To Philo.

Thank you for the complement.

To Big Red.

Very good point.

I would like to develop your point further. The first country to completely renounce any form of censorship was Sweden. This was done after years of campaigning by that countries left wing academics, which included that nations women's advocacy groups. But the resulting avalanche of very confronting and vulgar pornography, including child pornography, bestiality, and female degradation on public street billboards, was just too much for the Swedish public. Soon that nations women's groups were campaigning to repeal the very same law that they had passionately argued for implemenation.

Swedish women had learned an important lesson. Censorship does not equate to "ignorance" and "dictatorship". Used intelligently, and can be used to protect us from images which the vast majority find absolutely repulsive, and which we do not want our children to view.

The most idiotic argument put forward on this topic by the anti censorship people, is the one which says "who decides what should be censored?" Well, boys and girls, we the public does. That is why we are having this discussion. We, the public, decide upon what are our community standards. The furore over Big Brothel, is that most of us, supported by our Prime Minister, think that vulgarity on TV has gone too far.

If you were to invite a foul mouthed stripper to your 10 year old son's birthday party, who entertained your kids with nudity and "turkey slapping", you would rightly get arrested for child abuse. Yet TV executives can beam exactly the same material into the family home.

And THAT is the real issue here.

I don't have time (nor am I allowed the room to respond to everything) so I won't for now.

PK seems overly threatened by the fact that Bill has mustered some support for his opinion. He's such a stupid hypocrite that he sees no problem in complaining that people are FREELY expressing an opinion different to his (and one that he obviously hates!) while at the same time complaining that "his freedoms" are being impinged upon. I dare say that his freedoms have not been harmed at all, for a start and secondly that we have EVERY RIGHT! PK, wake up to yourself.

Yes, Bill did send an email to supports and one of those supporters is the CDP who forwarded it to me. Praise God!! How on earth is this a threat unless Christians (and others) aren't allowed to express their opinion? What are you really saying underneath your fake appeal to "freedom"? Get a life and let us have ours. You are allowed to express your opinion (as even though it's completely inane) and so are we allowed to express ours.

I'm not ashamed of a single thing I've done thus far, except that I'm not feeling particularly loving, so, okay, you've got me on that. Sorry. I'll try harder to put up with the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. But in the meantime, don't ignore your own flaws while shooting darts at others.

I don't like censorship, but like most of the posters on this thread [including the 'rent-a-mob' ones], I agree that it can sometimes be appropriate. The only real point of contention is where we draw the line and who makes the decisions.

In regard to 'reasonable person'. There are a number of regular posters who to me are far from reasonable on occasion and I don't believe they are necessarily capable of invariably making rational decisions on my behalf. For instance:

Those who quote the Bible and tell us all that this is God's law and must be obeyed. On the other hand, I don't approve of making fun of those who hold a religious/spiritual belief.

Those who claim that black people are intellectually inferior to white people.

Those who would deny same sex couples similar rights as heterosexual couples.

Back to censorship. We the people don't do the censoring. It's done for us by those who claim to know better, perhaps in response to unrepresentative pressure groups [like AFA], or in response to orchestrated campaigns. Or maybe simply because some well connected person has a bee in his/her bonnet.

Some entirely different examples. Until recently, RU486 was effectively denied [similar to being censored] to Australians, to please a loud minority.

A while ago, there was a campaign for a clothes-optional beach in an outer Perth area with many kilometres of relatively quiet beaches. The local council didn't want one, so put it to the electorate by referendum, confident that it would be rejected by the people. When the majority voted 'yes', this council said that the result wasn't binding on them. So they continued to 'censor' the human body on all their beaches.

And anyone old enough to remember when the hit song 'Answer me, Lord above' by Frankie Laine was banned on BBC radio [inappropriate reference to God], but 'Answer me, oh my love' by Nat King Cole was OK?

Oh, the illogical vagrancies of censorship!

redneck,

you substitute my statement regarding freedom of SPEECH, with your misrepresentation regading freedom of EXPRESSION.

That's intellectual dishonesty. l can see why you did it as you used that misrepresentation to justify an obvious distortion that leads into an extreme characterisation. You took and inch and made it into a kilometre.

This more or less stands as an example of what lm talking about... people distort, misrepresent and dump opinions, irrespective of what actually transpired. Speaks to the general malaise positted. Big Brother is not the cause its a symptom. Why do people blame the cough for the cold?

In response to your misrepresentation, veiled as the leading question "If you believe in the absolute right of Freedom (of Expression)?...", l offer for your edification, wot l actually said "There are no freedoms. Its an illusion."

l dont see the point of being asked to explain wot l have already clearly stated, other than the playing the head game of creditting me with your spawning your opinion. Mate, you dont need to hide behind that sort of obvious attribution with me. You can simply state YOUR position and OWN it. No need to hide behind intellectual slights of hand.

On the other hand, if you merely want to use myself as a personal muse rather than casting yourself in the socially unacceptable image of argueing with yourself, well, that's quite OK.

Anyway, happy tricky trickiness.

Keiran,

l like your style. Very salient and lucid. Wish there was a lot more of it about.

cheerz.

Not sure what you're saying Rex.

"I don't like censorship, but sometimes it can be appropriate. The only real point of contention is where we draw the line."

Then you say who should decide. Sorry mate, but we live in a representative democracy. Leaders that we vote in make political decisions for the political constituency they represent. Leaders chosen by their organisations make the decisions for their organisations.

If you're suggesting that our political process should be more representative of the people so that when (via referendum or whatever) the people's will is clearly known then the leaders are bound by the will of the people, then I agree with you. And perhaps we should start a thread to that effect!

If you're not saying that, then who are you saying should decide what should be censored. I think you'll find that most thinking people (of every opinion) think that the people should decide. However Christians have the further opinion that God has made their decisions for them and they have the responsibility to follow God's command. And just because we express that opinion does not mean we are seeking to impose. At least I hope that's not what any Christian tries to do. (I know some do, unfortunately.)