European Parliament Decides Not To Ban Internet Porn 397
An anonymous reader writes "The European Parliament passed a proposal Tuesday which included a blanket ban on pornography, including Internet porn, in European Union member states. However, Members of European Parliament (MEPs) removed explanatory wording from the porn ban section, essentially limiting the ban to advertising and print media. The proposal, titled 'Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU,' was put to a vote in Strasbourg. MEPs passed it 368-159."
well... (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh, and to force people to pay for other people's sex.
Cheaper than paying for other people's children, which you will do if you don't pay for their contraceptives. Experimental proof comes from Texas in this case. Spend 73 million on birth control or spend upwards of 200 million in welfare for the kids. [salon.com]
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Moreover, when did tax dollars going to causes that your religion doesn't support become suppression of your religious freedom? Are there any religions out there that say condoms bad, but wars of aggression good? If not, then I can't fathom how you would complain about government providing
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So "Show me yer tits!" "Okay!" is illegal, but "Show me yer tits!" "Gimme a buck first" is not?
Because *that* makes sense.
It isn't ubiquitous. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the world would be a better place if porn weren't ubiquitous
I browse a number of websites all day and none of them ave porn.
Readily accessible is NOT THE SAME AS ubiquitous.
It wouldn't help the earth, or the people on it, one bit if porn were less easy to find.
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It's obvious that unless it is illegal, the NY Times, Washington Post and every other daily newspaper in the US would have nude chicks on every page, just to boost circulation. Except the entertainment/arts section, which would have nude guys.
Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
It's obvious that unless it is illegal, the NY Times, Washington Post and every other daily newspaper in the US would have nude chicks on every page
If that really worked they would simply run bikini-clad women every issue, which is perfectly legal.
The fact they they do not is testament that titilation is only engaging when novel. Doing so all the time helps you not a bit.
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Whoosh.
That is why porn isn't everywhere.
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The Sun [thesun.co.uk] newspaper in the UK used to (and might still do) have a girl with her boobs out on page 3 every day. Other papers in the UK do it too.
The Sun has a terrible reputation with anyone who has a brain, for shitty tabloid "journalism". It's also owned by that "Captain of Industry" Rupert Murdoch.
Re:It isn't ubiquitous. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is plenty of evidence that unrealistic body images are damaging, especially for teenagers. The people in porn are not usually very average looking and tend to act unrealistically too. Kids have to be told they don't need to screw like a porn star or act like nymphomaniacs.
Porn is fine for adults but making it a bit harder for teenagers to find might not be a bad thing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would like it if porn were more difficult to access. also, by ubiquitous i mean a google search away. I remember in my day we had to hustle to find some titty pictures!
Making porn (or any other type of material) difficult to access would be a bad thing. Requiring the porn industry to include headers in their HTTP responses to make it easier for parents to control access to porn would probably be good though. And not just the porn industry - the same goes for any "questionable" content...
However, given the global nature of the internet, coupled with the lack of interest in enforcing the existing communications laws, means that this is never going to happen.
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I never seen porn unless i go looking for it.
The world would actually be a far worse place. Do you understand the amount of rape and child molestation that took place in the days before easily accessible porn? Before the early 20th century, rape was a constant. The majority of women experienced it at least once in their lives, many as adolescents. That is the consequences of a chaste society, a hell hole where people are hurt and no one talks about it.
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Citation needed
Re:well... (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't remember the name of the study, but a study was conducted which showed a correlation between lack of high speed internet access and number of cases of rape.
It was broken up by state, and the states with higher rapes were also states with lower broadband access.
Granted, it's just a correlation, and there's no reason to believe it's a causative relationship.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only time I saw porn on the tubes is when I went looking for it! And as every modern citizen I use the net daily...porn is not "in your face"!
Now, regarding the fact that every product in this world seems to be promoted by half-naked women - on this I agree with the legislation - it is in my face and I won't miss it if it's gone. The same for the models advertizing clothes that have less meat on them than prisoners in concentration camp...ugh, that is ugly and in my face daily!
Conclusion - the porn business is the least "in your face" compared to almost every other business when it comes to throwing naked flesh on billboards, newspapers, magazines and the internet.
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We've got it completely backwards when we make porn protected "speech" while making laws to limit how much mone
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The problem with allowing unlimited "real" speech during a political campaign is it ends up as who can lie the loudest.
