Tuesday 24 September 2013

...and these people might be in government?

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Save us.

Helen Goodman, Labour's shadow minister for media reform, reached further back into history to illustrate her point, comparing the internet to a lawless 13th Century forest.

"It would be quite wrong if we were to preserve a special place within the law, where the net could be outside the law. The net today should not be like the forest in the 13th Century.

"Robin Hood and the outlaws - they were called that because they were outside the law - that was not a sustainable position in the 13th Century and it's not a sustainable position now."

Leave aside the ignorant definition of "outlaw", where exactly is the "net" outside the law? Nowhere - all the laws on libel, hate speech and so forth apply.

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2 comments:

Radical Rodent said...

There is, perhaps, a good argument for a complete purge of all national politicians. So few of the present incumbents have been in anything remotely resembling a job in the real world, so have become totally disconnected with it. It only goes to show that they rely so much upon the utter stupidity of the electorate, who cannot relate the x the put in the box with the bollo espoused and enacted by the elected – very few of the electorate do anything other than vote for the party they have always voted for (“Me dad voted […], me granddad voted […] so I will vote […]”).

Radical Rodent said...

I am sure that you will have noticed this, but it is becoming apparent that the general populace is getting seriously disenchanted with government – and not just the elected members, either. There does seem to be a mounting groundswell of rebellion; at the moment, it is being confined to support for UKIP; should that avenue not provide a release for the growing pressure, then we could be looking to other activities that might make the riots earlier in this century, and those in the last, seem like picnics. The majority of tax-payers are honest citizens, and most are getting a bit upset that their hard-earned money is being siphoned off to keep people like “Paul from Clerkenwell” living the indolent life they have become used to; to foster an ever-growing armies of intrusive nannying, overpaid leeches, “astroturf” “charidies”; and to send “aid” to already-rich countries. As other nations have found in the past, getting the British a bit upset is not always a good thing. Pianos may not be selling well, but piano-wire may well be.