point no force in the world could prevent them.
Every problem child I have ever met I could trace back to shabby parenting. I know, it's my experience, it isn't particularly valid, but I have met dedicated drug-users who were otherwise model citizens with a strong work ethic, morals and a sense of purpose. And I have met people who didn't drink and were the most arrogant, self-obsessed cases of arrested developement I have ever known. Guess which ones were the children of divorced marriages.
Parents bear in my opinion, responsibilty for the person they raised. Complaining that it's not as easy as all that is ridiculous. Didn't you know it was going to be hard?
It is debatable that liberal have every right to put the policy through. They, like Bob Hawkes fist term government in the eighties, were elected on a fairly shaky mandate.
More Australians voted Labor. (it's spelt without the 'u', just so you know. It has a lot to do with their original anti-mother England stance from when they formed) Liberal won more seats, hence liberal is in government, when the majority wanted labor.
For those who cant figure this one out for themselves, here's my explanation:
Imagine there are 100 seats in parliament. liberal wins 60 with each of their sixty receiving a vote of 51% liberal, 49% labor.
Labor wins 40 with a vote of 99% labor, 1% liberal.
All seats are approxmately the same size. (They are in reality too.) Labor has a vast majority of the vote. But liberal has more seats.
This is something like what happened in our last election, albeit far more extreme.
That said, I am not entirely opposed to the GST. It would make good economic sense in the long run, with a short term drop in standard of living (which we have coming, like it or not).
It won't work well with the current system. The idea is that it increases propensity to save, because when you spend money, you lose money. Liberal has driven down our propensity to save immensely by deregulating the banks and leaving the path free for banks to charge exorbitant fees. (I'm getting ATM use charges as high as $2 per withdrawal). For the GST to do what it is supposed to, the government would have to reintroduce bank regulation and cut bank fees by 80-90%.
I did in fact mean "Liberal", but I feel that liberal/conservative do not have such clear cut definitions.
Don't kid yourself that a liberal politician (as opposed to a Liberal one) wouldn't try to damage your freedom on the internet. Of the two US parties the democrats are the more liberal yet the republicans are frequently more libertarian. (Quick question: Which US party has tried to introduce encryption key escrow as a law?)
And the Liberals are not much more conservative than the Labor party. There is far more overlap than you might think.
What it really boils down to, is that it doesn't matter what the ``founding fathers'' intended. Just being the founders of our nation didn't make them infallible, as they well knew (amendments). I don't care what the founders would think; I can reason just as well as they can.
They do have the option to blow your brain out, it would just be doubly-illegal to do so. If they're willing to commit murder in the first place, they're probably willing to illegally acquire a gun.
There is a simple answer to a vast majority of the porn problem. Require an extension of .xxx and provide a passworded option to block it.
;)
The real problem is trying to provide everyone with my standard of morals
There is no way to block it all. Some of the worst sites are "health" sites such as NYs university of columbia where they tell you how to clean blood and gore from your s&m devices (plus a whole lot more). The internet is like the world--user beware.
In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
"to be able to kill" != "to kill"
"Having the right to be able to kill" != "having the right to kill"
The right to bare arms does not imply the right to use them indiscriminently.
So now you ask, why would I want to have a gun if I can't use it? Think of a martial artist, trained 30 years in all forms of weapon-less self-defense. He/she can probably kill an aggressor any number of ways, but will not want to. Likewise with owning a gun or any other dangerous device. You don't _want_ to be forced to use it, but if your rights are being threatened by circumstances beyond your control, you want to have the right to be prepared to defend those rights.
Your comment is almost akin to "Why should the right to oppress the populace (what else can a police force be used for?) come before other government rights?"
... to another ongoing festival of flames and whatnot here on /., but it doesn't sound to me like you Aussies need help.
It sounds like you need GUNS.
First they take away guns, then they take away speech. Sound familiar?
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
We ought to use the slash engine to make a constitution and public policy discussion forum. I love this stuff, too, and that would be a great way to incite riotous debate among geeks.
Your perception of the courts' "interpretation" of the constitution is the correct one. Poor, unwashed constitutional non-literalists can't seem to understand that sometimes people say and write exactly what they mean.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
I will attempt to dissect your appeal to emotion point by point, in hopes that it will show you the logic errors in your rant, and increase your awareness on topics of public policy.
.22 ca Marlin squirrel gun, and the much-hyped "assault weapons" which are used in far less than 1% of crimes committed with guns in the U.S. - even _BEFORE_ the ban). So, what was this statement about?
> AFTER 20 INNOCENT CHILDREN WERE KILLED IN COLORADO YOU HAVE ENOUGH BALLS TO BREAG ABOUT
> OWNING SEMI AUTOMATIC GUNS!
If I owned semi-automatic guns, I would likely not brag about them... oh, wait, I _do_. Now, have I gone out and shot anyone? No.
The fact is, the wackos in Colorado used _shotguns_ to perpetrate their crime. Not semi-automatic weapons (the likes of which technically include all hand guns, including revolvers, semi-automatic hunting rifles, even my
> THese werent people who were killed. They were children.
And since when have children not been people? If you're a radical leftist, that may be the case (pulling up the abortion issue, just to incite your ire).
> ITs because of liberal gun laws made by NRA extremist who only make up 3% of
> America's population.
No, it's not. The fact is, in places where the gun laws are the most strict you'll find the highest incidents of violent crimes commited with firearms.
"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
It's not just a quaint saying, but the stone truth.
> ITs embarasing calling myself an American while all the Canadians and Europeans scratch their
> heads at us.
Renounce your citizenship. Move to Canada or Europe. No? Why not? Perhaps you are not that embarrassed after all? Why are you embarrassed calling yourself an American (at least, over this issue... there are a number of other issues wherein I will agree with you)?
What you fail to realize is that the first two amendments go hand-in-hand, and the first would not be secure without the second. Nor would any of the others. That little piece of paper in the hermetically sealed cabinet in the museum in Washington, D.C. isn't just a novelty. It's a living, breathing document and a shining beacon of reason in an otherwise hostile world. The Kosovar Albanians didn't have guns, nor do the people of Iraq. We do, and because of that, we will never be as bad off as they. If the government gets too nasty here, assuming the people don't act like sheep and foolishly give up their rights to bear arms, we can overthrow it. That idea is not a tinker-toy, either. It's a moral imperative.
"The tree of liberty is fertilized by the blood of patriots."
> THe constitution says that in case the government becaomes a tryant and abasues its
> pwoer then we as the people must bear arms agaisnt the power. NOT OWN GUNS! Read it yourslef.
The logical fallibility of that statement should be clear even to you, but if it is not, I will point it out.
How can We, The People, bear arms THAT WE DO NOT OWN against the power of a tyrannical government? Do you think such a government will supply us with arms as a gesture of good will? No, We The People _MUST_ be able to own arms. Note that the Constitution (the paper in the sealed box in D.C.) does not mandate that people own and carry guns, but SECURES THAT RIGHT via the Second Amendment. If you value the other amendments in the Bill Of Rights, then you must value the second. It is there for a reason, and is the underpinning of the guarantee that the others will remain secure for us.
