Good news from the UN

Advocates for freedom of thought and expression have a reason to celebrate: the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has failed to gain UN support for its call to outlaw blasphemy and insults to religion. Muslim member states of the OIC have been pushing for a UN-backed ban on blasphemy for almost 14 years. They suffered a serious setback last year when the UN General Assembly omitted any mention of outlawing “defamation of religions” in a statement condemning religious intolerance.

But after all these years, the OIC has finally given up trying to ‘legitimately’ gag those who criticise or mock their faith. Of course, it’s those horrible American and European spoilsports who stymied the OIC’s plan to silence all criticism of religion (and by ‘religion’, we know the OIC means Islam), whether valid or odious, eloquent or crass. Its Turkish secretary general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, is apparently unimpressed by Western notions of free speech:

The long dispute highlighted differing views of free speech in Western and Muslim countries. Ihsanoglu said Western states had a “strange understanding” of free speech if it could be abused to hurt and insult others.

Well Mr Secretary General, us Westerners believe that no one has the right to not be insulted, let alone the right to expect the state to punish those who have given offense. This is a fundamental aspect of free speech. It is your understanding of free speech that is truly strange; one is free to express oneself except when one offends others for totally arbitrary reasons. How can such a conception even be considered free speech? Your country’s prime minister also seems to share your peculiar understanding.

Ihsanoglu may wring his hands over the potential abuse of free speech, yet blasphemy laws are just as susceptible to abuse, with arguably more sinister consequences:

But while editorialists and religious leaders have renewed calls for a worldwide blasphemy ban, few national leaders have actually ended their rhetorical reactions with that demand.

One who did at the United Nations last month was President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, whose own national blasphemy law has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad as open to widespread abuse against minority Christians.

Ihsanoglu, speaking at the conference on a panel with Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan, encouraged countries with blasphemy laws to apply them against insults to Islam, and then quickly added: “not particularly the one in Pakistan”.

I find it quite telling how Ihsanoglu isn’t very keen on the logical conclusion of enforcing blasphemy laws.

The creator of Jesus and Mo weighs in with this cartoon:

17.10.12

Erdoğan doesn’t get it

Unless you just woke up 5 minutes ago from a decade-long cryogenic sleep, you would know about the Muslim riots in response to an execrable film that insults the prophet Muhammad. Bad taste and dirty tricks aside, the film Innocence of Muslims is the latest work that has elicited a grossly disproportionate reaction from many Muslims. Of course, certain liberals can be counted on to, if not condone, then at least rationalise the murders and violence by blaming the ‘provocative’ critics of Islam for being insensitive, even reckless. Nevermind that the victims of Muslim fanaticism are often innocent people who had nothing to do with the offensive film, or book, or poem, or cartoon. Nevermind that no amount of offense ever justifies physical violence and brutality.

Free speech fail.

These politically correct scolds who refuse to unconditionally condemn Muslim savagery can only encourage those like Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who wants to outlaw “attacks on religion”. In an absurd black-is-white statement, Erdoğan equated the silencing of religious criticism with respecting freedom of thought and belief:

Freedom of thought and belief ends where the freedom of thought and belief of others start. You can say anything about your thoughts and beliefs, but you will have to stop when you are at the border of others’ freedoms.

If Erdoğan is alluding to that famous catchphrase of individual freedom, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins”, he only shows just how far he misses the point of that statement. Firstly, offending a person’s beliefs, religious or not, is not the same as physically assaulting them. Secondly, the arbitrary nature of what is deemed offensive makes it practically impossible to avoid offending someone somewhere. Many Islamic beliefs are highly offensive to secularists like me. So do Muslims violate my freedom by simply holding and expressing those beliefs? Thirdly, Erdoğan’s bizarre adaptation of the “swing my fist” statement would mean that no one is allowed to discuss, criticise, debate or even comment on beliefs and ideas that they themselves do not hold.

By Erdoğan’s reasoning, you can’t give your opinion on Marxism unless you’re a Marxist. You can’t point out the flaws of libertarianism unless you’re a staunch free market advocate. And you definitely can’t criticise the regressive, sexist, irrational, violent aspects of Islam unless you acknowledge that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet (even then there is no guarantee that you won’t be viciously set upon by your fellow Muslims for casting aspersions on the faith).

