LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: C4IS <C4IS@EISA.NET.AU>
  To  : Linux SA <LinuxSA@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 11:29:55 +0930

Re: POLITIX

From: C J M Turner <cjmturner@lpf.com.au>
To: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 11:43 PM
Subject: Re: POLITIX


>Perhaps I should qualify. I need as many facts and arguments as 
>possible with regard to the unworkable nature of the legislation.

Excellent... why not write a [nice] FAQ with the well-organised
*results* of your research into these facts & arguments?

That would comprise a major contribution towards the
debate and a step forward, toward the goal you have
set for yourself IMHO.

I'd really like to see a single FAQ (in the concise style
of Mike Huben's "A Non-Libertarian FAQ", except
I presume you would be collecting arguments that
you feel have more merit; that FAQ maintainer was
collecting both arguments and refutations of them)
that one could find BOTH pro & con arguments
(ideally in two separate sections, compiled by ad-
herents to the two distinct sides.

(Getting the people of each side together for such
a project just might help each side discover that
"Hey, those people arn't so bad after all."  Even
if it didn't, though, the thought of some public de-
bates - e.g. between the two groups' best bebate
orators - is one that I like.)

> I want to focus on workability rather than philosophy

It is your decision to accept the dogmatic view that -
because the present political machinery won't give
us the kind of basic Freedom of Speech *it* enjoys -
it must therefore be unworkable.  I disagree stongly.

Why not push harder and get the axiom(s) that will
save you (and generations of others like you in the
future) time that you must now spend fighting each
and every theorem that the gov't of the day may
try to "prove" in the light of the non-existence of
such (Free Speech) axioms.

In other words:

 Case 1:  With Freedom of Speech (as an axiom)

                 Less censorship legislation gets this far
                 (which major party would spend time on
                 bills that will be thrown out by the courts?)

                Result:  People like you can spend more
                              of their time building infrastructure
                             (e.g. helping country people gain
                             quicker access to the Internet, so
                             that *their* rights of free speech can
                             find practical channels of expression)

 Case 2:  Without Freedom of Speech (as an axiom)

                 More censorship legislation gets this far
                 (even a major party can spend time on
                 bills with the support of the fearful/disenfran-
                 chised (i.e. offline) people in the community
                 and such groups as the "religious right")

                Result:  People like you spend much more
                              of their time fighting each & every
                              silly bill that an MP can dream up,
                              that would tread on such freedoms
                             (e.g. leaving country people "eat
                             cake" vis a vis getting any quicker
                             access to the Internet...)

 (The fight for somebody's right to look at (non-kiddy)
 porn seems to be adversely affecting the "practical
 rights" of Australians (outside of cities and *some*
 country centers) to see for themselves what this
 Internet is all about, i.e. with any reasonable speed
 of access.)

> because it's more solid.

Because you feel you have no choice.  "Past is prologue"

Somehow, horses got replaced by cars...

isn't it time that colonial powers over people
got replaced by more protective limits to
government powers?

> I'm asking on this list now

Only on Linux SA?  Where else have you looked?

I trust that you read web sites of EFA (or the like)

And don't be afraid to look overseas, as well as
locally... surf to places where the development of
infrastructure has been the push (perhaps because
their technologists & young leaders didn't have to
wade in such muck as we're in today)

Take wisdom from where ever it may come...

> because I felt inadequately prepared 


I like your honesty here.

> and want to be perfect for next time.


Perfection is only to be found in the worlds of philosophers.... ;)

(Plato, I believe, had some notion of ideals from which
all that we see around us may have been made...)

Anyway, I support you search for ideas to focus on.

I hope you

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