> THE NRA missinterprets the constititon for their own greedy agenda.
That agenda being... ? The death of more Americans, or maybe the wanton destruction and blight caused by crime? I don't think so.
> WHy would the framers of the constitution and the bill of rights mention personal firing arms
> when discusing how to build a governemnt.
Because they were Very Wise Men [tm] who had just fought a war for their independence from a tyrannical government, and did not want their progeny (us) to face the same threat from their own government. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed means exactly that, and for the reason given, the necessity of such for the security of a free (speech, assembly, citizenry...) state (the U.S.).
>The whole idea of the framers thinking about oppreson and liberty all of the sudden think
> aobut their own personal fireamrs.
Umm... yeah? They saw their firearms as the means for securing that liberty against that oppression. We should see things in much the same way. Do you honestly think that, if the populace was not armed, the U.S. would be any less prone to tyranny than any other place on the planet? Why do you have this delusion?
> ITs obviously out of context.
What is out of context? The founding fathers had that belief, and it is still a valid belief. I can only hope that, if they were around today, they would have written the same provision in a much clearer fashion which irrefutably secured that right to the people. I believe they would.
> The nra supports crazy stuff like ammo that can peirce bullet proof vests of police officers (I
> can't see how this would benifiet deer hunting)
The constitution said nothing about deer-hunting. And the armor-piercing variety of bullets would be necessary to defend yourself against a tyrannical government. If the Marines decided to take over, say, Boston, do you think they would go in in tee shirts or standard-issue BDUs? I doubt it. I think they'd wear flak-jackets. People in Boston would be _thankful_ for the armor-piercing ammunition, and don't think they wouldn't.
> and making it legal to conceal a semi automatic weapon in your jacket.
If you're speaking of "assault rifles", they're hard as hell to conceal in a jacket, even a trench coat. If you're speaking of, say, a 9mm Beretta, that's easier. Why shouldn't I be able to carry my weapon inconspicuously? If I wear it on my belt, it's more likely that some wacko will try to take it from me and use it against me by just grabbing it out of the holster. If I have it under my arm, in a shoulder-holster, I might have a better chance of stopping an ongoing rape or robbery, or of defending myself if I am not disarmed _first_.
> I heard on cnn in Missouri the nra tried to do just that.
Yeah, but Missouri is on a different planet. Seriously, though, I'm from Missouri. I live in Missouri. I wanted Proposition B to pass. The fact is that it did pass by overwhelming numbers in the outlying counties. Only St. Louis and Kansas City kept the bill from passing due to turnout by ill-informed urban votes, drummed into action by media hype. But it wasn't the NRA that put this before the people. The state legislature put it before the people in a direct vote (a referendum, for the uninitiated).
> Missouri made it ilegal in the 1800's when outlaws were everywhere and the crime went down
> when criminals couldn't hide pistols in their coats.
I had not thought it possible for someone to be so ill-informed.
Missouri did, indeed, make it illegal to carry a gun on your person in the 1800s. But only if you were going further than two counties distant (the distance one could reasonably be expected to travel on horseback in a day's time). So, there is nothing in state law that says I can't sling a belt around my waist, hang a six-shooter in it, and walk down the street. The fact that the police would, in short order, arrest me is an abridgement of my rights under state law.
Besides, I'd be willing to bet that in over 95% of crimes committed in the U.S. (and in Missouri) where a gun was involved, the gun involved was not legally registered to the wielder. The proposition in Missouri would have required a concealed-carry license and a properly registered handgun.
One question I'd pose to you: given that a criminal will use an illegal gun to commit his crimes (95+% of the time), what is to stop said criminal from concealing an illegal gun in his jacket?
Another question: if that criminal can conceal his illegal gun in his jacket (which he will do, in order to avoid or at least defer detainment by the constabulary), why can I, a law-abiding citizen, not conceal my properly registered and duly-authorized gun in my jacket?
> Now tell me how concealing semi automatic weapons benifets deer hunting or even shooting
> semi automatic weapons on rural property for fun.
Semi-automatic weapons of what kind? Assault rifles? Those are difficult to conceal even in a trench coat. Handguns? Who would hunt deer with a handgun? What does deer-hunting have to do with the constitutional right to keep and bear arms?
> Their is no need to conceal them. THe NRA are nuts the constition does not state to own weapons
> but rather bear arms agaisn't the foriegn or dictatory power. Jeez
Okay, so, if we go up and wave our arms at an invading army (our bare arms, no guns), they'll turn tail and run away? The kids at Kent State waved their bare arms at the National Guard, and some of them ended up dead because of it. If we have no arms to bear, then all we can do is bare our arms at the oppressor, and that won't do a damn bit of good or secure a single bit of freedom for anyone. Except, of course, the oppressor who will slaughter all of those who come at him with bare arms like sheep. He will have guns, shouldn't we?
> For all you europeans and australinas reading this, remember that the vast majority of
> Americans don't agree with this madness but are rather captive by powerfull nra politicians.
No, all you Europeans and Australians, believe that the vast majority of Americans DO agree with the second amendment. We are not captive to powerful NRA politicians, but are rather fond of the idea of maintaining some semblence of common sense and civility. The last couple of generations notwithstanding, this is a decent country. It can be again, but only if we take our rights more seriously, as well as the responsibility that goes along with them.
> Bill Gates is having a fund raiser to raise money against the volience of handguns. This is
> the only thing I have common in Bill Gates.
Well, I have to say this: I sympathize with those who have been victims, directly or indirectly, of handgun violence. I would give money to a fund that helped to counsel those victims, or pay benefits to those who are so afflicted. I would not, however, give up my right to bear arms. Just because Billcutus gives money to a cause doesn't mean he thinks one way or another about it. I suspect that he, in the guise of Microsoft, gives a good rate to the Exxon Corporation for the purchase of MS Office. Does this mean that he believes in the senseless killing of animals and the wanton destruction of the environment?
Think about it. Just think about it. Hell, just think period.
--Corey, NOT an NRA member.
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
So, the crime rate in England is lower than that of, say, Switzerland? Hahahah.
I can refute your argument by pointing out two or three cases of the opposite.
It is your assertion that no civilized country which allows firearm ownership by the populace, including handguns (France, as you say, allows the private ownership of hunting rifles... as I have no knowledge of this, I will give you this point), is "safe".
Would your idea of civilized countries include such countries as Switzerland, New Zealand, and Israel? These are all "western" countries, and as such are "civilized" by your criteria from what I can see.
All of these countries allow, and in the case of Switzerland and Israel (not sure about NZ), PROMOTE the keeping of arms by the citizenry. The difference: they TRAIN and EDUCATE their citizens on the proper use of these arms.
I would venture a guess that Switzerland and New Zealand are among the safest nations in the world. Now, where was your argument?
