Censorship – Bye bye Labor

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The Labor party is doomed to be a single term government. They are killing their support base – social progressives and young folks alike are abandoning ship like never before. I have never hidden my dislike for the conservative side of politics, but to totally kick sand in the face of your true believers time and time again is simply not smart.

WIth 99% of the Australian public against mandatory filtering, I just don’t see how this is a vote getter. The filter will not protect my daughter from pr0n, predators using Skype or MSN, spyware, or preventing her viewing unsavory sites. It will not block the primary mechanism for distributing child and extreme pr0n – P2P networks. There is no point to mandatory filtering except to stifle political dissent.

So why implement such an opaque scheme that’s already been abused and is open to further abuse? Who are the winners from this? Politicians don’t stick their necks out unless there’s a valid reason, and public morality is simply not one of them, especially when the idea is so repulsive to nearly all Australians except for a few ratbags. I can only imagine so it’s to shore up the crazy vote (Senator Fielding), without which Labor can’t govern.

To give some perspective, is it acceptable for the Government to:

Discipline my child?
Determine what my child will read, watch, or do?
Decide on her schooling?
Decide on her religious beliefs, or lack of them?

Government has no role in these key parenting decisions and in determining what she (and us all) will or will not see on the Internet. That’s every parents’ responsibility, and I will do it in my way – with no censorware. Her computer will be in a shared area until she can be trusted with her own, and even then… trust but verify.

Labor – you must dump Conroy now. He is a liability to you retaining the 18-40 year old vote, and indeed the 99% of folks who don’t want the Internet censored. Without this core set of voters (about 45% of the eligible voters), you’re never going to win office in your own right again.

Comments

8 responses to “Censorship – Bye bye Labor”

May 31, 2010

Stephen

Conroy is a die hard churchy. I only got into power because no-one ran against him. I wouldn’t rule out all labour just because of one mans crazy ideas. Labor will boot him
May 31, 2010

PeterQ

Can I say, I told you so… I will.

Check out the interview with State Labor people shafted by Rudd, and the sort of things he gets up to…

http://www.tinyurl.com/24a4fqr
May 31, 2010

Big Red

Check out for what we may end up with… phenomenal book, and well worth the read.

I doubt the Mad Monk is any better dude.

Or we could end up with the Greens who will insist all IT is pedal powered.

The key question is to try and understand why this is happening. What what I have seen of Conroy, he is not a stupid man. But his performance on this issue is so stumbling and bumbling, my theory is that he is the fall guy/front man… but for whom???
June 1, 2010

vanderaj

Paul, I really think he is a front for the Christian Lobby. I’m certain he is a part of them.

What amazes me is that ALP people of actual talent like Kate Lundy didn’t get the gig. She was an awesome IT spokesperson in opposition – she seems to have actually used a computer, and understood the value of the IT industry to Australia. Why do we get crappy IT minister after crappy IT minister?
June 1, 2010

vanderaj

Peter,

After being disenchanted with Labor around the Mark Latham times, and especially after reading his longest political suicide note in history, I’ve really been turned off the ALP.

I’m more for the Greens now, but I’m fully aware that they will at best hold the balance of power until young folks who used to automatically vote ALP stop doing so when they realize that the ALP uses them for soft target practice (dole bludgers, etc).
June 1, 2010

Big Red

I notice my link to Amazon disappeared in the previous post. It’s a book called The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Sorry, I can’t find the really good link I had with useful comments, Noddy, can you dig it up by any chance please? The software swallowed my earlier link 🙂

In terms of talent, one word: factions.

In terms of who is behind it: if it is the ACL, it’s a shame they could not filter out the child-abusing priests in their own ranks before worrying about what everyone else sees or does.

I am deeply suspicious of the Coalition’s silence on this issue. Methinks it’s a bipartisan approach. Suppose this is the case: either major party wins and wants to implement it. What that does mean is that the issue is effectively dead. It’s a non-issue. Whoever gets in will implement it. Unless you somehow think that the Greens will do a Lib-Dem and somehow magically assume the balance of power AND then place the filter above their other issues they see as important, in order to get leverage. I really doubt that (no)cleanfeed will beat emissions reductions somehow.

So maybe extremists like Fielding from Lesbians Last are behind it? At least in terms of balance of power? I see two objections to this argument:

1. His term is up in July 2011, and I doubt the ALP will make the same preference error which got him elected back in 2004.

2. I’m not seeing any key legislation from the government which is being held up solely by him, where the filter is being used as leverage.

If Fielding is such a blocker, why on earth the ALP don’t go for small target mode (given how much the Mad Monk is on the nose), acknowledge execution errors on those big ticket issues (I’m sure most people agreed with the outcomes, just not the execution), and get re-elected in November.

So I don’t buy that they are doing it as a sop to Fielding.

And you like my logic now? I haven’t even started! Everyone knows that Iocane powder is from Australia…

Let me finish with this question: suppose that the filter in its current incarnation is not the end game, but merely the thin end of the wedge. Who would benefit from the filter in the longer term (given that its stated intentions are trivial to defeat, or just plain misdirected)?
June 1, 2010

vanderaj

The worst part is that if they want to get a view on who is going to these places, they can use ISP transparent cache logs, and hash the URL of the destination against the “blacklist” and get the same result (picking up really, really stupid CP’ers in dawn raids) without any of the firewall of Australia clap trap. No slow down of the Internet, etc, etc. It’s just as effective, and can be done in about 10 lines of Perl for considerably less cost.

Realistically, this is about controlling what you can see on the Internet. Don’t want to allow trade with country X that doesn’t implement ACTA? All eStores in that country gone. Want to block parallel gray imports? Block http://www.amazon.com etc. Want to block sites that discuss euthanasia? Done. Want to block Al Queda sites? Easily done. It’s about placing control of our Internet in regulations rather than laws, illegally blocking legal material.

It will still be trivial to work around, but we shouldn’t have to do so. Law and order can only be maintained when it has the overwhelming support of society at large, and they respect that effort. If you make criminals of everyone but a few, that’s bringing the rest of the laws into disrepute. This is a really dumb law.
June 3, 2010

Big Red

I don’t know that I agree with you here, at least on the main motive. I’m more inclined to attribute it to control for money, rather than control for power.

Maybe they’re both sides of the same coin anyway.