Erdoğan has also compared ‘Islamophobia’ to anti-semitism, saying that “Turkey recognizes anti-semitism as a crime, while not a single Western country recognizes Islamophobia as such.” False equivalence much? Muslims constantly try to deflect legitimate criticism of their beliefs and values by confusing an ideology with an ethnicity. It doesn’t matter that Muslims may consider their beliefs to be indistinguishable from their personhood, because they are wrong to do so. By their logic, anyone who holds particular beliefs, however odious or harmful, is exempt from criticism so long as they identify strongly enough with those beliefs. A Neo-Nazi can therefore justifiably claim to be a victim of persecution when he is criticised, since his sense of self is inextricably bound up with his ideology.

Turkey under Erdoğan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party has become more conservative in recent years, with an increasingly religious bent to its politics. For a country that aspires to be a secular, democratic model for other Muslim-majority countries, its prime minister gives the worrying impression that he seeks to undermine that aspiration, whether for ideological or political reasons.

19.9.12

Sex, porn and moralism

As someone who is sex-positive and polyamorous, my views on sexuality and relationships can be at odds with those of the largely monogamous, sex-negative mainstream. So it was encouraging to read Jennifer Wilson’s critique of anti-porn, anti-casual sex advocates and their self-righteous moralising. Wilson’s essay is set within the context of Australian pornography laws (which local anti-porn campaigners deem insufficiently censorial), but her cogent arguments are not restricted to any one country or culture. Take these for example:

In my opinion some campaigners are engaged in a moral battle to control who may desire whom, when and how. Their arguments are founded on conservative moral assumptions about what sex is or ought to be, how it can and can’t be performed, and by whom. To this end they define pornography as not about sex, but solely about violence against women.

Anti porn campaigners conflate sexual violence and exploitation with pornography to strengthen their argument against it, even though there’s a variety of porn available, from the inoffensive to the frightening. They allow no exceptions: their position is that all porn is bad because all porn is inherently violent and exploitative.

Spinoza would have criticised the Saudi government

Followers of atheist, humanist and secularist news will know of the Saudi and Malaysian travesty of justice involving Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari, who posted so-called blasphemous tweets that enraged notoriously thin-skinned Muslims. Kashgari’s harassment in Saudi Arabia, subsequent deportation from Malaysia after seeking asylum there, and current prosecution for apostasy add up to an all too familiar scenario where touchy religionists call for an obscenely disproportionate punishment for the ‘crime’ of mocking their superstitions.

The New York Times philosophy website, The Stone, has a timely piece by Steven Nadler on 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and his views on freedom of thought and expression (‘Spinoza’s Vision of Freedom, and Ours’). Nadler quotes Spinoza several times in a context I find relevant to Hamza Kashgari’s persecution by the Saudi state. Here’s one example:

It can be argued that the state’s tolerance of individual belief is not a difficult issue. As Spinoza points out, it is “impossible” for a person’s mind to be under another’s control, and this is a necessary reality that any government must accept. The more difficult case, the true test of a regime’s commitment to toleration, concerns the liberty of citizens to express those beliefs, either in speech or in writing. And here Spinoza goes further than anyone else of his time: “Utter failure,” he says, “will attend any attempt in a commonwealth to force men to speak only as prescribed by the sovereign despite their different and opposing opinions … The most tyrannical government will be one where the individual is denied the freedom to express and to communicate to others what he thinks, and a moderate government is one where this freedom is granted to every man.”

By Spinoza’s criteria, the Saudi theocracy is indeed a “most tyrannical government” – Saudi Arabia is the most socially conservative (ergo repressive) Muslim state, having laws and customs that even its fellow Muslim countries consider excessively restrictive. I’m only speculating here, but Kashgari may have fled to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country, because he knew it was a comparatively moderate state. But this fact didn’t save him from being deported by the Malaysian authorities, who are complicit in whatever horrible fate awaits Kashgari back in Saudi Arabia.

Spinoza would have argued for freedom of thought and expression in Saudi Arabia because, apart from the obvious consideration of basic human rights, he believed this freedom to be in the state’s own interest. Nadler explains:

Spinoza has a number of compelling arguments for the freedom of expression. One is based both on the natural right (or natural power) of citizens to speak as they desire, as well as on the apparent fact that (as in the case of belief per se) it would be self-defeating for a government to try to restrain that freedom. No matter what laws are enacted against speech and other means of expression, citizens will continue to say what they believe (because they can), only now they will do so in secret. The result of the suppression of freedom is, once again, resentment and a weakening of the bonds that unite subjects to their government. In Spinoza’s view, intolerant laws lead ultimately to anger, revenge and sedition. The attempt to enforce them is a “great danger to the state.”

