On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Any society
considering a Great Firewall of any sort is neither
democratic nor open, whether or not they periodically hold votes on
exactly who should implement bad ideas. We should not in any way
acknowledge or respect such, though we should help those who live
there and encourage and assist them in circumvention.
Countries have laws. The state enforces those laws. That's one of the
main purposes of having a state over anarchy. Censoring parts of the
internet is pretty much the only way to enforce child pornography laws
(when the sites are hosted abroad). I don't see anything undemocratic
about that. It's a democratically elected government making the laws
and those laws don't prevent free and fair elections, so it isn't
undemocratic. (Of course, an semi-official and unaccountable agency
like the IWF enforcing the laws is not a great way to go about it.)
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Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which
determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One
may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy.
Prior-restraint censorship, or blocking people from seeing,
discussing, and thinking about (as opposed to performing) potentially
harmful actions make that answer a "no".
--
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.