This was placed under "Entertainment" for some reason, where it is pretty evidently a political story.
"The Australian government says it will enact a far-reaching law to ban films, literature and games advocating terrorist acts."
Of course the ivory-tower types see this as an assault on freedom of speech, but it's obvious that it is designed to counter the proliferation of jihadist material that infects the world.
Fisher points out that "terrorism itself is a subjective term."
"History is littered with this type of subjectivity masquerading as the voice of reason. So-called terrorists have been criminals one day and revered leaders the next. For example, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were both labelled as terrorists in their pursuit of the freedom of their peoples."
Uh huh. Missing the point of course, but the question is is it willfully or not? There are already laws on the books against making threats, and that is technically an infringement on peoples' "freedom of speech". It is therefore obvious that the precedent exists to curtail the rights of people to say whatever they want.
I would like to see this same group's position on "hate speech", Holocaust denial, that sort of thing. I am personally of the opinion that if people want to say stupid stuff about history or whatever, anything which doesn't directly advocate violence they should be allowed to do so. Then it is up to people like me to call them on their crack-headedness.
To anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to the world, this legislation is designed to give the police tools to use against (primarily) the spread of pernicious Salafist/jihadist propaganda; beheading videos, books exhorting acts of violence against "the infidel", this sort of thing.
Reading the article I linked to doesn't even hint at any of that, it just makes it look like Australia is about to start Nuremberg Rally style book burnings. Again, more balanced journalism. And to trot out comparisons to Gandhi and Mandela is at best moral relativism (albeit of the worst type) and at worst an insult to those men, their political successors, and the people of those free, democratic countries.
They don't know, they don't care, or both? I've no idea, and no inclination to find out, having better uses for my free time. The sort of people this law is targeting are not any stripe of "freedom fighter", quite the opposite.
It does conveniently cover any other breed of terrorism, which, let's face it, is ILLEGAL by its' very definition anyway. This just closes some loopholes and gives the government more of a handle on these clowns. We need more of this kind of thinking, not less.
2 comments:
On one hand, it is dangerous to have laws that can be twisted by some shyster into nefarious freedom eating beasts. On the other, any law can be used to harass the masses if properly manipulated.
I suppose ultimately, any law in the hands of a healthy democracy will be used to support the publics view of 'good'. At least until the next election. So, at least the Australians are making it clear what they intend to do.
In general there are entirely too many laws. That said, the complexity is probably necessary in democracies, as if laws were simplified catch-alls (as an example, check http://www.admfincs.forces.gc.ca/qr_o/vol2/ch103_e.asp#103.60)
the path to oppression would be in the ability to arbitrarily decide you'd broken the law. This is in opposition to the liberal approach which is death by 1000 cuts, ensnaring people in a ridiculous tangle of rules that the average person has no chance to keep abreast of.
Somewhere in the middle is the best we can hope for.
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