On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Thomas Dalton <[email protected]> wrote: >> Any society considering a Great Firewall of any sort is neither >> democratic nor open, whether or not they periodically hold votes on >> exactly who should implement bad ideas. We should not in any way >> acknowledge or respect such, though we should help those who live >> there and encourage and assist them in circumvention. > > Countries have laws. The state enforces those laws. That's one of the > main purposes of having a state over anarchy. Censoring parts of the > internet is pretty much the only way to enforce child pornography laws > (when the sites are hosted abroad). I don't see anything undemocratic > about that. It's a democratically elected government making the laws > and those laws don't prevent free and fair elections, so it isn't > undemocratic. (Of course, an semi-official and unaccountable agency > like the IWF enforcing the laws is not a great way to go about it.) > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >
Yes, all states have laws. It is the content of those laws which determines whether or not the state is a free and open society. One may have a free and open society that is not an anarchy. Prior-restraint censorship, or blocking people from seeing, discussing, and thinking about (as opposed to performing) potentially harmful actions make that answer a "no". -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