Also, there have been reports of "civilization" in the far East. One little nation there, called Taiwan, strictly forbids the ownership of firearms. That little nation sports one of the highest incidents of violent crime in the world. So, where was that argument again?
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Yeah, really, especially advice like that.
Aforementioned parent gave up.
A little background. I'm 32, married, contemplating my own short people... having had some practice. I had a roommate for seven years who had two sons, and I helped her raise these young gentlemen (for that's what they were) for those seven years.
No, you cannot be there every second - but you CAN teach them proper respect, for themselves, for others, for dangerous tools including weapons. You can also teach them how to react when proper respect is not shown. When you do that, you don't need censorship, you don't need gun control, because you have raised a kid who is, in short, bullshit-proof.
Been there.
Done that.
But noooooooooooooo, the Nice Nellies want to take all the sharp edges off the world and put warning labels on bottles of water "warning, too much of this and you could drown".... Yes, I can see a certain standard of merchantability, but they refuse to require that one of the requirements for remaining in the gene pool is a certain amount of common horse sense. What these idiots want to do is select for their own kind - idiots.
Am I the only one that is outraged that the free exchange of ideas, the right to defend oneself, and the concept of excellence are in the current sociopolitical climate topics to be reviled and demonized at all costs? THIS is genocide... slowly and painfully.
It means us, too. -- epilogue, Brave New World
"We must obviously conclude that Government knows
..
best" ????? Methinks not.
The fact is, the Constitution of the United States
has been amended numerous times, and previously-
existing portions removed. The fact that the
citizens of the United States have not seen fit
to rescind the Second Amendment in the 212 years
of the American Republic should tell you
something: namely, that we don't see the need to
remove it. .
You assume that lobbying has existed in its' present form for 212 years. Bad assumption. And, I'll insult you all you like, if stating the facts is considered an insult. The bottom line is, most Americans support the right to keep and bear arms: in fact, you'll find that the majority of households have at least one firearm. . .
Not that any of this is germane to Slashdot, but the bottom line is this: every time a major effort to ban guns, as a whole, nationwide is tried, it fails miserably. Reality: Deal with it. . .
And on that note, I'm out of this argument. . .
It is amazing to me how many people simply do not understand the purpose of the 2nd amendment. It is not about the right to kill, it is about the right to protect yourself against animals, people and most importantly, the government.
Who was it that formed this country? It was the gun wielding citizens of the American colonies that fought the British. Did you know that the head of every household in colonial America was required by law to own a firearm? Remembering why they fled their respective countries, why do you think the colonists would have created such a law? Perhaps they were sick of being bullied around by all the king's men!
Our right to own, the 2nd amendment, is our last and final check on the government.
Feel free to disagree, it is your right as an American. Remember who fought for that right.
robert
Yeah, happens all the time.. us crazy American's shooting politians to get what we want! Come on, you know that's not true. The right to own is the _last and final_ check on the government. If you let them take your firearms you are completely at their mercy, no matter what they decide. Read through your history books and you'll find quite a lot of examples of this. You have to remember the history of our country; there was a pathetic represive government, we kicked them out. If the colonists had let the British take their guns, where would they have gotten? This could never happen in todays world? You don't look around enough if you actually think that.
Brian Harradene is a first order twit, unfortunately he holds the balance of power in the
short term. Equally unfortunately western economies are becoming increasingly service
based. Even more unfortunate is the fact that governments need money to run, and printing
the stuff for such purposes is not a hot idea. We need to tax services. I know there is this
perceived problem and that perceived problem, but these are the basic facts.
The real solution is for the democrats to deal with reality, then no one has to pander the
Harradene.
The right to self defense != the right to kill others. Would you say that the two teens in Colorado were acting in 'self defense'? Case in point.
That Drug Law fact is unsubstantiated. Show me statistics, please.
And I'm well aware that lobbies may well be running my government. At least they aren't running them into the ground though.
As for senseless mass violence being on the rise, unless I'm the ignorant victim of a lot of censorship, I've missed a lot. Frankly though, I won't say that violence may not be on the rise. But mix violence with firearm availability and the odds of those firearms being mixed into the violence increases. And I agree to it being a social problem. That being the social mindset that owning a device that is meant soley for death and killing is an acceptable thing.
T
Let me have fun with your statement. Where you state that everyone should have a gun as the likelyhood of them being used is less, substitute people with nations and guns with nuclear weapons.
I know this is a fairly huge differnece but think of it as this: Guns have the potential to kill. As do nukes. Last I checked, mutually assured destruction was only something I'd want to leave in the hands of someone with something to lose. Because perpetuating guns to everyone everywhere, you'd soon reach someone with NOTHING to lose. And they could go ballistic, knowing perfectly well that they would die.
The nuclear detterent was one of the most costly endeavours that mankind ever embarked on. Don't be so quick to pass the detterent of violence onto the common man.
A century of domestic peace. With violations left, right and center. What do you call conscription, especially for wars without purpose (Vietnam?) I'd hardly call the 60's a time of domestic peace. Black people moving for their rights. More social cataclysm existed then because the tensions were tighter. You have to admit, the 90's are fairly lax.
I wish I could read off more examples and I know they are there. Being a Canadian, US history isn't my strong suit. However, your credability is just as easily lost as you cannot hope to gloss over simple and fundamental violations of basic human rights.
Oh please help me, I can't rise up against a rogue government who seems bent on removing my rights as a person. Whatever shall I do without my Trusty Person Killer (tm) at my side? Probably something far more intelligent.
Someone far far up said that words are as powerful as guns. Well this is out of his context, but it applies both ways. I can use words, not guns, and maybe even make a differnece.
And I tell you, I really wish I was an American. I could walk down the street with my Trusty Person Killer (tm), safe in the knowledge that that awfully corrupt government won't be robbing me of my freedoms soon because if they do, I'll shoot them all.
Of course, in reality, that's not the case. Television == Censored. No doubt about it. Tell me how much nudity and sex you can view on NBC or CBS or Fox or whatever after midnight? About the same as before. I'm a Canadian. I can get Showcase. Only then, we call it art (which it is, foreign film, not a porno). It's still after midnight of course. Can you say though, that you get it on cable?
You can't ever tell me you're totally free. Because that's just delusional and forms itself in statements like yours. I have no pity for YOUR delusion and I sincrely hope that you won't ever have to be put in a situation to use your Trusty Person Killer (tm) because you'll likely die. I don't need your pity, I have my freedoms and I find it sad that you falsely believe you have yours.
>First, I am a little discusted that what started
>out as a plea for support against a fairly
>ill-informed and poorly motivated piece of >legislation, to do with Internet censorship,
>turned into a round of US-based Aussie-bashing.
I (Canadian) only started really getting into this argument after hearing a few Americans trying to convince everyone that their way is the right way and all their guns and supposed freedom of speech.
The more colorful comments about how the lack of guns was allowing the goverment to push them around really got to me. Totally differing value systems reign around here. If you read about posts from Austrailians feeling repressed because of their lack of guns, you might have a point.