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However the other alternative, where the government limits speech, can't work in either theory or practice.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine banning great works of art like Venus emerging from the sea or David by Michelangelo, just because genitalia is visible. Books have been banned from some libraries because these images were included and classified as "porn". [Citation] [pbs.org]
Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)
In America,the founders explicitly protected word media like "speech" and "the press". They knew about art and sculpture but said nothing about it.
Now I agree that banning some great works of art, including the ones you mention, would be bad, but that's a policy decision, not a question of "free speech". Just because you or I like something doesn't mean it is necessarily a right.
Off on a tangent, one of the reasons America is so divided is too many people have tried to turn every question of policy into a constitutional issue and thus an issue for the courts. When the courts step in rather than letting the legislative process play out, the debate is taken away from the people and placed in the hands of a very few. Even worse, the decision is final. This has the effect of removing the impetus for compromise that legislatures produce. It removes the feeling that people have some control over how they are governed. And it raises the stakes in every battle because the outcome is seen as permanent.
Re:well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nearly everything conveys an idea including punching someone in the face, refusing to pay taxes, refusing to rent an apartment to a nice black family, driving without a seatbelt, insider trading, killing puppies, and burning crosses.
That the fact these acts are prohibited has anything to do with free speech is a peculiar interpretation, and not at all in keeping with how the First Amendment is generally understood. Punching someone in the face isn't prohibited on the grounds of the message it communicates. It is prohibited on the grounds that the medium through which one communicates the message produces a deleterious effect unrelated to this message. Likewise I could shout "give me Liberace or give me death" outside of a concert hall, but I could not sear this message into the backside of a passerby and claim this is protected speech merely because I am using words, rather than communicating my meaning in some other way.
Works of art almost never produce secondary consequences related to medium, and insofar as one does, it is prohibited based on the consequences of the medium, and not based on the message. (The only such work that comes to mind is Christo's exhibit of giant umbrellas, which crushed someone, and was shortly thereafter dismantled.) What you are proposing (that some works of art ought to be prohibitable based on their message alone, and first amendment be damned) is radically different from prohibiting assault, etc.
Now I agree that banning some great works of art, including the ones you mention, would be bad, but that's a policy decision, not a question of "free speech".
That such a work of art is not a kind of protected speech is an idea far from mainstream in current American jurisprudence.
It removes the feeling that people have some control over how they are governed
Your post demonstrates why isolating this control is not necessarily a bad idea.
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Punching someone in the face, refusing to rent and apartment, etc. is a "speech" that is prohibited because it infringes on others' rights. Just like how you cannot yell "fire" in a theater or lie and defame someone in press.
If you want to punch yourself in the face, you have the freedom of the speech to do so.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Porn isn't "freedom of speech". "Speech" implies that words are communicated. Speech is important for political communication, for discussing ideas, for rational thinking, for debating. Porn isn't..
Oh you are so wrong. Even the US supreme court agrees with me on this one. Porn, like any other expression (verbal or not) is protected free speech.
When you speak or write, you communicate. Most people agree on this one. But a lot of communication is non-verbal. Everything non-human usually is. There's chemical communication (smells, odors etc.), gesture and motion communication (sign language, mating dances etc.), color communication (flowers and insects, 'dangerous colors' etc.). Maybe you don't understand what's communicated but it doesn't change that it is communication. As it doesn't make sense to limit the free speech to just words and maybe sign language, the freedom is usually called "Freedom of Speech and Expression".
So sorry, buddy. Porn is fully covered by this freedom - and rightly so. It's just communication using more or less naked bodies, a few words and some gestures. Nothing wrong with this by the way. If you don't like what's communicated, walk away. You have the implicit right to 'listen' to any communication (the other half of the freedom of speech) and you of course also have the right not to. Nobody forces you to watch porn. If you don't like it, switch channel or throw that magazine away. But don't think that because you don't like it, the right of others to 'listen' should be taken away, or the right to make it. Likewise, if you don't like what I write here, either argue against it or go away. That's your right.
Re:well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since we're well off in the realms of the hypothetical...
Why not just let it happen? What is so terrifying about human sexuality that that our precious snowflakes must be protected from learning about it?
Past generations had the kids in the same room - sometimes in the same bed - with their parents whilst the latter were involved in coitus (separate bedchambers for the younglings is a fairly new invention). And - as the majority of Americans were rural until just a few generations back - imagine what they saw the animals doing on the farm! I'd wager most of those kids grew up just fine.
So two people want to start fucking near a kindergarten? I say fine, let them. Let the kids stand, stare, point and snicker at the odd poses and noises the adults are making. Odds are it'll be far more traumatic for the adults than the children.
