[LINK] Guardian: Al-Jazeera tells the truth about war

[Robin Whittle]

Vic / Deus Ex Machina wrote:

> gee it took a while for someone to popup and mention BSA. I am sorry
> but that is law, thats not evidence of a covert plot to control 
> content.

Censorship can be covert or overt.

You say you are sorry about censorship, but you seem to support it and
seem to have little or no support for people who fight it.

 
> and what perticular vile political view are you harboring that 
> the government disagrees with?
> 
> did I hear you say porn?


What's the difference between porn and erotica?  Its a matter of
personal taste, as far as I can see.

We all accept that child pornography is illegal, for a variety of
reasons, such as it encourages abuse of children and because it involves
the abuse of children.  But other than this, attempts to prohibit the
communication of what some people regard as "porn" is still censorship.


Vic, did you once rail against censorship, but now accept it as
necessary and good, for instance in times of war?   It seems there is a
pattern of some old lefties getting into their thirties, forties and
fifties and toughening up, becoming bitter and hard, accepting and
supporting things they previously fought so hard against.  (What's the
name of that columnist The Age used to run, who looks like an irritable
and overweight Fidel Castro, who is raving right-wing now but apparently
used to be a leftie?  JJ Mc . . .?)

I don't know you, but the way you write about some of these issues made
me wonder whether this applies to you.   It seems that it applies in
some sense to the "neo-cons" who are behind W. Bush's invasion of Iraq:

  http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html   

People are killing and being killed in Iraq because certain individuals
in Washington DC, who have never been in a war themselves, are
inflicting their twisted notions on the world, rather than re-evaluating
what they think when it seems (to others at least) that their notions
are at odds with reality.  So figuring out such misguided
singlemindedness, especially if it is a pattern of development in
idealistic people, seems to be crucial to understanding what is going on
here.


What, precisely, do you support in terms of government control of the
content of the following?

  Web sites

  Email

  Encrypted emails
   
  Encrypted private networks

  Phone calls

To what extent do your views on this change in times of war?

What is it, to you, which constitutes genuine war?  Specifically, is
there any limit to what a government, say of Australia, could do
regarding declaring war or deciding about content control and
surveillance of public and private communications which you would
consider invalid?

If so, under what conditions would you hold to your own moral views when
they contradicted the legislation of the parliament and/ or the
decisions of the judiciary or executive government?

You have criticised a number of people on this list for being critical
of the government.  I would be curious to know what your limits are. 
How far would the government have to go before you would no longer
support it.  Somewhere in the continuum between the current Australian
government and that of Saddam Hussein's, is where your limit is - since
you seem to support following the edicts of the former, and since I
assume you regard the latter as entirely illegitimate and in need of
being destroyed (as most people do).  

I guess the criteria is democracy - but what if there is a gerrymander,
failure to properly count votes, a system with immense power of money
and media (such as in the USA) or intimidation.

Democracy is more than voting.  When democratic governments start
censoring their own citizen's ability to communicate privately and
publicly, and when they hide information about matters like war (and the
war is *our* responsibility, since we pay for and create the
government), isn't this the start of a slippery slope leading to
suppression of debate, gross manipulation of the citizen's ability to
know important things etc.?

In terms of voting and censorship there is a continuum between
Australia's current form of government and that of vile dictatorships
such as in Iraq or North Korea.

How far do you advocate countries such as ours go along the path of
censorship?

You are forthright in criticising other people's views and principles. 
I would be interested to read a clear account of your own.


   - Robin