The Saudi theocracy may delude itself that there is a homogeneity of thought among the Saudi people, that there are no dissenters or critics of Islam among the country’s millions of pious citizens. But Kashgari is certainly not the only Saudi to have a less than deferential attitude towards Islam and its founder. His punishment may cow other Saudi dissenters, but it could also have the opposite effect of arousing anger and resentment against the state.

Spinoza also had a practical reason for governments to support freedom of expression. As Nadler writes:

Spinoza also argues for freedom of expression on utilitarian grounds — that it is necessary for the discovery of truth, economic progress and the growth of creativity. Without an open marketplace of ideas, science, philosophy and other disciplines are stifled in their development, to the technological, fiscal and even aesthetic detriment of society. As Spinoza puts it, “this freedom [of expressing one’s ideas] is of the first importance in fostering the sciences and the arts, for it is only those whose judgment is free and unbiased who can attain success in these fields.”

While it isn’t the only factor, religious extremism in Muslim countries has contributed to their scientific and technological stagnation. The cultures that once kept alive and improved on the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Persians and Chinese have lagged behind in the sciences for the last few centuries, especially when compared to the discoveries and advancements made in the West and Asia. As Spinoza presciently observed, when the freedom to express, criticise, debate and improve ideas is curtailed, there are practical consequences that can negatively impact a society in various ways.




UPDATE: There is a Facebook group and a petition calling for Hamza Kashgari’s release. Do join and sign in solidarity with him and defenders of free speech everywhere.




13.2.12

Two talks on blasphemy and free speech

Last Saturday the Centre for Inquiry UK held a conference in London on “the criminalization of religious hatred, defamation, and insult under European human rights, and how this functions as a de facto blasphemy law”. The event, aptly named ‘Blasphemy!’, featured two intellectuals who I admire – writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik, and human rights activist Maryam Namazie. They each gave a speech at the conference, and have posted transcripts on their respective blogs. Their talks focused on different issues (though with some overlap) while showing their distinctive communication styles.

Malik talked about, among other things, the connection between the concept of blasphemy and the retention of power by individuals with a vested interest in taking offense when their beliefs and values are challenged or criticised. He laid out in detail the historical, political and social context in which current controversies surrounding blasphemous cartoons and literature are playing out, and argued his case in his usual measured yet sharply critical way.

Namazie spoke passionately on how charges of blasphemy/offense and ‘Islamophobia’ act as “secular fatwas”, their purpose being to silence dissent and curtail free speech. Her talk also touched on the cartoon controversy, with her fierce criticisms mainly directed at the misplaced political correctness of those who sought to censor the cartoons out of ‘respect’ for Muslims. Namazie is more truculent than Malik in her approach, but her arguments are no less valid for that.

I’m with them both on this. Malik’s deep contextual knowledge and Namazie’s righteous anger make a powerful combination. Those of us who treasure freedom of expression and detest religious tyranny are fortunate to have these two champions batting for our team.




30.1.12

Not cool, Turkey. Not. Cool.

Oh Turkey, what’s happened to you? From a staunchly secular republic (ok, perhaps too staunch at times) that also has a mostly Muslim citizenry, you’ve gradually degenerated into an Islamist state that seeks to impose religious ideology in place of secular values and science.

So I hear you want to ban any mention of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. That you want to protect children’s innocent minds from ideas supposedly comparable to images of naked humans slapping their genitals together. So now you’re playing the ‘think of the children’ card too?

I know you don’t much like those obnoxious, trigger happy Americans. So why do you insist on copying one of their least admirable traits? In the eyes of scientifically literate people everywhere, you Turks and Americans are like bosom buddies in God-infused ignorance. Your bromance is obvious from the flattering way Turkish creationists like Adnan Oktar adopt wholesale the Christian concept of Intelligent Design popular with American fundamentalists.

Children of Ataturk, you were supposed to be a secular exemplar of the Muslim world. You were supposed to persuade us faithless heathens that Islam was compatible with liberty, democracy, progress and science. You were supposed to be a political, social and economic example for other Muslim countries to emulate for the better. Now they’re going to emulate you for the worse.

Turkey, I am disappoint.




CORRECTION: I have just learned that the Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar aka Harun Yahya explicitly rejects Intelligent Design (Win!). This is because he thinks that ID proponents are either contemptible Westerners or treacherous Western sympathisers who haven't got the balls to declare that "Allah created the entire universe and everything in it, living and non-living" (Epic fail!).




