Ireland May Be Next To Censor the Internet 155
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Irish Times, the government of Ireland — the country that recently made blasphemy a criminal offense — has had extensive talks regarding the censorship of the Internet. Details are a little sketchy, as the documents requested under the Freedom of Information request were denied; however, '...the ongoing high level of discussion on the subject is indicated in the detailed description of each refused item in the list of materials returned by the [Department of Justice].' Ireland seems to be following the well-trodden path blazed by the Land Down Under, justifying censorship with 'won't somebody think of the children!' (and the copyright holders)."
Re:Goodbye Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goodbye Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Ireland, (Score:5, Insightful)
God doesn't need your help. He's a big God, and can take care of Himself. If someone insults Him online, don't you think He can deal with the offender as he pleases without your worthless help?
This is why, IMHO, one of the strongest tenets of true faith truly held is separation of church and state.
Let's be clear (Score:3, Insightful)
The ultimate goal of censorship -- like every other expansion of government power -- is simply money. The idea of "moral standards", "hate speech", or "national security" are merely smokescreens for what they're really after: billions of dollars in revenue.
At the top of the power pyramid, as long as the money passes through your hands, you win. It doesn't matter where it goes, as long as it passes through your hands, giving you a chance to exploit it for personal gain.
Make no mistake, the primary effect of censorship will be to rake more tax dollars through the hands of the power elite. Every year government costs more, borrows more, and spends more, and yet (surprise) the quality of government only worsens over time. There's a reason why all governments cost more over time, and it sure ain't because governmets are getting better. It's because the more government costs to run, the more lucrative government is for the people who make their fortunes in the business of government.
Re:Blasphemous! (Score:4, Insightful)
The Blasphemy law isn't a real law (Score:2, Insightful)
The blasphemy law wasn't passed because we're against blasphemy, it's because we're lazy.
Someone in the Dail(parliament) read the constitution, saw that blasphemy was a crime but there was no punishment associated with it, this meant our constitution wasn't valid, so we needed to come up with a law quick.
Why didnt they just scrap the law? Because that would involve a re-evaluation of the constitution, which would mean we'd have to take out/re-word all the bits that's involve God, who is practically a main character in the irish constitution. Ireland isnt a purely Catholic country anymore and that stuff is incredibly outdated and often times non-sensical, so it would have to go. This would take forever to do and we're far too lazy to do it, so in the end they just made a BS law.
It's impossible to get fined/arrested based on it, you could wheel around a statue of Moses made out of bacon while dressed as the one true, homoerotic Christ and nothing would happen, apart from a few funny looks.
In essence, the blasphemy law is a dirty hack to make the Irish constitution work.
Re:Asinine... (Score:3, Insightful)
A little thing called "truth" gets in the way of a lot of this.
For instance, if you examine the truthful historical record, Mohammed was a rapist, murderer, pedophile, and habitual liar. In other words, one hell of a politician. He also REDUCED, rather than enhanced, womens' rights in the region (they never fess up to the fact that his first wife was a "MILF" widow who owned and ran her own business, was more than a decade his senior, and basically married him because she was tired of not gettin' any and wanted a boytoy... when he was done it's lucky if a woman gets $10 and isn't beaten to a bloody pulp when she gets "divorced" by her Muslim Hubby).
LDS/Mormon "prophet" Joseph Smith? Yeah. Saw himself as a "prophet" similar to Jesus, but when the angry villagers were at his door, he whipped out a "pepperbox" gun and started blasting. How jesuslike.
L. Ron Hubbard? The term "delusional psychopath" seems to apply quite well. The lies told about him by his follower can easily fill at least one book [wikipedia.org] if not many, many more [amazon.com].
7th day Adventists? How many times have you freaks predicted the end of the world only to realize your "prophets" are a load of hooey, anyways? Great scam to get donations, though, get people to sell everything off and donate you the money figuring they won't need it after the Rapture anyways...
Re:Not a major problem! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a major problem! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Blasphemy law isn't a real law (Score:2, Insightful)
Why didn't they make the maximum penalty a severe telling off?
Re:Goodbye Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I thought cutting taxes saved Ireland! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Ireland is a banana republic (Score:1, Insightful)
Um.. the US has more liberal abortion laws then most of Europe.