I notice from today’s papers that those paragons of virtue that warm the seats of the senate on our behalf want to introduce a state-wide internet filter to “protect the kids” and make it easier for the state to say what you can see and what you can’t.  The arguments about the lists of sites that are banned include political and social resources on everything from abortion to breast cancer and left-wing radicalism.

For a good resource on how to get around this latest attempt to return Tasmania to the nineteenth century, check out the resources at Peacefire.org http://www.peacefire.org/

Alex

This is what happens when a religion-fuelled polly decides he knows what’s best for all of us.

I can’t believe this has hit TT with barely a whimper - it’s disgraceful censorship - come on people, rise up…

OK, OK, I know we have to protect the kids - but kids can see sex at the movies, on TV in magazines, just about anywhere. I’m an adult, who pays my own ISP bills and, dammit, I want to be able to look at anything I damned well please.

It starts off with porn, (for the sake of the kids, you understand - but let me point out that the type of kids who want to find porn, WILL find porn, no matter these restrictions).

But perhaps this religious nutter will eventually find other things he wants to block out - sites on evolution, perhaps? My understanding is that filtering software is notoriously difficult to get right - if I find whole sections of the internet going down (no pun intended), I will be very (super?) annoyed.

So the long and the short of it, is that I will apparently have to call my ISP and say, in my best pervert voice - “I want the filtering (heavy breathing) turned off my connection, please…”

The sooner we stop voting for bible-bashing pollies who think they know what’s best for all of us without actually asking, and the sooner we realise religion will destroy the world, the better.

Come on Barnett, let’s hear your views on “Intelligent Design” being taught in our schools, I’m ready for a laugh.

Grrr.

For many years i lived in South Africa under the dreaded Apartheid regime. There everything, including the government was controlled by the Dutch Reform Church, a very narrow and bigotted body that deemed anything with the merest whiff of sex was bad for the soul and the community at large.

The government started with sex, but ended up controlling all political thought and just about anything that they disagreed with. South Africa remained in the Dark Ages until sanctions forced a bit of political and other enlightenment on them. Later, Nelson Mandela abolished the censorship board and the flood gates opened. The population that had been starved of sexual images for years went overboard, and there was more pornography available there than in almost any country in the world. After a couple of years it peaked, and the church again managed to get a foot in the door by banning all their congregations from shopping anywhere that ‘Girly’ magazines were on show. Now it has gone back to a reasonable level, and interest has declined.

However, it could be extremely easy to control unwanted porn from invading the home if the authorities that control the Internet had a mind to do it. All that is needed is a special suffix for this material, such as .sex or .xxx or .vio for violence. Once established, a change over period for all sites containing this material could be given, and heavy fines imposed for sites that show this material without these prefixes. After that, any simple filter could stop it being received and could be under the control of the individual, or at selected servers, and not under government control. That would leave the choice open.

On the other hand, there has never been any proof that children are actually affected badly by seeing this material. It is possibly the adults who are more concerned with the effects than the children themselves, possibly stemming from a basic inbred and indoctred idea that somehow ‘sex is dirty’. Hiding it and speaking in hushed whispers will only tend to pass this attitude on to them and imbue them with many of the ideas that we are trying to protect them from. When they are very young, children are not interested, and by the time they are old enough to take an interest, they actively seeking the material. There is very little adults can do to stop them acquiring it, without plunging the whole of civilisation back a hundred years or so. Openness might be a better option, and they could then at least be warned of the dangers.

The Australian Constitution, Chapter V - 116 states:

“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the commonwealth.”

That is, the Commonwealth may not legislate in respect to religion.

Looks to me like Barnett may be trying to pass a law that establishes christianity as our moral guardian. I’m no constitutional lawyer but this appears to fall within the vibe of what the guys who drew up the constitution were trying to say.

It would be less intrusive to make the filter free of charge to anyone wanting to opt into having the filter applied.  And make it mandatory that every ISP has to offer it to all users when they sign up with the ISP.
The idea of applying it automatically is as undemocratic as other government intervention e.g. the ID card system that is being developed, the linked health records on-line system, and identifiers collected on census information.  And all done in the name of “what’s best for the people”. 
What will cause more harm to the dignity of humanity:  pornography, the terrorist threat, or the fear of one’s own “big brother” government trying to herd people into one style of thinking and taking away the right to explore all ideas or to safely protest about government?  Some of our current governments are more worrying to me.
One may point to Scandinavian countries where governments collect a lot of information on their citizens.  But these countries have built a system of democracy that encourages people into decision-making from neighbourhood level right up to the top layer of government.  And citizens in these countries have the power of citizen-initiated referendum.  The people can call an election and throw their government out of office if the government steps over the line. Referendums are commonly held to decide contentious issues.
Many levels of our governments are not prepared to share power and are not prepared to listen to their people, preferring instead to lie constantly in order to maintain an increasingly narrowing power base.