The internet filtering debacle raises some more general issues I have with my nation's governments' tendency to censor ideas it doesn't like. Sure, there's the "Won't somebody think of the children" justification, which is a Good Intention (suitable for paving roads), but surely the best bet is to go for the producers of child pornography through legal sanctions and encourage parents to take responsibility for their children's internet habits by using family clean feeds and monitoring their behaviour rather than penalise everybody to suit a few religious interests.
In a democracy, under the rule of law, one may not impede an adult's freedom to engage in any activity that is legal as they see fit, even if it does happen to offend a minor religious political party that happens to hold some power in the Senate. The presumption is that unless someone actively commits a crime or places others in clear and present danger (which may be the same thing), they are free to behave as they wish. If that means reading porn or online gambling, too bad. You can't sneak in controls through the back door. If you want to make it illegal, try to - let's see how that plays in the political arena of democratic debate. No government has the paternalistic right to censor what they do not like.
If the Labor Party wishes to restrict our abilities to view material it deems offensive and wrong, it had damned well better do that out in the open. It's bad enough that we have an unrepresentative censorship board appointed by the government of the day and which is not accountable to Parliament for its decisions, nor to the public. That is a historical revenant of the older paternalist hegemony. Now we get more bureaucratic control over our lives?
I'm not a libertarian, but there must always be a presumption of freedom over the preferences of others, or else freedoms get whittled down, bit by bit, in satisfying political, religious and powerful interests. Much of this censorship suits, for example, the traditional media, for it means they have more control over what people are exposed to, and hence can manipulate the market for their own purposes. This suits the political parties, who rely on media support for getting their messages out. That suits the religious interests, who can ensure that political parties do not go too far from what they consider acceptable, by threatening to block anything they dislike.
And this is fundamentally antidemocratic. It will end up in an authoritarian state, or in chaos, or both. Australians have far too much of a tendency to let authority figures decide what they can do, unlike our near neighbours the Kiwis, who seem to be ruggedly subversive. I suspect it's our English heritage - the classes that formed our nation were the end product of centuries of cultural selection for conformism and submission. It's time we behaved like grownups and took our lives into our own hands.
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It's about a need to control and to keep the poor beknighted fools safe from themselves. You start be keeping bad things away from the poor, sweet, innocent babies and you go from there. As Tom Lehrer once said . . .
This post would have earned more than the one comment John,well said.
I still cant believe they are getting away with this shit.
I hear absolutely zip about it in the MSM.
It is absurd that some religious dimwit ha a strangehold on legislative decisions in this country,totally absurd.
At the same time, nobody is talking about censoring other forms of communication, only the one where it is easiest for censorship to be done.
To be fair, should not the same censorship be done across the board, to include telephone conversations and snail mail?
This issue has done it for me, Labour will not be getting my preferences until they repudiate this policy. But who the hell do I vote for now? None of the parties seem to have come out and explicitly opposed this on civil liberties grounds.
Either the Greens or the Democrats, although the latter seem to be a spent force in Australian politics. I have some problems with the Greens' policies elsewhere, but they seem to be on top of this.
I have a lot of concerns about the Greens (their anti-nuclear stance being a major one, same for the Democrats). Urg, there's no party for me...
Sadly, I have also come to the belated conclusion that my compatriots in the UK are altogether too respectful of those in power. My guess is that it is probably a consequence of our history as a monarchy, of being "subjects of His/Her Majesty" rather than citizens of the United Kingdom. It has bred an almost reflexive deference to authority - although most people would loudly protest otherwise - that and laziness. They'll complain loudly about something over a few drinks in the pub but, when it comes down to it, there are very few who can be arsed to get off their backsides and go and actually do something about it. It's not totalitarianism that threatens democracy, it's apathy.
It's only in the past couple of years that Brits have stopped challenging authority.
What concerns me is that this is not just an Australian thing, it's ripppling through the whole of the "developed world" - Europe is attempting to instigate it's own "great firewall" akin to China.
They all don't like the internet, our chief of police was quoted as saying "I'd love to delete every bit of user generated content".
The internet stands as one of the most important developments of the modern age for it brings with it an unprecidented level of freedom and capacity to exchange ideas and more importantly information about what is going on in our parts of the world.
Yet many want to turn the net into a push medium just like tv, cleansed of an open voice and muting talks of dissent.
The one thing I'm glad about is our message of something being totally wrong with all our governments is getting out and spreading, I'm seeing more and more people getting steadily angrier at the situation we're in. The second decade of the 21st century will be one of widespread revolt - there's a storm coming..