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That is happening in the USA now.
Many of the new laws congress writes are being voted on without being read, and the current ruling party refuses to post these laws on the internet until AFTER they have been voted on.
In short, they are passing laws they themselves don't know about while refusing to let anyone find out what they are.
Sounds very fascist to me.
And, this is interesting because you guys never had that insurance of at least speech, so it was nothing that was tossed away, technically.
So, it must really perplex you to see others who had that guarantee willingly give it up? Just curious.
You always know that something is wrong when people try to hide what they are doing.That is happening in the USA now.
Many of the new laws congress writes are being voted on without being read, and the current ruling party refuses to post these laws on the internet until AFTER they have been voted on.
In short, they are passing laws they themselves don't know about while refusing to let anyone find out what they are.
Sounds very fascist to me.
Yes, they are so courageous in their convictions they can not even let the voter know what their convictions are.
The old, "we know what is good for you but you don't, so we won't tell you until we do it" mindset.
Spock on booze...I like that.And, this is interesting because you guys never had that insurance of at least speech, so it was nothing that was tossed away, technically.
So, it must really perplex you to see others who had that guarantee willingly give it up? Just curious.
I am half American half Australian, (I am like Spok, only on booze) I grew up in the US and live here now so I know what I am missing, and I am passionate about anyone in the US who would throw it away, but you are correct, here in Australia there is still a lax attitude to the idea that even offensive speech should be protected, perhaps because governments here have not really tried to censor speech full force, but the point is they can when ever they so choose.
It's tragic how so many in Europe are willingly throwing away such a fundamental right.
Another case was in Western Australia where I live, an Aboriginal woman assaulted a white women and kept calling her a white ****.
The police charged her with hate speech and the courts ruled that she could not be prosecuted because she was from a group that the law was meant to protect.
So not only do these laws violate free speech but they decimate the concept of equality before the law.
Another case was in Western Australia where I live, an Aboriginal woman assaulted a white women and kept calling her a white ****.
The police charged her with hate speech and the courts ruled that she could not be prosecuted because she was from a group that the law was meant to protect.
So not only do these laws violate free speech but they decimate the concept of equality before the law.
Western Australia....I remember it well...albeit the 3 places I visited on that side...namely Geraldton (great roo hunting), Freemantle (lots of cool pubs and bars "The Clink"), Perth (Swan Lager)
other places visited in Oz....Darwin, Mackay(sp?), New Castle, Sidney and Melbourne (#1 spot for me!!) and of course....Hobart Tasmania ("The Dog House" pub and brown trout fishing in Lake Sorell)
So rocks you think we ought to censor books that might be offensive to Muslims? How about books that might Offend Christians or Atheists or jews? Or do you reserve that censorship only for preventing offenses to followers of Islam?
Kurt Westergaard's controversial cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban has sparked violent riots in the past, but his recent visit to Yale University just caused protests.
Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist, spoke at the New Haven campus this week and the 15 protesters were peaceful and carried signs that read "For God? For Country and For Yale," the Yale Daily News reports. They chanted "no place for hate" as people moved into the conference center.
In September the Yale Muslim Students Association wrote they were "deeply hurt and offended" by the decision to bring Westergaard to campus but opted not to protest at the event.
The talk occurred soon after a group of alumni sent a letter to University President Richard Levin and members of the Yale Corporation calling for the Yale University Press to republish The Cartoons that Shook the World, which omitted the actual cartoon, with the cartoons intact. The University and its press decided in the summer not to include the cartoons in that book, written by Jytte Klausen, who also spoke on campus Thursday.
Klausen opened her talk on Thursday evening, entitled Blasphemy and Inquiry: The Cartoons That Shook the World by saying she did not want to discuss the Yale University Press decision to omit the Danish cartoons and all other images of Muhammad from her book.
There was extensive security at both events and federal and state police were consulted about the necessary protection.
German publisher cancels book seen insulting Islam
Tue Oct 6, 2009 8:42am EDT
By Sarah Marsh
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German publisher said Tuesday it had canceled the printing of a murder mystery about an honor killing because it contained passages insulting Islam and may have prompted Islamist retaliation.
Droste publishers dropped the book by author Gabriele Brinkmann entitled "To Whom Honor is Due" after she refused to change several passages, including one where a fictional character is portrayed making abusive remarks about the Koran.