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How, exactly?
Care to explain how one follows from the other? Again, separate bed chambers are relatively recent. So, not only is this the logical conclusion, it's a historical data point. Are you ignoring it because it's inconvenient for your point of view?
Define "minor"
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Porn isn't "freedom of speech". "Speech" implies that words are communicated. Speech is important for political communication, for discussing ideas, for rational thinking, for debating. Porn isn't.
Porn is good for a certain sort of debating.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
A problem though: If you decide porn isn't real speech, then it becomes possible for opponents of 'real' speech to argue that their opponents arguments are pornographic and should be banned. For example, the old Comstock laws in the US forbade using the US post to send any information relating to the use of contraceptives, on the grounds that the devices themselves were obscene in nature, as was any information relating to their use, for it undermined the social order by allowing sex outside of marriage. Similarily, in some countries not only is homosexuality illegal, but arguing that it should be legal is also illegal - on the grounds that such arguments are so offensive as to be obscene.
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The first thing I think of here is encode all the porn as ascii art, or as colored text where the letters are so small they are no longer visually register.
I could put an LED billboard up in times square where every pixel was shaped into a letter, spelling out Moby Dick or some such, and if the billboard displayed Moby's Dick instead then one could argue that I am using words to convey information, therefor it is protected speech. :3
This is all rather farcical obviously, but it illustrates how a message can
Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)
Members of Parliament said (Score:5, Funny)
"Wait, if I support this then I can't watch porn on the internet!"
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Chase after constantly changing [-porn] sites and search for new VPN providers.
Sorry, are we still talking about porn or have we moved to TPB again?
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Chase after constantly changing [-porn] sites and search for new VPN providers.
Sorry, are we still talking about porn or have we moved to TPB again?
They're both socially unacceptable and (generalizing TPB to copying without permission) most everyone does it.
A disturbance in the force (Score:5, Funny)
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As if millions of Eurogeeks breathed a sigh of relief.
Yes, of course. Now there's no ifs or buts! ... what's the name?? Victoria secrets?...
1.a woman should be accepted for modelling on "Fusion HydraGel Tough Beard Shave Gel" (irrespective of the toughness of her beard).
2.a male can now apply without any barrier as a model for the cover of
If any of them be rejected, one should only whisper... "You know... presenting lingerie on female / shaving products by men models is... a... stereotype! Are you sure?"
thought police (Score:5, Interesting)
"The proposal, titled 'Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU'..."
What an Orwellian purpose.
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Re:thought police (Score:5, Informative)
"They are concerned about the uneven usage of sexuality to sell products, and the message that sends."
They do much more than that.
"... In order to tackle the problem of the lack of women at the higher levels of economic and political decision-making, the persistence of gender stereotypes in all levels of society need to be addressed. ..."
IOW, affirmative action at the "decision-making" level, accomplished by thorough social engineering, by e.g. deliberate suppression of traditional ideas. That's pretty drastic stuff, not just about commercial speech - i.e., advertising with attractive models.
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You seem to think that to be Orwellian a policy must purport to do something when it actually aims to do the opposite. While that is a feature of ingsoc in 1984, the term Orwellian is more general, referring to rule through misinformation, pervasive interference in daily life, propaganda, policing of thought and speech, etc. So yes, the bill matches its title. But it also is clearly an attempt to control speech in an attempt to mold thought. That's Orwellian. I understand you think it's also a noble purpose
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That you call me internet secret police is pretty off the mark. Sad. I disagree with the bill's regulation of the internet. I think the other aspects of the
Re:thought police (Score:5, Insightful)
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Non sequitor with a dollop of citation needed.
Even if it were true that "for the same work" one group was paid less than another group, it nowhere near follows that the right solution is to undertake a massive social engineering project, twenty thousand links away in the causal chain. It rather seems like an admission that they cannot actually address the differential-pay problem (perhaps because it's not a real problem), so instead they use it as a hobby-horse to ride, to fuel their totalitarian tendencie
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Ok - given that you're too lazy to even Google it: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html
Even after taking into account various things like education and occupation, there is still a statistically significant difference in pay. 91 cents on the dollar, if I'm reading the article right. So yes there is a pay discrepancy problem.
Why shouldn't women have more pension - or at least the same pension as men?
The very definition of "Liberal Fascism" (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with a very liberal way of thinking is, that if the state knows better than you naturally it follows that the state should control all aspects of your activity.
