I think if you put your previous points in a more general way (i.e. the importance of allowing people to choose for themselves what they access and the worrying aspect of the govt legislating morality), I think that would be clear enough without referring to your Narnian porn-writing.
I was trying to think of a metaphor or a comparison today and all I could come up with was this: Laws in general aim to catch and punish people who are doing something wrong. They don't attempt to bind the hands of every single person in the population in order to prevent anyone doing wrong. For example, the police catch people who speed, rather than the govt ordering that all cars be limited to a speed not exceeding the speed limit. Philosophically/morally that's important (so as not to become a Nanny State), but also costwise because it's less expensive to catch the people who are actually doing wrong than to try and make it impossible for anyone to do wrong.
Aside from that, legislation such as that being proposed will be like the gun control legislation - of course it will make it hard for anyone to own a gun, and by and large, law abiding citizens won't mind that there are tighter controls on gun ownership. But the people they are hoping to catch, i.e. the people we should be worried about owning guns, will be the people who exert themselves to find ways around the controls or make their activities more covert so that they slip under the radar.
I reckon it's going to be the same with this internet filtering thing. The entire population of Australia will be made miserable with a filtering system that slows down and/or disrupts their access to perfectly legitimate sites in order to prevent them accessing things that most people would never want to look at anyway. The people who want to look at kiddie porn will look at it regardless, because about five minutes after the law is implemented and the filters are hoisted, someone will find a way around the them. It is, IMO, a battle that cannot be won in the way the government is trying to do it. They are far better off working on refining their police operations or whatever to better target and snare the relatively few people who look for illegal stuff on the internet, than punishing the whole country in advance.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 10:40 am (UTC)I was trying to think of a metaphor or a comparison today and all I could come up with was this:
Laws in general aim to catch and punish people who are doing something wrong. They don't attempt to bind the hands of every single person in the population in order to prevent anyone doing wrong. For example, the police catch people who speed, rather than the govt ordering that all cars be limited to a speed not exceeding the speed limit. Philosophically/morally that's important (so as not to become a Nanny State), but also costwise because it's less expensive to catch the people who are actually doing wrong than to try and make it impossible for anyone to do wrong.
Aside from that, legislation such as that being proposed will be like the gun control legislation - of course it will make it hard for anyone to own a gun, and by and large, law abiding citizens won't mind that there are tighter controls on gun ownership. But the people they are hoping to catch, i.e. the people we should be worried about owning guns, will be the people who exert themselves to find ways around the controls or make their activities more covert so that they slip under the radar.
I reckon it's going to be the same with this internet filtering thing. The entire population of Australia will be made miserable with a filtering system that slows down and/or disrupts their access to perfectly legitimate sites in order to prevent them accessing things that most people would never want to look at anyway. The people who want to look at kiddie porn will look at it regardless, because about five minutes after the law is implemented and the filters are hoisted, someone will find a way around the them. It is, IMO, a battle that cannot be won in the way the government is trying to do it. They are far better off working on refining their police operations or whatever to better target and snare the relatively few people who look for illegal stuff on the internet, than punishing the whole country in advance.
Grrrrraaaarrrrghhhhh!!!