Conversely, I hardly thing the US government goes about thinking "Ya know, if we pass this, there's likely to be an armed uprising and we'll all be killed by the informed and armed people." A more realistic scenario would be "Ya know, if we pass this the media will milk it all over the uninformed electorate and we'll be voted out of power next election."
I may be slightly off topic but I don't feel this has been an 'American Bash' session as much as a clash of differing values. Maybe we're even learning (:
That's almost as good as the argument "Want that program for Linux? Code it!"
Grow up, you can't expect everyone to be able to do something like that. It's absurd. People, not politicians.
As you probably know from having lived in Canada, the government can try and try to 'protect' its citizens from 'harmful information', but let's face it, the government sucks at it. (I am also a Canadian, and it should be noted that we are overtaxed and over-regulated, from my point of view.)
What needs to be done is filtering at the institutional level. If a school wants to filter its internet access, then at least you are not filtering out information from an entire country!
Just imagine if the government 'accidentally' filtered all information relating to the opposition parties -- that would be bad. Democracy is about freedom, and minimum shackles from the government...
Now I wish our government would figure that out.
i thought the article was about Oz the tv show on HBO. heh. is it generally known that "Oz" means australia? anyway ...
... but i still think neither of those has any effect on a person as long as she is mentally stable.
i think the web is a representation of what is on people's minds. i am not surprised to find out that a great chunk of the net consists of porn, and i bet most freudians wouldn't be surprised either.
i don't see why people should be protected from what is most probably on their minds. if i had kids, i'd rather they be exposed to sexual material rather than violent stuff
Sounds like Aussies are getting a package deal on the two worst aspects of gov't.
Liberal may claim a 'mandate' but more votes were actually cast for Labour than Liberal, so in overall percentages, they don't. Stupid divisions of voting districts are what was responsible for Liberal still being in government, not a majority belief in what they're doing.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
..because i have looked at porn and enjoyed it, and i do not count myself any worse off for it. if one teaches his/her kids to think, there should not be a problem.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
The "logic" behind these mandates escapes me. If I had voted for the Coalition (not likely - I spent 5 hours handing out "how to votes" for the Greens), why does that mean that I agree with 100% of their platform? Perhaps the 47% or so of people whose 2 party prefered vote went to the coalition all opposed the GST but voted (or gave preferences) to the coalition because they prefered all the rest of their platform to the labour platform. (I'm sure this isn't the case, but you get the point I hope). Yet pollies continue to claim that they have a "mandate" to do everything in their party policies - most people probably don't know what all the policies of the party they vote for are. If they want a mandate, hold a referendum.
The only reason he [Harradine] got into senate in the first place was because our proportional representation system of senate elections...
And this is a bad thing? I think not. I'm all in favour of proportional representation. To me it seems much more like what democracy is all about. When everything is reduced to a 2 party system, decisions end up being made in the party room with very little input from the population, and "government" consists of two groups of people yelling personal insults at each other. With proportional representation, you get more than 2 voices in parliment, and a chance that some actual reasoned debate might occur. It happens in the senate. Sometimes. But doesn't seem to happen in the lower house. The reason for this? If you have >50% of the votes, you don't have to reason. If you need someone else to vote with you to get a bill passed, you need to convince them. Rational arguments aren't the only way - (bribery, etc) - but at least there is a chance.
The usual response to this is "So do you want more One Nation representation?" (For non-au readers: One Nation is a new-ish racist, right-wing party, getting up to 10% of the vote in the last few elections). Well, yes. I don't like their policies, and I would hate to see them running the country, but if people vote for them, they should get a say. That's what democracy is about.
3 Places with some form of proportional representation:
- Australian Senate: Proportional representation. As I mentioned before, there's occasionally some rational debate here.
- Tasmanian State parliment: More than one representative for each electorate. Under this system, the Greens movement really got started - yeah I know all of you aren't greenies like me, so I won't assume you agree with me that this is a good thing. But would any of the other parties have introduced a bill to reduce the salaries and job perks (travel expenses anyone?) of politicians? (No: Labour and Coalition teamed up to vote it down)
- New Zealand: I beleive the system there is one representative from each electorate, and then the remaining seats (don't know percentages) distributed to make for proportional representation. Don't know much about this, but I heard about it when it was introduced and it sounded interesting. Any comments on it from some kiwis?
Of course, in a true democracy, we could all participate in the online debate, and place our electronic votes on every issue. Not that that would neccessarily be a good thing. Not everyone is as perfectly well informed and capable of determining the best way of dealing with every situation as myselfThey're also the prime candidates for dying in a traffic accident, but I haven't seen any irrational spoutings on traffic laws.
One of the toughest parts of being a parent is letting your kids into the big, nasty world outside. You just hope that when they get to school, or out on the web, or wherever, that they have enough knowledge and confidence to handle whatever the world throws at them. You don't want your kids looking at porn? Tell them not to. Tell them that porn is out there, and it can be harmful. That's what I tell my kids about churches.
--
E_NOSIG
"let us take steps to protect the freedom that we have been given"
I would make that, "let us take steps to protect the freedom that millions of people have laid down their lives over the course of history to give us"
And, of course, the usual reminder that there is NO evidence at all to suggest that the viewing of porn by minors is harmful. Perhaps people should reconsider why they think nudity is evil filthy offensive and shameful.
... or at least "university" as we call it, didn't teach me anything about free speech either. It did teach me quite a bit about Computer Science ... and some physics ... and some math ... but free speech just wasn't in the syllabus.
"If you let them take your firearms you are completely at their mercy, no matter what they decide."
/. threads that just keep on coming back to the notion that people need guns to ensure their rights. That is not only stupid, suicidal and terribly destructive, it is just plain wrong.
This is utter crap. The reality is that it is governments that are at the mercy of the people who elect them, if you have a genuine democratic system. I don't know about America, but here in Australia we are _not_ at the mercy of the government, and never will be. We elect them, we whinge about what they are doing, we generally manage to make them do what _we_ want, even if it takes a while, and then we get sick of them and vote them out. We DO NOT need anything other than our democratic system of government to ensure that our rights are protected. We DO NOT need guns to protect our rights. We DO NOT need guns to provide us with self defence (the general order of our society is proof of that: we have a much lower murder rate than you do in the US, and that isn't because we're all too lazy to go out and do those MACHO gun things).
Why can't all you Americans get this into you brains: rights are something granted by the society that you live in. There are some things that any reasonable society consider to be fundamental rights: things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from persecution, freedom from poverty, all those sorts of things. Those are things that almost every society has eventually come to believe are essential for humanity. But things like "the right to bear arms" are completely different. If you were in a situation like the people in Kosovo, then it could easily be argued that the right to bear arms is an essential part of life, quite possibly a necessary one. But are you living in Kosovo? Are you living in a war zone? No? Why does that not surprise me?
Or did you answer yes? Maybe you live in some terrible inner city nightmare in some place like New York, or whatever. Is that a war zone? Maybe. But if the availability of guns in America was restricted, it would probably not be, or at the least it would be far less serious.