"After the Mohammad cartoons, one knows that one can't publish sentences or drawings that defame Islam without expecting a security risk," said Felix Droste, head of Droste publishers.
...
Chipping Away At Free Speech
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Item One: When it comes out in print soon, look carefully through Yale University Press's book "The Cartoons That Shook the World." The book is a scholarly account of the controversy that surrounded a Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The author Jytte Klausen argues, among other things, that the controversy was manipulated by Danish imams who showed their followers false, sexually offensive depictions of Muhammad alongside the real images, which she says were not inherently offensive. She consulted with several Muslim scholars, who agreed. Nevertheless, you will not find the cartoons in the finished manuscript.
Item Two: Pick up a copy of the September issue of GQ magazine. Buried deep inside is an article titled "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power," by Scott Anderson. The article, based on extensive reporting, argues that Russian security services helped create a series of bomb explosions in Moscow in 2000 -- explosions that were blamed on Chechen terrorists at the time. But you will not find this article in GQ's Russian edition. As of this writing, you will not find this article on GQ's Web site either: Conde Nast, the media company that owns GQ, has ordered its magazines and affiliates around the world to refrain from mentioning or promoting this article in any way.
Item Three: If your knowledge of written Chinese characters is up to it, type the word "Tiananmen" into Google.cn (Google). I do not know Chinese myself but am reliably informed that your search will retrieve little or no useful information on this subject, nor will it tell you much about Taiwan or Tibet or democracy. This is not an accident: In 2006, Google agreed to a modicum of censorship in China, in exchange for being allowed to operate there at all.
These three incidents are not identical. Yale Press refused to print the cartoons because the university fears retaliatory violence on its campus. Conde Nast refused to promote an article on the Russian secret service because it fears a loss of Russian advertisers. Google refuses to let its Chinese users search for "Tiananmen" and other taboo subjects because Google wants to compete against Chinese search engines for a share of the huge Chinese market. All three companies exhibit greatly varying degrees of remorse, too, from Conde Nast (none) to the Yale Press (a lot) to Google (ambivalent: Google founder Sergey Brin initially argued that the company would at least bring more information to China, if not complete information).
Nevertheless, the three stories lead to one conclusion: In different ways, the Russian government, the Chinese government and unnamed Islamic terrorists are now capable of placing de facto controls on American companies -- something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. In a world that seems more dangerous and less profitable than it did in the past, either greed or fear proved stronger than these companies' commitment to free speech.
By caving to pressure, they have not made the world a safer place, however, either for themselves or for anyone else. Google's submission to Chinese censorship in 2006 has not prevented the Chinese government from continuing to harass the company, allegedly for distributing pornography. On the contrary, it may have encouraged China to attempt, quite recently, to force companies to place filters on all computers sold in the country. By the same token, Conde Nast's climb-down will only encourage Russian companies -- many of which are de facto state-owned -- to exert pressure on their Western partners, making it harder for others to publish controversial material about Russia in the future. The fact that Yale's press, one of the most innovative in the country, will not publish the Danish cartoons only makes it harder for others to publish them, too. [Declaration of interest: I am editing an anthology for Yale University Press and have long admired its commitment to opening Soviet archives.]
In fact, each time an American company caves to illiberal pressure, the atmosphere is worse for everyone else. Each alteration made in the name of placating an illiberal group or government makes that group or government stronger. What seems a small lapse of integrity now might well loom larger in the future. All of these companies are making it much harder for everyone else to continue speaking and publishing freely around the world.
There is no law or edict that can force these companies, or any American company, to abide by the principles of free speech abroad. But at least it is possible to embarrass them at home. Hence this column.
My favorite was Cooper's Ale...it was fermented right in it's bottle...a little residue was always on the bottom of the bottle. .
So rocks you think we ought to censor books that might be offensive to Muslims? How about books that might Offend Christians or Atheists or jews? Or do you reserve that censorship only for preventing offenses to followers of Islam?
fucking ragheads. how's that for free speech?
Free, but just the amount of intellectual value that one expects of the speaker.
Who is "one"? You? You are a stupid fuck. I was showing how I wouldn't allow anyone to curb free speech.