Thus as you say, social engineering is no longer scary, but required in all actions you take so you have only "right minded people" in your populace.
Human nature is not something to understand, but to be ironed and whitewashed over to get that perfect homogenous bland - er, I mean, blend.
Re:The very definition of "Liberal Fascism" (Score:4, Insightful)
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the impact of sexist advertising on women and women's role in society.
Fairly negligible. Sexist advertising is the symptom of sexist culture. Advertisers are very good at adapting to cultural expectations. Whether sexist culture is good or bad is a normative judgement, and hence likely to be contentious.
And the 'cure' in this case is almost certainly worse than the disease. Social engineering of this sort can only be justified through a paternalistic view of government; that it's the majority of us trying to keep us individually on the 'right' path. Which is dictatorship. Ben
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You are begging the question that there is something wrong with social engineering to get rid of 'traditional values'. May I remind you that this wholly depends on what those traditional values actually are?
Re:thought police (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:thought police (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at the actual law, can you point out how they are regulating thoughts? K, thanks. Because it looks like they are regulating advertising.
How to regulate thought (Score:2)
Looking at the actual law, can you point out how they are regulating thoughts?
By controlling what inputs people receive, to some extent you limit or reduce possible thoughts that result from them.
It's the same line of thinking that bans all publicans of anything with Nazi logos.
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In 1984, by using propaganda, eliminating words that had unwanted meanings from the language (newspeak) and applying other forms of "education" (read brain washing) you aim to produce only individuals that accept the government ideas. It is the wet dream of any totalitarian regimen.
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Because it looks like they are regulating advertising.
Advertising and print . That is the characterization that appears in the linked story, anyhow.
If, by print, they include all forms of printed pornography then they've just outlawed pornographic magazines. Do not doubt for one second that busy-body parents won't use this to have any form of even slightly suggestive literature banned from schools as well. That is the mind-set this kind of governance embraces.
It's feminism run amok [digitaljournal.com]. "Gender stereotype" is mantra those people chant to each other. Now it's
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I may not like the idea, but I would bet men are more susceptible to using sexuality in advertising. Note I merely said "more" - this is an important word in my sentence.
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What an Orwellian purpose.
What is wrong with some stereotypes? each individual may be different but in aggregate they can be adequately described by stereotypes (as a first-order approximation). It is indeed Orwellian that the EU believe they have the right to create *thought crimes* instead of promoting free thinking. In fact this is the biggest and most retarded mistake of the political Left. They are for diversity and every perversity - except for the diversity that actually matters, *diversity of thought*. It is anathema to th
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Standing up for political and individual freedom now gets one compared to a racist. Islam is against every freedom held dear by the West but to oppose it gets you condemned as equivalent to a racist. This is how far the left has warped discourse, that to hold a view opposing its narrative gets you instantly branded as a rascist. This is interesting because Islam is an evil totalitarian *political* ideology and not a race. That fact you don't understand this shows how far from the truth you thinking is. Her
Re:thought police (Score:4, Insightful)
but calling someone a leftie apparently isn't.
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You are a smart cookie. You were culturally close bro. I'm a New Zealander and a physicist (now in IT) - "first-order approximation" is a term we commonly used. I'm surprised Slashdotters don't know it.
I hate racism nearly as much as I despise the evil totalitarian political ideology called Islam. The fact that standing up for liberty by pointing out the threat of Islam gets you instantly branded as a Klansman (racist and violent) shows how badly the West is losing the ideological war against the creepin
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They seem more and more like the 16th century puritanists, who censored everything they thought unfit accordingly to their beliefs. Just their religion now is the politically correct.
I am all for giving people equal rights regardless of any difference they may have among themselves, but that has already been achieved. What they are trying to do is exactly the same the religious extremists did centuries ago. To force their moral standards upon others, by actually suppressing any a
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Re:thought police (Score:5, Insightful)
I am all for giving people equal rights regardless of any difference they may have among themselves, but that has already been achieved. What you are trying to do is exactly the same the religious extremists did centuries ago. To enforce your moral standards upon others.
why are stereotypes so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are based on elements of truth, and while basing judgments solely on them will result in incomplete understanding, purposefully avoiding them by whitewashing the media with contrarian examples also denies reality. In many cases, it'll end up denying more of it! Ideology is not reality no matter how much the society is filtered.