But back to the subject of rights. Rights in the real world are something that a society allows you to have, because the society thinks that those rights are important. Your society gives rights, but it also takes them away. Does anyone in any reasonable society have the right to kill? No. This is because all reasonable societies believe that killing is antisocial (in the strongest sense of the term). No reasonable society allows parents to torture their children, for the same reason. There are a whole host of things that you are not "allowed" to do if you are a member of a reasonable society. But do Americans get stressed out about this sort of thing? No. Is that not just a little bit inconsitent?
Rights are not things that are handed down on tablets of stone, or from some founding fathers, or anywhere else. They are something that result from the general push and pull of living in a large group of people, all of whom have to live together. The rights that you actually end up having are those that allow the society to function in a way that it deems satisfactory. If you start to assume that you can only have rights if you fight for them, or if they are written down in a Bill of Rights somewhere, then you are setting yourself up for a really big fall. Because eventually you'll reach a point where you don't have any rights other than those in your Bill of Rights, and that is the opint where your society either completely stagnates (at best), or breaks down into anarchy, because people don't look to themselves for their rights, but to some higher authority. That is something that gives me nightmares, especially after I have spent an hour or so reading
Sorry for the rant. (Well, I'm not really sorry, but it wasn't aimed specifically at you, more at the entire group of you that think that way.)
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
There's a wonderful long rant about rights somewhere back up the page . . . ranting is VERY good for your health :)
But this is about freedom of speech in Australia.
Freedom of Speech is a right that is granted to people in a society, by that society. It isn't something that you have to fight for, it is something that the large group of people that you live in decide is important enough to let you have. Saying that if you give up the right to bear arms you will inevitably end up losing the right to say whatever you want to without fear of reprisal is basically stupid.
I think part of the problem that you Americans have with this idea is the fact that you fought a war in order to be able to define you own society. The problem stems from the fact that you thought it was the war that meant that you could do that, rather than the fact that you had simply made a much better definition of the group that you were including in your society. That is essentially what a war of independance amounts to: one group says that they want to define their society one way, the other group resists. It's called a war of independance when one side is far more powerful (as the British were in the American war of independance), but it still amounts to saying that we don't want to be part of your society, we want to form our own.
anyway, the problem with that is that Americans tend to think that you only get the rights that you fight for. And that is wrong. Here in Australia we have many, many rights, most of them essentially the same as those that you have in the US. But, we didn't get those rights by fighting for them, we got them because we all agreed that they were inportant to us. We didn't need to fight for them, we don't need to own guns in order to stop the government from taking those rights away from us, and we also don't need to fear that our government will _try_ to take those rights away from us. This present situation is essentially an aberation (a worrying one, I admit, but an aberation). Australian governments are just as inane as those you get anywhere, but they are also made up Australians, and as such they tend to share the same beliefs about important rights as the general populace. Things like censorship of the Internet are areas where most of the population are rather hazy: we haven't raelly made u our minds, so the government can get away with trying to do things like this. This situation will go away in a little while, when the poulation actually makes up their minds on this issue. I only hope the government hasn't done any serious damage in the meantime.
Oh, and incidentally, would you mind enumerating those freedoms that have been stripped away? I haven't noticed myself being censored yet, and I haven't seen anyone trying to stop me from voting (but Americans don't really care about that, do they? Otherwise more people would actually do it). I still have to right to go to a political rally that features people burning the prime minister in effigy, and if I wanted to I could run for parliament. Now, where have I lost any freedom?
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I was beginning to think that all Americans were completely rabid gun lovers/haters. I hadn't thought about this in that context - it does explain things a bit.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Not that it's something to be proud of, but it can be fun :)
The problem with this legislation is that very few people in Australia have really formed an opinion about this issue. When we do reach that point, the government will pretty much have to follow that. The thing is, how long will it take for people to get informed enough to have a real opinion?
What really needs to happen here is a campaign by one of the big newspapers to fight this sort of censorship. That would get people thinking about it, and it would force the government to be much more open about their deliberations. Once that happens, they'll have to slow down, and inertia might just win in the end! But it needs to be big, not just the sort of thing that you get with a national day of action.
Anyone want to write a really good letter to the Age? I would, but I can't write that well . . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
If you want to make claims like that, you really should a) back them up (ie, examples where you can provide some _evidence_), and b) try getting an account, so that you, too, can be responsible for what you say.
Posting this sort of thing as an AC just makes people start thinking of ways to stop AC's from posting. I don't want that, and I suppose you don't, so either take responsibility for your claims, or put up and shut up.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I think the argument is that, as environments go, "Australia" is unnecessarily broad.
There is no way to block it all. Some of the worst sites are "health" sites such as NYs university of columbia where they tell you how to clean blood and gore from your s&m devices (plus a whole lot more).
I'm sorry -- explain again please, in small words, what's wrong with health information? See, I happen to be a big fan of it.
(For the other poster: the site in question is Go Ask Alice -- you may be joking but I'm not.)
Of course you can not watch a child 24 hours a day, that would be unreasonable. It is also unreasonable to have the government do this for you either.
Think of it like this in terms of going to the movies:
A child can not go to the movies and watch an 18+ movie, and as parents you know this to be the case, so you feel safe letting them go to the movies alone/with friends. This 18+ rating of course still lets adults watch any movie they want without restriction.
With the proposals this situation changes (of course it doesn't actually apply to movies). A child will be unable to watch any 18+ movie but neither will any adult! Is this what you want? To have a government dictate what you can and can't view? I understand you wish to protect your children but there ARE other solutions that don't restrict the basic rights of other individuals.
No I am not a teenager, no I'm not a 'prime consumer of porn'. I am mearly a person who sees this proposed legislation as an attack on my basic rights as an individual to view/access any material that I wish.
My ultimate concern is the enforcement of proxy use at all ISPs to filter material on a 'best guess' basis. Can you imagine how many non-offensive sites could be blocked? A please don't tell me this won't happen, we already know it does/will.
Legislation is good if it is implemented for a sound reason, this legistlation is designed for the sole purpose to cater for the demands of an indivudual independant senator who holds the balance of power over the government. If the government did not require this individuals vote to pass the proposed GST then this 'censorship legislation' would not be at the stage it is now.
Brad.
-Brad
Rather than preaching to the converted, I recommend those people who feel strongly about this should take the matter to our IT minister directly. You can email him at: richard.alston@dcita.gov.au. Keep in mind that the Australian government seems very interested in censorship lately -- the film Lolita being another example. This was where the government's opinions [ban it] differed from those of the majority of public and even the censors themselves [don't ban it].
It's the fscking principle of the matter that irks me most, I like the net uncensored and raw. I like being able to view what I frigging well want when I want, not what some geriatric wanker on a mission to ensure his fucking payout at the end of his term needs to satisfy him. The Australian government is a joke, and brian harradeen is the punchline. Yeah, there may be some way around it, I don;t know, but it's the friggin principle of the thing. I can't see how you can be happy having choices made for you buddy, I just wish there were less idiots in our country, overhearing some moron everyday make some comment about the internet merely being bombs and porn is infuriating, I long ago gave up even bothering to get annoyed over the issue, (one just gets to hoping they die horribly in a car crash) .
