Steel,
What I meant to say was: "To deliberately plan to kill one person is an act of premeditating a murder - we must stop it occurring. Failure to do so is accessory of a crime. To recognise a plan to kill 100 persons indiscriminately is equally an act of premeditating a murder so it makes the person/s equally quilty and we must stop such acts. So if we have knowledge of such plans we have a social responsibility to see it curtailed by laws, otherwise one is an accessory.

When it is indiscriminate killing against the State the State must act to incarsarate enemies of the State and protect its citizens.

Ok, ludwig
“You are fundamentally wrong here. We have all sorts of well-accepted censorship; on pornography, foul language, defamation, offensive behaviour, etc, etc.
Just about every government institution and private business has a code of conduct, which outlines what behaviour is acceptable and what is not."

Those are workplace rules. While debatable, I won't go there. We are talking about individual liberty in a free and open society. As for pornography, that currently is certainly not democratic and is wrong. All pornographic censorship must be repealed. Censorship of media is flat out wrong. No adult can tell another adult what they can or can't watch. Sorry, if you disagree with that, you can't believe in democracy. As for "foul language", people use it all the time. Censoring it on broadcast media is wrong. Everyone and I mean everyone (children) is or will be exposed to foul language in all it's forms. This is where parental responsibility comes into play, not arbitrary laws saying some insulting, foul words are ok but others are magically wrong. Defamation and offensive behaviour are not censorship issues.

"In fact the whole fundamental purpose of law is effectively to censor (or restrict) us in all sorts of ways, for the greater good."

Ok this is what really makes me angry. "For the greater good" Are you serious? I have to sacrifice MY rights and 'pursuit of liberty and happiness' to make the average morons/racists/christian idiots feel a little better?!? NO THANKS! You really sound like a Socialist/Authoritarian/Fascist dictator here. I strongly believe you should reconsider your views. The greater good in a free society means maximum individual liberty, not a sacrifice of individual rights. Black markets exist for a good reason.

"We wouldn’t have a functional society without censorship. We’d have anarchy"
That is absolutely false, and an outrageous suggestion as I know you seriously entertain the notion. Outrageous also, as it comes from the mouth of a government employee!

"Liberty and freedom are not opposite to government “paternalism”."
They are when it comes to free speech issues. And yes, talking/writing about rape, murder and child molestation harms no one. You are advocating thought crimes. There may be good cause for writers, artists or performers to express themselves about these issues... it just boggles my mind that you think censorship like the regimes around the world is ok...

"Sedition laws are just and extension of this sort of philosophy.
Now you can argue about the detail. But to blankelty oppose the concept of censorship or of mitigating sedition, is just crackers."
How? Crime revolves around action. When you threaten someone's life explicitly, that is about as close as you come to an action without doing the action. When you assault someone 'verbally', you are doing an action that creates harm, depending on how successful it was.

"just an extension"
And the extension after that? And the next extension? It is completely arbitrary. I said before any of us could make a bomb in private and discuss it with associates and there isn't a thing the police could do about it. Sedition laws are ineffective and cost eminent writers, artists and performers their freedom of expression, because there is a threat of imprisonment, which I might add, is FINE WITH YOU according to your earlier comments...I shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought that you are a citizen of a democracy.

These are not laws to protect citizens. They are laws to control what people can and can't say. Just as whistleblowers have been effectively silenced, you will have harsh critics of the country also silenced, all under the threat of law. In a supposed Democracy this is simply stunning.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."-Benjamin Franklin

Steel

Nice of you to eventually respond… and in a non-offensive manner too. Thankyou so much for that!

“Those are workplace rules.”

What? They are rules of society, not one little bit less than sedition censorship.

“Defamation and offensive behaviour are not censorship issues.”

Yes they are. Of course they are!

Look, there is no point in responding quote by quote. All I need to say is that you are so fundamentally off-track that it just boggles my mind.

Every single law is a form of censorship inasmuch as it defines what can and cannot do and hence restricts us from doing certain things. You can’t randomly pull some out and brand them as censorship.

You are advocating a society where there are absolutely no restrictions on pornography, or on all sorts of other things! How much personal freedom do you think the vast majority of citizens would have under that sort of regime?

You seem to hold the most absurdly polarised position; it is either all or nothing. You don’t seem to realise that little bit of something can be good while a bit more of it can be bad, and that the biggest issue with all sorts of rules is finding the right point of balance.

Obviously a society with no censorship would be unworkable. And obviously a society with levels of censorship which greatly impinge on our freedom would be bad. Obviously a certain level of censorship on all sorts of things would give us the best balance between personal freedom, security, harmony, a properly functioning society, etc.

Sorry, but I find your views to be the most ridiculous that I have even encountered on this forum. There is nothing sane about them at all.

"Obviously a society with no censorship would be unworkable."
Huh? How does censoring specific pornography* make society workable? If anything, it drives a black market and makes normal, law-abiding adults into criminals, forcing them to break the law.

*as defined many decades ago by a specific historical and cultural context that is alien and absurd to new generations. Look at how gay sex has been freed from the past.

I said that offensive behaviour and defamation are not censorship issues, because in both cases you are directly causing harm to another person or their reputation in the process. You are attacking or assaulting them.

With any other form of censorship, it comes down to free speech and freedom of expression. Many interesting moments and valuable insights into history were recorded because documents were allowed to be written and views expressed, where sedition laws would have led to the destruction of the documents.

Did the society fall apart after pornographic censorship was lifted? No. Quite the opposite. Questioning the Church in the past was Blasphemy and scientists were killed and tortured for doing so. That would under todays stupid Sedition laws have been sedition against the Church and King, annointed by God (a phantasm).

Your position is a blip on a continuum, like all positions in the past. How can that not be obvious?

Steel you seem to be awfully hung up on pornography.

As I said before;

“Every single law is a form of censorship inasmuch as it defines what can and cannot do and hence restricts us from doing certain things. You can’t randomly pull some out and brand them as censorship.”

Think about a few other examples, such as road rules, building regulations, drug laws, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Tell me that no censorship / restriction / regulation of activities should be happening in these areas.

Here’s the great fault in your reasoning; your intense polarisation, as epitomised in this statement;

“And the extension after that? And the next extension?”

You seem to innately belief that a little bit of something is the start of an inevitable slippery slide to a lot of it!

Well it isn’t! Take a look around you at the real world. Look at just about every law / rule / form of censorship that has been established in this country for aeons. How many of them are getting progressively tighter? Very few indeed. Some are, as population pressure increases and the quality of our environment and resource base decreases, but the vast majority are not, including your beloved pornography.

With the new sedition laws, you need to look at them at face value and NOT project them into something that you think they might become at some unknown point in the future.

I had to have a close look at the detail before I could approve of them. I think that stronger restrictions in this area could well be inappropriate. But as they are now, they are fine.

On 21 June I asked you if you could look at Australia’s sedition law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_sedition_law#Seditious_Intention_2) and tell me just what it is that you disagree with here.

You didn’t respond. Come on, it is the detail in the existing law that is important. In fact, it is the ONLY thing that matters.

Whatever might pass for sedition in other cultures has got nothing to do with Australian sedition law.