3.1.12

Blackford on the UN’s new stance regarding ‘defamation of religion’

The UN, to paraphrase Churchill, can always be counted on to do the right thing – after it’s tried everything else. For the first time since 1998, the UN General Assembly didn’t qualify its latest call for religious tolerance with the expectation that states ban all forms of expression perceived to be critical or insulting towards religion.

No prizes for guessing which brand of sky-fairyism was largely behind the anti-religious defamation ban: of all the major religions, Islam is arguably the only one that has state-sanctioned anti-blasphemy tendencies that often manifest in violent, murderous ways. Until recently, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which comprises 57 Muslim-majority countries, was successful in pushing through annual UN resolutions on “combating defamation of religions”. But the OIC’s decade-long winning streak has finally been broken.

Russell Blackford’s new book Freedom of Religion and the Secular State explores the relevant issues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion in depth. Blackford wrote the following comments on his blog, which touch on the salient aspects of the UN’s position, past and present, regarding religious defamation:

It is one thing for the UN to condemn actions to provoke inter-religious hatred. No one wants to see the world’s societies riven with hatred, though it is worth remembering that much of the hatred comes from religious conservatives who refuse to tolerate sexual freedom (especially that of women), female emancipation, and any expressions of erotic love outside of heterosexual monogamy. Even in Western societies we see this in the emotive opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage. It’s another thing to become so focused on this issue that important kinds of speech are stigmatised and even prohibited. There is a public interest in scrutiny of religion, and it should be a fair target for criticism, denunciation, or satire.

At any rate, we should always err, if err we must, on the side of freedom of speech. Whatever lines are drawn in the area should allow bold speech that might offend – and this includes various forms of anti-religious criticism and satire. Such a liberal attitude to speech might permit some ugly speech, but the long-term effect would be to reinforce a valuable lesson: ideologically opposed groups of whatever kind – religious, political, or philosophical – must make their own way, enduring criticism, and even satire, from their opponents, without asking the state to interfere.

Any ideology, religious or otherwise, that requires force and coercion to propagate reveals itself to be insecure, flawed, and tyrannical. You have to threaten, torture, jail and execute people to make them accept the validity of absurd ideas. True and good ideas on the other hand are self-evident to all reasonable people.




22.12.11

Happy Blasphemy Day!

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

Today is International Blasphemy Rights Day. It’s an appropriate occasion to reflect on one basic human right many of us take for granted: freedom of expression. Many countries, particularly those with Muslim majorities or theocracies, have laws against insulting or criticising religion. Punishments for transgressing such laws include fines, jail, and the death penalty. Apart from these legal, state-sanctioned punishments, there’s also the informal consequences of social condemnation, ostracism and physical violence inflicted upon those who overtly disrespect religion.

Blasphemy laws have been used to silence and intimidate those who dare to challenge religion’s self-awarded exemption from criticism and mockery. Mortal, fallible men (and they are almost always men) pretend that they are defending the sacredness of their God by creating laws punishing those who slander him, but what they are really doing is imposing their own temporal authority on others. As the 19th century American humanist orator and outspoken critic of religion Robert Green Ingersoll observed:

An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment.

Let’s be clear about the purpose of Blasphemy Rights Day – it’s not an excuse to be a dick just for kicks. As the good folks at the Center for Inquiry explain:

The goal is not to promote hate or violence. While many perceive blasphemy as insulting and offensive, it isn't about getting enjoyment out of ridiculing and insulting others. The day was created as a reaction against those who would seek to take away the right to satirize and criticize a particular set of beliefs given a privileged status over other beliefs. Criticism and dissent towards opposing views is the only way in which any nation with any modicum of freedom can exist.

If we can make fun of people’s political, philosophical or cultural convictions, we should be free to do the same for their religious ones. Religionists who demand that their beliefs be treated as an exceptional case are like so many naked emperors demanding that their non-existent raiment be unquestioningly admired. But they’re starkers, and blasphemers are simply pointing that out.




30.9.11

Did these people even READ the letter?

The creationist Ken Ham caught wind of PZ Myers’s letter to one of Ham’s brainwashed victims, 9 year old Emma. Ham must have got all riled up over being called “a poor teacher” who gives “bad answers”, so he wrote a Facebook post accusing Myers (who Ham doesn’t name but coyly refers to as “a well known atheist”) and his fellow atheists of being “extremely intolerant people who in their anger, shake their fist at God.”

But Ham does not provide a link to Myers’s letter.