I'd like to know which spoken words can kill. I'm not a fan of guns, but if I can pull the same level of permanent violence off with language, fill me in! I suppose I could find a list of those words on this here internet thing somewhere, huh?
Serious response part starts here:
In my opinion, the right to bear arms is an archaic amendment that should have been scratched out long ago. Guns don't keep the gov't honest, they give gov't the right to invade and restrict more of our rights (privacy being the biggest one) in the name of safety. At least, that's what I think. I just wish we had the ability to test out a handgun ban for a while, just to see what happens. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever get the chance to see what things would be like without the right to arm bears.
-just bein'
"If the amending parties could see the damage done..."
:) */
I've heard this basic argument many times. It is always a tool by which someone projects their own beliefs onto the writers of the Constitution.
The simple fact is, if they came back today to do it all over, we don't know WHAT they would do. Did they really intend the First Amendment to protect pornography? Would the Second Amendment have been worded the same way? Would the Third Amendment (quartering soldiers in private homes in peacetime) even exist?
Would an explicit Constitutional guarantee of privacy be added? Would protection against abuses by tax collectors be added?
The last two hundred years have been an interesting experiment in INTERPRETING the Constitution, not necessarily following it. If you actually study the history and people behind the Constitution, you'll find that we've already thrown out or choose to ignore a lot of it.
Everyone seems to have their impression of what the framers intended. It's funny how these impressions usually match their opinions of how government should work.
/* Yeah, I was pre-law. Does it show?
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
So what's the URL?
(kidding!)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Sorry, I respectfully disagree. The Second Amendment uses the words, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms...".
:)
The Constitution is not shy about referring to, "the States," when it needs to. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect the rights of citizens.
When the Bill of Rights was itself being debated, the argument against it was that it would be impossible to enumerate all of the rights of people and that doing so would lead to rights being denied because they were not explicitly listed in the Constitution.
The Tenth Amendment was supposed to prevent that, but we pretty much ignore it. The Tenth also illustrates my point -- it treats "the people" and "the states" as two seperate entities.
BTW -- I know I'm participating too much here. I don't think slashdot was intended to be a constitutional debate forum.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I don't mean to suggest that I know more than the justices of the Supreme Court but, in my opinion, their interpretations have become part of the problem.
The Constitution is actually a pretty easy read and I happen to believe it means exactly what it says. This business of "interpreting" and "finding the intent" has turned into a tool for politicians, justices, and citizens with political agendas.
Too many people read the Constitution the way they read the Bible -- as a collection of parables that they interpret individually. The Constitution is a very literal document. Why is it so hard to take its words at face value?
We can and should amend the Constitution if something doesn't work anymore. That's too much work, though, so we simply "interpret" it differently. In the long run, this only devalues it and, by association, our rights as citizens.
BTW -- Thanks for your response. You can tell I LOVE talking about this stuff.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I don't consider firearms to be a "fundamental human right". I do believe that it is smart to extend the right to bear arms to people because it keeps society honest.
If you could remove all firearms from this country, I would be the first to vote to do so. However, we can't. We have tried to do that with drugs. All that gives us is an underground drug trade. Criminals will always get their firearms. Restricting them simply means that fewer will. Eventually, you end up with only police, military, and criminals holding weapons.
OTOH, imagine a world where honest citizens carry weapons. When one is surrounded by a dozen people with holstered handguns in plain view, one is much less likely to actually pull a weapon out and try to use it. That is, unless you're a psychopath who is ready to die.
And if you are? You point (at least indirectly) to the recent Colorado shooting. These people were clearly psychopathic. What would have happened if they didn't have guns (and as an aside...exactly how would you do that...I doubt that they were carrying legally)? They had bombs. You can't take away the bombs, because they're so easy to make (after the Oklahoma City bombing, people were considering restricting _manure_...yeah, right). If they did that, these kids would have found some way to create their carnage. Think about it, they had access to a high school; this includes a chemistry lab.
The point is, psychopaths with weapons are going to kill people. Psychopaths without weapons are going to kill people. The trick isn't to ban guns, but to ban psychopaths. Find them, pull them out, and either render them non-psychopathic or lock them up in rubber rooms.
Sick of sending your kids to a school where they can be used as target practice? Get involved in the school! Look for the disturbed individuals. These people don't normally come out of nowhere--one student (don't remember names...interviewed on Today Show) mentioned that they were known Satanists. If this doesn't raise warning flags, you have problem.
If Colorado scared you, consider this sobering thought. I don't have the numbers on me, but compare the number of children murdered by gunfire in schools over the past year to the number of children murdered by their own parents' bare hands at home over the past year.
You don't need a firearm to kill. Often, you need nothing more than an emotional disturbance. You can lower the body count a lot more by dealing with the emotional disturbances than by banning the weapons.
--The basis of all love is respect
How about the words "Round up and execute all of the troublemakers." Of course you have to be someone in political power for these words to be effective, and it helps if the populace is not armed.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
> I'd like to know which spoken words can kill
any words can kill provided the PA system is loud enough...
To think that any type of censorship is good is not a very enlighted view point. When the option to review any type of information (and I do mean any) is taken away then you have stuck a knife deep into the heart of humanity. The heart of humanity depends on one's ability of self-determination,free will, and the ability to think for one's self. If the legislation gets passed (which I strongly hope it doesn't)believe me there will be 1,000s and 1,000s of minors across aussie land that know just as much if not more than the isps they surf from and will easilly get around any firewall (i.e. proxy surfing). They will be exposed to these images anyway but not be provided with tools to correctly interpret them for society has tried to deny the very existsance of such things. With censorship comes denial, denial of the cruel and sick actions that people take against one another. Out of sight out of mind, is the logic used by Moral-Nazis and once out of mind, educating children about the horrors and bad things in this world will never take place. If it is censored then it will never happen, and if it never happens then we don't need to educate children that there are pedophiles out there and people who commit hideous acts against one another. The moment that happens people will have never been given the critical thinking skills to understand the consequences of violence and cruelty. A time will come when the child doesn't know how to interpet violent images that is displayed before them. In that same moment society has failed, the children have never been given the analytical skills needed to survive in this cruel world. Once a human's thought process is controlled by another person or a group of people that person ceases to be a human and is reduced to a common animal. Self-determination is not a privelege it is a right bestowed upon us all upon entrance into this world of humans. When self-determination is gone we are no loner humans but midless zombies. Censorship is never the answer, violence and scum is all around us and taking it of the ineternet will not make it go away it will still fester around the globe. The only thing you have done is denied access to information that can let you understand how it works and why and only by knowing those things can we stop it. When a tree in a forest falls it still makes a sound regardless if there is anyone there to hear it or not.
LET THE BITS BE FREE!!!!
