Categories: politics
Date: 21 October 2008 21:31:50
Today there was a protest at Parliament. It shows the times we now live in.
I'm a great believer in the freedom of choice. Wherever possible people should be allowed to be free to choose for themselves what they do. However there are times when society needs to be protected from certain things.
So I viewed a report on the BBC site with a little trepidation.
The people were parading wearing chains, stockings and gags in a protest against "extreme" pornography. Before some of you get over excited this does not mean having sex in dangerous places :-( The government are planning to outlaw images that show a threat to life or serious injury to aperson's genitals.
Now I don't want to see threats to life as a turn on. The thought of anyone allowing serious injury to their genitals means that those people should be locked away for their own protection. Ministers say that the law is needed to cope with more use of the internet.
What people do in the privacy of their own dungeon is their own concern. However we still have to protect society from extremist views of religion or anything else. Our society has basic freedoms built in that should be recognised by everyone. Yet this freedom comes with a responsibility to our wider community.
With pornography and the internet we have a problem that the medium has a belief in the freedom of expression to the nth degree. Many believe that censorship is to be resisted at all costs but you have to have a form of censorship to protect the vulnerable in society. There has to be a measure of right and wrong that sets limits for the greater good.
If you read about the US you will see that freedom of speech is a weapon used to promote almost any outrageous position you can think of. That is unless you say something against America and then you could lose your freedom to live.... That is why the internet is seen as a threat. People believe that you have the freedom to spread whatever you like without the threat of prosecution or the state's interference.
This is the problem with society today; people refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions. They believe that whatever they want to do is acceptable and that no one has the right to object.