Enough is Enough
I don’t make a habit of defending crimes of either child pornography or copyright infringement, but in this particular instance, I’m speaking up…
An Australian man has been convicted of possessing child pornography and of accessing child pornography on his computer and fined AUS$3,000. “Why the small penalty?”, you might be asking. “Why is this man not going to prison?”
The child pornography in question featured not real children, nor illustrations of real children, but rather drawings of Simpsons characters Maggie, Bart, and Lisa engaging in sexual acts. Kind of icky? Sure. Illegal? Apparently.
I’ve got a real bone to pick with Australia…first their mindless and costly Internet filtering scheme and now this? Is this what Aussie lawmakers are wasting their time on? Meanwhile, Australia’s prevalence of actual sexual abuse is nearly 27.5% in females (5.1% in males).
Way to go, wasting your government’s time and Australian tax dollars prosecuting a man with a fetish for cartoon characters.
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12.12.2008Antoun Issa
Haha slow down! It’s not all bad Down Under.
There are few dull people in positions of power, I agree, but Australia’s taken some incredibly important steps on other fronts:
- We apologised to our natives for the Stolen Generation and past atrocities. It was still a step below referring to the British colonisation and subsequent Australian federation as an act of genocide, which it was, but it’s a positive step nonetheless.
- We signed Kyoto, although our Government is still tiptoeing between the business interest to pollute and public interest to be green.
- We’re leading the call for Nuclear Non-proliferation in the world, considering the US has made a massive u-turn under Bush from nuclear non-proliferation to star wars.
There’s never such a thing as a perfect government. Democracy has serious flaws because it represents everyone in society, including the brainless.
On the good note, it appears the government have backed off from their ridiculous internet scheme.
12.12.2008Jillian
Fair points, Antoun, thanks!
I haven’t seen anything which suggests the government has backed off, however. The only news I’ve seen suggests that the ISPs are refusing to participate in the live trials. Good for them.
I also think that the Australian courts’ poor decision to charge this man with child pornography is yet another reason the government should not be trusted to decide what we can and cannot see. If they determine that to be “illegal content,” who knows what’s next!
12.12.2008Antoun Issa
Yes, child pornography decision is a worrying sign that political correctness has gone too far.
As for the internet filter, the government hasn’t officially backed down, but I can’t see them forcing through such an impractical scheme that’s received such a hostile response from politicians, ISPs, civil liberty groups, the media etc.
13.12.2008Jillian
If you can’t see that, then Australia is a better country than the US, eh?
13.12.2008Antoun Issa
Hardly.
Our previous g’ment sent us to war in Iraq and passed through industrial relations laws designed to break the unions, despite mass domestic opposition on both topics.
“The will of the people” is a phrase that’s just as evasive in our democracy as in yours.
But for some reason, I have the feeling the momentum is with the public on the debate of internet filtering. Fingers crossed anyway.
13.12.2008Patience
You know the proverb, “Whoever steals an egg could steal a cow”!
15.12.2008Anas
@Patience
Proverbs are BS, you could find tons of contradicting proverbs in any language or culture.. and that was too much as Jillian put it “Enough is Enough.” what u said feels like that movie with the psychics predicting crimes and locking up people before they even do it.. that’s doing it wrong!
@Jill
unfortunately ridiculous laws and law makers are all over the place.. maybe there’s a wiki page on that somewhere ;)