P.S. AS for the school not being able to get the proxy to work right they should have hired a professional. Damn do it yourselfers screwin it up fer everbody
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
Of course the parents of the children who where killed aren't responsible. To imply any one was suggesting they where is totally idiotic. But the parents of the children killing every body sure fucked up somwhere along the line. I swear people should have to get a license to have children.
"The age-old libertarian fallacy rearing its ugly head once more. "
That is not a libertarian fallacy but a truth. The only problem with the libertarian philosphy is that we have to many dumb asses in the world like you who won't take responsibility for their own lifes and actions and want some one or something else to do it for them. Then people like me who do take responsiblity for our own actions get screwed buy havning to pay for well fare and have limitations on my freedom. I guess you chalk the Colorado shootings up to violoence in the media and in video games right? IF that where true then I would have killed a ton of people by now. A little tip, try using logic sometime, it is amazing what you can figure out.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
Jeez, don't you aussies have any rights? Perhaps you need to work on getting yourself a Bill of Rights. This will at least slow down your various governments when they want to trample your rights and freedoms whilst pursuing your money, which is what I suspect is their chief motive in this maneuver: getting more of your money.
Governments rarely care about protecting anything except their own powerbase, which goes a long way towards explaining the current state of organized humanity. The person who finds a viable replacement for our "modern" governments (which are mostly reconstituted variations on the Church from the Dark Ages) will lead humanity up the evolutionary ladder in a big, big jump.
Can't happen soon enough, IMHO.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
It's not harsh- it's stupid. Having the right to defend yourself !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!= to a license to kill.
How dense can you get?
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
You go live in a time when foreign soldiers are housed and taken care of by you. Where the idiots are the majority that's where policy goes. Wake up!
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
How come society (Mr. or Ms.) never files a libel suit? Cause it doesn't exist!
How come govt never listens to the public? Cause it doesn't exist!
Folks, forget about the suits, offices, authority, lobbying, and so on. It's a million year old game we're playing by negligence. The fact is a solemn idiot can cause as much damage as a lying bastard.
It's all about paranoia and opportunity. It seems people tend to put their lives on hold every time some shit like this happens. People always have to claim and protect their territory but if all you do defend yourself, you forget why and what you're fighting for, you accomplish nothing with considerable effort and the asses pass you by. Don't like gun laws. Fine but at the same time annoy your representative about other issues throw them out when they fail at smaller tasks and send them a message. People invented gov't not the other way around. People perverted gov't as well deal with them accordingly.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Run for office and replace it.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Um teachers found students with pron... then? What...?
Read Welcome to the Mokey House get away from the TV a bit.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Not long from now (maybe tomorrow in a town right next to yours:
Let's see the Ministry of Purity and Perfection (Nazi's and Fundamentalists and Political Bandwagoneers) is still in deliberations after weeks of studying the case of Jane and John Q Public maintaining a private website from which they share tapes and stories between cyber-companions. The website was allegedly accidentally discovered and doubleoverplus-popularised by porn-peddlers as their own. The Publics quite surprisingly sued for invasion of privacy, plus internet breaking and entering by the explicit resellers.
No sooner did they win their case that they were investigated for not properly labelling and marking their site. The Publics cite the need to maintain privacy.
Currently the score is at an xxx-2.181818189536363
In a future follow-up we will provide a full analysis of reasons and issues addressed by each decimal. Thanks to our modern scientific process of justice we can more accurately represent the decisions we make. However, even science sometimes takes awhile to come to a conclusion.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
They just refuse to give up a chance at an upper hand
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
>Well, why not use that FreeS/WAN thingy to make a
>pipe out from Australia's pristine shores to a
>server in a more enlightened place and circumvent
>the national restriction?
Hmmm.
Try http://www.dsd.gov.au
-- Post No Gravy
Don't forget: Disparaging the boot is a bootable offense.
Of course.
If we had guns we could just go in there, shoot the lot of them, then hold new elections.
Gee, you 'mericans are so lucky to have the right to be able to do this enshrined in your constitution. We just have to abide by the law and rely on the checks and balances inherent in the system.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
I know that no one really wants censorship. And it's pretty absurd in a democratic nation like Australia. BUT ... I've been living in Saudi Arabia for the past year and a half. My Internet Access here is cesored. Basically, I can't view porn. I think some political sites are probably blocked too, but I've never come accross a political site which I was not allowed to view.
... you get the picture. They tried to setup a proxy, but they couldn't figure out how to make it work. In the end, Internet access was taken off the network, and was just put in the library, which is always monitored by someone. So students and teachers could no longer pull up information from the Internet, while in class. The fact of the matter is, the Internet MUST BE REGULATED in certain enviornments. Else, bad things happen. This is such an open and free medium that it has reached a level where entire nations have banned it (for example, Internet was banned in Saudi Arabia until late 1998).
It may not suite some people, but it has its advantages. For one thing, Internet access can be made available anywhere in the country (resteraunts, schools, kindergardens even) without having to worry about people visiting offensive sites, and causing problems for everyone.
The high school I used to goto in Toronto, Canada has full, high speed Internet. This thing started where everytime a lab was left unattended, people would pull up a porno site on all the computers in the lab. When the teachers, or visitors came into the lab
I'm not saying that I promote censorship, nor am I saying that I'm against it. I'm just saying, it has its obviouse advantages.
The Constitution :
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..." (you can hear the School House Rock song can't you?)
Declaration of Indep. :
"When in the course of human events...."
It's easy to screw these two up. Anyone remember the print ads for the movie Jefferson in Paris from ~1995? They used "We the people.." in the image, even though Jefferson had nothing to do with the Constitution.
Why is it that politicians of all types need some bandwagon to jump on? it's like :
:-)
:-)
1) Politician B is voted in , either by telling the biggest lies , or being the least obnoxious of the bunch. Politician bleats about the fact that Politician A's party has stuffed everything , and it will take at least 2 or three terms of office to fix everything (hint,hint). Politician B looks for a cause to 'really get behind'. Often it is the one that all the outrageous lies were told about before the election, but this is not always true.
2) Politician thinks , "jeez, I sure don't want to go unnoticed this term, better find something and get behind it completely! When the next elections come up i can say 'hey look , i stood up for little kiddies/old folks/**the aussie battler** '
3) Politician proceeds to totally screw that area up , often with a lot of shouting in parliament, and saying things like "the opposition is a big poo-poo!", accompianied by much cursing by the group that is affected, who wish the politician would go bug some other minority.
4) Politician trumpets loud and long about 'how things are changing for the better - oh , and vote for me again or it'll all be changed back back by the opposition!! (who , if they actually get back into power, generally decide not to change anything, anyway, as they have bigger bandwagons to pursue)
5) The next elections arrive and people curse long and hard about the fact that no matter who you vote for, you get a politician.
6) The whole process returns to step 1.
That just about sums up Australian Politics.