Is Ham afraid that if he actually allowed people to read the “extremely intolerant” letter “attacking” Christians, they would realise that he lied about the nature of that letter? And judging by the comments of his fellow supernaturalists, they’re sure quick to jump to conclusions about how mean and vicious atheists are without having even read Myers’s letter.

Some choice ejaculations from the God-botherers responding to Ham’s post:

I am so glad that the world is still filled with far, far more people like Emma and her mom than people like these atheists who will stoop to anything, including viciously attacking a little girl. You don't attack kids, atheists. You just don't.

Only someone who didn’t even read Myers’s post will think that a kindly, professorial letter is a vicious attack on a little girl.

My husband works in the museum industry. While at a conference he challenged the speaker about evolution presented as "fact" on the exhibits. I believe if the speaker had a gun he would have shot him... no kidding. These people are militant.

Yes, because ‘militant’ atheists are the ones going around shooting people who violate their ideology.

And atheists claim to be the authority on logic and have morality without Christ in their lives. Their behavior simply goes to show their ignorance and intolerance of anything biblical. Ken has every right to block these people from his blog and his FB page. All they do is complain and troll.

So atheists are ignorant and intolerant, but Christians like Ken Ham who teach kids to reject science and knowledge while censoring critics are obviously not.

Lately I’ve been trying to be more sympathetic to supernaturalists like Ken Ham and his fellow Jesus fans, avoiding excessively mocking language and caricature in my posts. But such ridiculous supernaturalist antics sorely test my resolution to be a kinder critic of kookery. In this instance, the stupid just burns.




26.6.11




UPDATE: I've noticed that comments on Ken Ham's post that were critical of him and his religion but were in no way rude have been removed. They were there when I started writing this and linked to Ham's FB post, but have since vanished. Christian courage and tolerance on full display.

More unsurprising theocratic illiberalism in Iran

We’re a bit slow here in Melbourne to get some of the latest magazines, so I’ve only just got the October/November 2010 issue of Philosophy Now. In the ‘News’ section the editors have published a letter sent to them by an anonymous reader in Iran. While the actions described in the letter are distressing, they are sadly expected of a theocratic regime that seems bent on cutting off Iran from the modern world.

The letter:

After last year’s disputed election in Iran, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] blamed philosophy as the root of the problem. Sadeq Larijani, the head of the judicial system of Iran, followed in his footsteps to blame Western philosophy for corrupting the morals of the Muslim youth. Saeed Hajjarian, Iranian intellectual, journalist, university lecturer and reformist who was in jail for 3 months was brought on National TV to condemn, against his beliefs, philosophy, especially humanism, as corrupt. This show was particularly hard to watch since due to a failed assassination attempt 10 years ago Mr Hajjarian is unable to speak with a clear voice, is still using a wheelchair and is dependent on the constant care of doctors and family.

This was enough for over 40,000 students and professors in philosophy departments of Iranian universities to worry for their future. Now many professors and students are in jail and the Office of Higher Education has announced that the universities will stop accepting students in humanities [subjects] including philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, social science, law and arts.

Kamran Daneshjoo, the Minister of Science, said that any university that goes against Islamic values should be demolished and his Secretary said that we do not need humanities to be taught in universities anymore. It is also worth noting that the publication of many books, especially philosophy books, which grew noticeably during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, is now banned.

That’s right, it’s because of Satanic Western philosophy that Iran’s theocrats have to protect their good and pure vassals from being tainted by evil ideas like individual liberty, feminism, freedom of thought and speech, separation of religion and state, and universal human rights.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, there’s been news of the arrest and imprisonment of two liberal opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, in late February. Mousavi, one of the leaders of Iran’s Green Movement, has apparently returned home but is now under house arrest. Anti-liberal ministers have called Mousavi and Karroubi traitors and demanded their execution.

The recent Arab revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt may have reignited protests against the Iranian regime, which first began in 2009. But the Green Movement faces greater obstacles than its Arab counterparts, one being the more brutal methods employed by the Ahmadinejad government to crush any opposition, and another being a perpetual media lockdown that hampers activist organising and foreign press reporting.

Given Iran’s oppressive theocracy, it’s no surprise that its despots would view Western philosophical ideas as a threat to their power. After all, it’s an Endarkening that serves their interests, not an Enlightenment.