If you read the latter link from falkvinge, it becomes obvious very quickly that this is a white knight feminist power grab. Only they would push for such draconian demands to prevent 'the sexualization of girls', whatever that means. There are segments of the legislation that scare the shit out of me, and should scare anyone potentially living under its influence. Frankly, the fact any politician in the supposedly 'free' west would draft such a thing at all should be cause for concern. No amount of 'suffrage' or other outdated 1950s era rubbish justifies a police state. None. This kind of thing is a perfect example of ideology going so far as to eat its own tail.
I actually read TFA and these thoughts were running through my head the whole time. American or European, we gotta stop voting these idiots into office.
Re:why are stereotypes so bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is imperative that people be judged based on their individual characteristics. It is a simple undeniable fact that variation within large groups of people FAR exceeds the variation between the means of the groups. It is the idiocy of stereotyping that ignores this fact. It is appalling that people do not understand this basic truth.
Let me give you an example of how this stupidity affected me, personally.
My wife is a Hispanic immigrant. She came to the US as an English medieval lit PhD candidate on a Fullbright scholarship to an elite university after studying in Europe for 3 years. She graduated from university at age 17. At one time she held the highest score ever achieved in the Oxford English Competency exam by a South American.
That ethnic background meant my children were automatically stereotyped by the schools they attended. In particular one of them was misdiagnosed as having an English deficiency when in fact he had Asperger's.
This diagnosis was done on the basis of my wife's ethnic background despite the fact she speaks English better than 99.99+% of US citizens.
The harm done to my son from of this cannot be undone.
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No. Just no. Stating that there exist outliers in a distribution does not mean a given statistical technique is invalid. Or that the mean of the distribution can't be meaningfully distinguished from another. Or.. ANYTHING AT ALL!!! It's a simple assumption when dealing with random variables.
And yeah, I agree stereotyping can have a bad impact on the target population. I even agree that impact may be worst for outliers! But that in no way invalidates the technique as a useful time-saving measure.
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It is imperative that people be judged based on their individual characteristics. It is a simple undeniable fact that variation within large groups of people FAR exceeds the variation between the means of the groups. It is the idiocy of stereotyping that ignores this fact. It is appalling that people do not understand this basic truth.
Right, which is why whenever I'm in East Asia looking for someone who can speak English, I pay no more attention to any white people who may be around me and just pick someone at random. There are, after all, quite a few oriental people who speak English even in places like Japan, Taiwan, and China. And there are a few white people who don't speak any English. So whether I just want to know where the nearest McDonald's is,or whether I'm pretty sure my appendix is bursting, i don't bother using stereotype
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'Europe' is not a single entity. 'Europe' is not terribly Socialist. 'Europe' is much freer than it has been in most of its history.
Noone and Everyone is free; it's a meaningless adjective out of context. Freedom is relative; they're much freer than Zimbabwe for instance.
I'm glad this got resolved so quickly... (Score:5, Funny)
... because I remembered a joke after reading the last story, too late to post it. :-)
"I'm fairly sure if they took porn off the Internet, there'd only be one website left, and it'd be called 'Bring Back the Porn!'"
-- Dr. Cox, Scrubs
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
What was the reason for wanting to ban it? (Score:2)
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This is controversial. Depends which population you look at, and is confounded with everything under the sun. Not a huge impact either way, at least.
Re:What was the reason for wanting to ban it? (Score:4, Informative)
Quit with the trolling nonsense. The bill was proposed by the "Women's Rights and Gender Equality" committee, which, at a glance, the majority of members of which belong to the European People's Party (Christian Democrats). We are quite capable of producing a homegrown religious "Think of the Children" brigade without resorting to Islam.
The offensive bit of the directive (the sweeping ban on otherwise legal material on the internet) has been removed, so democracy has done it's job. The rest of the bill is a typical EU directive- well meaning, high-minded stuff which is far too broad to be meaningfully implemented. That's fine too; that's a part of how our not-even-federal system works in Europe; the details should be (and in this case are) left entirely to the member states.
Haven't you learned anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Surprised? I think not... It's either a company that can't compete in the free market, or a church.
PirateBox DIY (Score:2)
http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox_DIY [daviddarts.com]
Brian Roedecker [millennium...oweare.net]: " It's a little more 'James Bondian' but we are living in a more Blofeldian world."
You Know The Internet Has Arrived When... (Score:5, Insightful)
the EU bans books ("print media") and nobody cares because they read everything on the Internet now.
Just remember folks, when you're reading an actual book, nobody is recording how long you spend on each page for later analysis.