Maybe we should just buy out tasmania and secede, or perhaps we can persuade Canberra and the A.C.T. to leave instead
Footnote:
For those overseas who failed geography, Tasmania is that little triangle island that often gets left off the bottom of Australia (often used in the yobbo phrase "show us yer map of Tassie!!!") , and the A.C.T. is the Australian Capital Territory, where the federal gov't resides
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Just two notes;
guns cause crime like flies cause garbage, and
a well armed society is a polite society;)
Blame is a cowards way of shurking responsibility.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
So I guess what I am saying is that you should either decide that the government knows whats best and should have strict control and licensing of all dangerous behavior (like free speech and firearm ownership), or you should decide that the
individual knows best and minimize governmental controls wherever possible
Then in this case we must obviously conclude that government knows best, as the wide-scale distribution of firearms has been a social cataclysm for the United States. If the amending parties could see the damage done, there would have been substantial alterations to the Constitution.
In fact, this type of "Constitutional Review" was provided for and encouraged - the founding fathers stipulated that the Constitution should be reviewed and amended regularly. We failed to follow their advice. Rather we would assume that 18th century rules apply to the 20th century.
The fact that the citizens of the United States have not seen fit to rescind the Second Amendment in the 212 years of the American Republic should tell you something: namely, that we don't see the need to remove it. . ..
Or that the NRA lobbyists have a strangle hold on legislators.
The Gun Lobby is up there with the Milk Producers in the Hall of Lobbying Fame. It shouldn't shock any American to know this, but don't insult me by hinting that it is the popular will that firearms should be distributed (near) freely.
Your post assumes that the right to bear firearms is a fundamental human right. In the United States this is true. In other nations it is not.
Enjoy your freedom.
Enjoy paying for the largest prison system per capita in the world.
Enjoy having a government controlled by lobby groups such as the NRA.
Enjoy having your children go to a school where a disgruntled teen is going to use them for target practice.
If you check your recent history, you will find that this kind of senseless mass-violence would appear to be on the rise everywhere.
No. Incidences of children taking guns to school and using them is on the rise in only one nation - the United States.
The notion of metal detectors and entrance-door frisks at school would be considered absurd in most industrialized nations.
Young people are more harmed by guilt that is instilled by a repressive Ministry of Information, than they are by viewing nonviolent sexual or erotic imagery.
Nice, meaningless, unsubstantiated rhetoric.
Let me just leave you with a quote from Ted Bundy:
". . . I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception,every one of them was deeply involved in pornography . . . "
If a child can access X-rated web sites, that
reflects on the child's parents more than on society as a whole.
The age-old libertarian fallacy rearing its ugly head once more.
By this logic there are some very bad parents in Colorado. They should have been watching their children more closely I suppose. Its the parents fault they weren't wearing flak jackets.
I didn't say consumers of porn were all killers, I was simply quoting someone who said all killers were consumers of porn.
There is a not so subtle difference.
If Slashdot polls are any indication, most Slashdot users are males in their early to mid twenties. In other words, the prime consumers of porn. You should take any advice they give you regarding censorship with a grain of salt.
Most users here have no idea what it means to raise a child. Here's a small hint - you cannot watch everything that a child does, or police all of their actions. That is why there are general standards on the distribution of adult print materials in every industrialized nation. This notion of parental accountability and responsibility can realistically only go so far. Even the most anal-retentive parents must leave their children to the whims of society for part of the day.
Once most Slashdot users come to have children, they'll realize that their "maybe the parents should get involved" rhetoric is quite unrealistic.
Screw that. Censorship blows dead bears.
Meghan
"Mandate" ?
yeah, like they got more of the primary vote in this election - NOT!
donald horne covered this kind of crap in "Death of the Lucky Country" wrt Whitlam, Fraser and Reg "toecutter" Withers (yes I did fuck your daughter, reg, and she was lousy).
ahhh, no mandate, no gst, and no fucking censorship either. I think I know what the Kolorado Kids were thinking: "KILL EM ALL"
ps, oh yeah, moderation is censorship
x.x = -1 no, your just imagining it . . .
"I'd like to know which spoken words can kill."
Ask any fly on the wall in Tiananmen Square.
I see a lot of this around and such. But I can't help but wonder if the reason porn is so enjoyable to the little ones is because it's so `bad'. Obviously it's not the only reason (hormones come to mind, I'm still 17 :P), but it is probably a contributing factor.
Anyway, this isn't a big problem. (schools having to deal with students diggin up porn) The only problem in porn is the few that are so obsessed with it that they either a) try to live out their sexual fantasies or b) spend most of their time viewing porn and neglecting life. These few are probably also somewhat screwed up there as well. Again, like with those violent teens, porn shouldn't be blamed. The person is responsible, and to a lesser extent their parents.
And a gun would help me how?
I could go out and murder key politicians which would cause public outrage and get the bill passed.
SARCASM Wonderful.
I can do that just as easily with a knife and, to my mind, far more honestly. I dislike the philosophy of distancing self from actions. If I ever decided to take such a path I have a responsibility to be personally involved and get my hands dirty.
Guns are a cowards option.
But regardless guns are NOT a solution. If you choose to not take the radical step of murder (which most would agree is a morally wrong way of ensuring your own viewpoint triumphs) then the gun becomes a piece of metal and wood that is useless in helping me get my point across to the government at all.
A pen and a piece of paper are far more effective weapons than a gun could ever be.
Speech... They aren't taking away our speech. They are taking away our access to all XXX pornographic pictures in addition to hardcore S&M and paedophilia which are already illegal. Awww... Poor people losing access to all the things they tell everybody they aren't looking at anyway. So, who's going to stand up for something they refuse to admit they are looking at?
No-one in the general public. Certainly no-one in government.
The fact that this censorship actually WILL bloke a large amount of other content including medical sites and places like Geocities with wildly diverse content is the real problem.
People are not aware at how difficult it is to ACCURATELY filter the net. It can be done to a limited extent, but only with broad strokes and it is THIS damage that is the real problem.
I couldn't care less that people are stopped from looking at porn (except for the impact it will have on the ISP I work for who will lose over a third of our traffic and thus may cost lots of jobs), but I DO care about being forced to implement a substandard solution which will probably wipe out my access to Deja News, the single greatest technical resource I have.
ThunderFoot.
Development Engineer.
What is it with this American thing about a "right to bear arms"??? Do you really think this is something a modern society needs?? I'm sure there were good reasons for the original inclusion of this right, but it's a bit anachronistic isn't it? Guns may not kill people, but guns and people certainly do. Instead of concentrating on your right to bear arms, how about concentrating on your responsibility to cut down on gun crime?
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
Again, different attitudes. Porn is Bad (tm) seems to be a very anglo-saxon thing. Most of (western) Europe doesn't see it that way. They see violence as bad - you can see some reasonably explicit sex stuff on TV and at the cinema, but violence often attracts censorship or a cinema rating.
It made me smile one day in a video shop - a young 10-12 year old was saying to his mum - oohh look at that person geting that dirty video, while he was busily getting a very violent film out, with no qualms at all from his mum!
The Euro way is (IMHO) a far healthier way.