10.3.11

Pretty sure this wasn’t what Andrew Keen had in mind

Andrew Keen doesn’t like amateurs. You can tell from the subtitle of his anti-dilettante jeremiad The Cult of the Amateur (2008): ‘How blogs, MySpace, YouTube and the rest of today’s user-generated media are killing our culture and economy’. Doesn’t mince words, does Mr Keen. Referencing T. H. Huxley’s theory that infinite monkeys bashing away on infinite typewriters will eventually produce a literary masterpiece, Keen has this to say about blogs:

At the heart of this infinite monkey experiment in self-publishing is the Internet diary, the ubiquitous blog. Blogging has become such a mania that a new blog is being created every second of every minute of every hour of every day. We are blogging with monkeylike shamelessness about our private lives, our sex lives, our dream lives, our lack of lives, our Second Lives. At the time of writing there are fifty-three million blogs on the Internet, and this number is doubling every six months. In the time it took you to read this paragraph, ten new blogs were launched.

If we keep up this pace, there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite that they’ve undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary. These days, kids can’t tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com. For these Generation Y utopians, every posting is just another person’s version of the truth; every fiction is just another person’s version of the facts.

The sad state of England's legal system (or What the f**k is wrong with English laws?)

For a land that gave the free world the likes of John Stuart Mill and his seminal work ‘On Liberty’, England has become a decidedly unfree place, particularly for writers and communicators. Two cases highlight the sad state of English law, which currently advocates narrow literalism, rigid process and stagnant tradition over intelligent interpretation, context and even justice.

Good riddance to religious rubbish

Sometimes the system works. Australians who don’t care much for religious beliefs playing a role in policy-making have refused to reelect senator Steve Fielding of the Family First Party to the Senate. After serving only one term, Fielding failed to garner enough voter preferences in the recent federal election and thus lost his seat to the Democratic Labor Party’s John Madigan. Since senators serve fixed six-year terms, Fielding will remain in the Senate until June 30 next year.

Good news on proposed internet filter

My distaste for the Liberal brand is largely due to the unsavoury conservatism of its budgie-smuggler-in-chief Tony Abbott. But the Libs have scored a point on my goodwill card with their objection to the Labor government's proposed internet filter. 'Enemy of my enemy' and all that.

The online freedom advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) welcomes the Coalition's stance on the internet filter issue. While it's unsurprising that the leftist Greens have opposed the filter since the idea was first floated, civil libertarians like EFA must be delighted with the perhaps unexpected support of the centre-right Liberals.

With both the Coalition and the Greens opposing the internet filter, there's a good chance now that even if Labor wins the upcoming election, its controversial proposal will not get past the Senate. Netizens would rightfully call that an epic win.




5.8.10

“Small boobs encourage pedophilia,” says Australian government

The Australian Classification Board (ACB) is banning depictions of modestly endowed women in adult publications and films, reports the Australian Sex Party (as in ‘political entity’, not ‘antipodean orgy’). Apparently the ACB’s reasoning goes like this: since our A cup sisters may resemble prepubescent girls, therefore naked images of them may be considered pedophilic. But of course! So if a woman sleeps with a youthful-looking adult male who’s got a three-inch penis, she may be considered a boy-molesting pervert.

The Great Moral Panic isn’t just over the pedophiliac menace. Female ejaculation too scares the shit out of our prudish bureaucrats. The ACB refuses to classify films showing women having squirting orgasms because they are ‘abhorrent’. It's bad enough that women today are bombarded with Photoshopped images of impossible physical perfection that batter their self-esteem, yet those with small chests and copious climactic emissions are now being told that they’re juvenile freaks. By their own government!

In the interest of fairness, here is the ACB’s response to the claims made by the Australian Sex Party (oh, stop sniggering). Note the ACB’s dancing around the specifics of what actually constitutes underage appearance or whether female ejaculation should be classified under ‘golden showers’, which is a banned category. Such casuistry on the part of the nation’s moral police is not surprising, given their feet-dragging on the issue of establishing an R18+ classification for computer games.

Looks like Victorian moralism and repression are back in fashion. Better behave now, children. Big Nanny's watching you.




28.1.10

Cartoon kid porn: evil pedophilia or victimless crime?

Earlier this month, the Arkansas Supreme Court sentenced thirty-five year old John McEwen to two years jail for the crime of possessing images depicting cartoon children engaged in sexual acts. McEwen’s sentencing sparked an internet protest movement, with supporters calling the sentence ‘draconian’ and demanding that it be repealed. Peter van Bruen, a civil rights lawyer and one of the founders of the movement, is here today to explain why he and many others oppose the Supreme Court’s verdict.

Good morning, Mr van Bruen.

Good morning.