Sorry, but... (Score:3)
Sorry, but aren't that still banning all porn not on the internet?
Are Playboy magazines and porn DVDs still legal?
Also, how, exactly, is porn defined according to these statutes?
This is why we have the EU! (Score:3)
We have the EU to give our politicians something meaningless to do. It is wonderful that our politicians talk about not too important things, and then decide to do nothing.
It may not be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what they used to do in the last two millennia, which was to talk, then get angry, and start a war.
What really happened (Score:3)
After a long session behind close doors, the EU decided not to ban porn after all...
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many European governments are deep into repressive practices already. From suppression of Nazi paraphernalia to various modes of speech, they emulate the worst leaders of past repressive regimes in a misguided effort not to become like them. Pretty sad, really. Of course, I'd be more concerned about it if we weren't showing all the signs of repeatedly trying to go down the same path here in the US.
The worst US citizens are coming to believe -- and being quite up front about it -- that they have a right not to see and hear things they don't like in the public space. There could hardly be a more dangerous mode of thought for a country that supposedly honors freedom of speech.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst US citizens are coming to believe -- and being quite up front about it -- that they have a right not to see and hear things they don't like in the public space. There could hardly be a more dangerous mode of thought for a country that supposedly honors freedom of speech.
I believe I've seen a comment posted on this very site to sum this up: "The antithesis of free speech is the perceived right to never be offended".
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The worst US citizens are coming to believe -- and being quite up front about it -- that they have a right not to see and hear things they don't like in the public space. There could hardly be a more dangerous mode of thought for a country that supposedly honors freedom of speech.
I believe I've seen a comment posted on this very site to sum this up: "The antithesis of free speech is the perceived right to never be offended".
This may be an AC, but he's spot on. There is no Constitutional guarantee against being offended. Liberals are offended by Conservatives and Conservatives are offended by Liberals. Without offense, there is no freedom of speech at all.
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From suppression of Nazi paraphernalia
It's worth remembering that the suppression of Nazi paraphernalia IS literally a form of oppression, completely planned as such. After WW2 it was pushed on certain countries as a form of oppression, to keep the Nazis from rising again. None of the Allies wanted the Nazis to rise again, and that was one way the decided to make sure that happened.
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Also, it's not an attempt to legislate belief, it's an attempt to keep belief from spreading, or at least slow it enough until it dies out. And sadly, that is something that can be effective.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hyperbole much?
We know lots of you guys and gals in America are all into radical free speech and everything, which is nice and we love you for it.
And yes, most European governments AND their citizens believe it's perfectly fine in imposing some limits on free speech.
So does your own government I might add. And I'm pretty sure most Americans, conscious or not, are also in favor of limiting Free Speech.
Like, for example, limiting free speech for that guy which is making indecent proposols to your 6 year old daughter or son. Or not allowing someone to publicly threaten you with death. Not allowing random slandering. Heck, you should try to shout 'I'm going to kill the president' in front of the white house once and tell me how you like it.
Please educate yourself on your own country, thank you. Following link might be a nice starting point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
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So? What's the correct view, then? It might help correct his assertions were you to guide him by imparting your wisdom in these matters. Is it better to condemn ignorance, or to show someone the error of their thinking by imparting knowledge? What would a grown-up do?
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The people in question are hardly only a problem for proponents of Islamism. Organizations like the Golden Dawn in Greece, or the Italian neo-fascists, are a big problem for a lot of other people, too, and it's quite important that they be opposed as strongly as possible. It is Nazism, in a quite literal sense: the leader of the Golden Dawn has written multiple pro-Hitler articles, and their logo resembles a swastika, and not due to coincidence.
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The right is so thoroughly discredited by the real Nazis they will never be more than a nuisance. They will never be mainstream. However the Left is now mainstream and promote collective policies that are against individual liberties. As I said, the left is all for every diversity except for diversity in opinion (which is the one that really matters). In this way the Left are far more of a threat to liberty than the far Right. Also, the Left makes common cause with Islamists. This is why it is becoming inc
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How is enforcing gender equality standards across Europe pandering to Sharia? Please explain how legislation intended to prohibit unequal treatment of genders and alternative sexuality adhere to the man-first-women-last-gays-dead version of life that Sharia proposes?
Re:Well, thank goodness! (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely, with the law on their side, Europe would've never seen porn again!
Right?! This would have been an even bigger failure than the war on drugs. How in the fuck did they think they could stop it?
Better yet, how do morons of this caliber get to be so high up in government?
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