Lindens Please Help The Aussies

Ahhhh, the old tried-and-true "slippery slope argument" . . .

However, when it comes to child pornography, we are taking about something else. The production of child pornography includes committing crimes, i.e. exploiting children sexually. Therefore, child pornography is illegal to produce, distribute and (in many countries) to consume. This is not censorship, it's all about stopping criminal acts. When an internet ISP blocks a child porn site, they don't do it because of censorship, they do it to stop a crime from being committed.

LOL

I had an eye on your corner when I was writing that.

But, define force or fraud, Chris? These have to have legal definitions that distinguish between, say, "persuasion" or coercion, and "force." Is blackmail a form of "force"? What constitutes "blackmail," exactly?

Careful how you answer: it's all a dangerously slippery slope!!

Which I couldn't do with 5 gallons of gas and a match?
Or an automobile? Or a machete

Gun control worked out really well for those Armenian Christians, Ukrainian farmers, Chinese peasants, Cambodian intellectuals and the Tutsi. (aren't you proud of me, I didn't even mention Hitler)

One of the games on the Refused Classification list is "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude" because:

"The report said the computer game contains 'obscured and/or implied sexual activity and obscured and partial nudity involving stylised, animated characters.'"

It sounds to me like Australia is validating the slippery slope argument.

There is a lot more to determining which kind of "criminality" YOU find "acceptable," and which you don't, than simply shouting "censorship" at the latter, while nodding in agreement with the former. Jurisdictions that have put more wide-ranging controls in place over the possession of child porn of various sorts haven't done so arbitrarily: in most cases, they are banned because of the belief (right or wrong) that these cause harm, and in that sense are also "criminal."

And if the website is in, say, Japan? Or Myanmar? Or Kentucky?

And who decides what is "illegal"? Making even that judgment could, in the eyes of those who are doing such things, constitute a form of "censorship."

ALWAYS. There is, I imagine, no one in this thread, with the exception perhaps of the most dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, who would allow absolutely EVERYTHING.

Lindal, your essential point here is correct, of course, but I would extend it further: the middle is pretty ok with various forms of restriction and/or censorship too.

I am, to put it mildly, no friend of the far right, the Moral Majority, etc., and I'm not a great deal happier with the extreme left, but I think it is a bad mistake to demonize these people with reductive forumulae like this. The same with the suggestion that people who wish to impose restrictions are simply "evil."

These people are not stupid, and they certainly don't believe that they are "evil": they have thought-out reasons for the values and ideas that they espouse. They may be poorly conceived, or based on faulty premises, but you aren't going to beat them by calling them names. We have to begin by acknowledging, first, that they have a right to hold the views they hold, and, second, that they have arguments that must be met head on.

We do democracy a disservice but simply yelling "Evil!" at anyone whose views we dislike.

I have no problem with them holding their views, until they try to force them on me.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for supper.

Blackmail should be a civil matter, not a criminal one. Force is pretty simple, using violence against another person causing harm to their person or property. Fraud is theft. Taking what doesn't belong to you by deception. Bank robbery goes under force. Cat burglary goes under fraud.

But that doesn't validate an argument that is, ultimately, a formula for absolute paralysis.

That's one reason, among many, that juries are such a good thing. Rather than ask politicians to define, in general, what's acceptable and what isn't, I would far rather ask a jury something like whether they are sure (since it's the criminal standard of proof we need here) that these particular images are "indecent" (or whatever) in the normal English meaning of the word and that the defendant did not have a legitimate reason for possessing them, having regard to the context and all the other circumstances of the case (including what else was on the defendant's pc).

Well, but that's my point, Chris. It isn't cut-and-dry. My argument, however, would probably rest on the fact that guns were purpose-designed for one reason: to kill. Gasoline, automobiles, and machetes are being *misused* if they are put to that purpose.

I would also submit that the answer does not lie in increasing the violence by arming everyone, but rather in getting rid of it entirely. This is a bit like those arguments that suggest that if women armed themselves, they would be less likely to be victimized by abuse.

Could make for very interesting supper conversations: "Dear, you've left your holster open . . ." "Yes, sweetheart, that's just in case the meatloaf is overdone."

What constitutes harm? Just physical damage? How big do my bruises have to be for it to be force?

.

Although I would support legalization of marijuana I am staunchly against legalization of all narcotics(ETC~they must be looked at individually.) This is a stance outside of the "dye in the wool Libertarian" you envision is it not?

Did breaking your arms affect your accuracy?

(If so, maybe now is the time to challenge you to a little shooting match)

The threat of violence is not violence.

Yes, someone can threaten you and cause you fear. It's up to you how to deal with that.

As for blackmail, someone once said, "A person who *won't* be blackmailed, *can't* be blackmailed." In other words, the proper response to a threat of blackmail is, "Publish and be damned to you."

Does that make Canada more "evil" than the U.S.?

/me munches on her cookie . . .

Misguided maybe

Have you read The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies by David Kopel? An interesting study of culture and violence.

Nope! I'll add it my list of "Things Chris says I should read, and will try to, but will probably hate" . . .

Well, so you've drawn a line. It's a line that I happen to agree with, but nonetheless it represents a more or less "arbitrary" distinction between something that should be banned, and something that should not.

And really, that's all I'm saying here: is that we all DO draw such lines, and need to recognize that, insofar as they represent our personal judgments of what should be allowable and what shouldn't, they ARE "arbitrary" and not absolute reflections of transcendent values of "good" and "evil."

Your point about definitions of libertarianism are well taken, and to the point as well: again, differing cultural values come into play here. There are very very few of what an American would call "libertarians" in Canada, and most of those are wanna-be Americans who live in Alberta. We have a "Libertarian Party" here, but it is a laughing stock, and is out-polled in elections by our democratic socialist party, the NDP, by a factor of probably about 50 to 1 or more.

Does that make Canada more "evil" than the U.S.?

/me munches on her cookie . . .

The big banks who were losing money they couldn't collect.