Posted in libertarianism, tagged religion, freedom of speech, religious fundamentalism, intolerance, laws, moral legislation, fundamentalism, fear, blogs, iran, death penalty on July 6, 2008 | No Comments »
Iran’s parliament is discussing a bill which would make “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution or apostasy” a crime punishable by death. The bill also stipulates that once awarded, the sentence “cannot be commuted, suspended or changed”.
More here.
As a morally corrupt (certainly by Iranian standards!), prostitution-advocating libertarian and atheist who delves into all these matters in his posts , I wonder [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged absurd, anti-discrimination, civil liberties, europe, freedom of association, laws, offended feelings, rights, sweden on July 1, 2008 | No Comments »
I have seen a lot of absurd things but this one is king. The last sentence of the excerpt below is possibly the greatest example of WTF-ness ever.
An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.
The boy’s school says he has violated the [...]
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The judge had only one option when he sentenced Cedric Bradshaw: life in prison.
Bradshaw had not committed murder, rape or armed robbery. His offense was failing to properly register as a convicted sex offender for a second time —- even though he had repeatedly tried to follow the law.
Indeed, Georgia’s draconian (and unique) law mandates [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, politics, tagged freedom, ron paul, internet, government, nanny-state, laws, paternalism, protest, regulation, internet gambling, gambling, poker, barney frank, bill on June 23, 2008 | No Comments »
If you, like me, think it is outrageous that the US government tells you that you may not indulge in internet gambling, you can call, fax or email House Financial Services Committee and let your views be known. For more details, click here.
If you decide to act, please do so by Tuesday. That’s when the house [...]
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Posted in India, libertarianism, politics, tagged freedom of speech, censorship, offended feelings, defamation, laws, sonia gandhi, information technology act on June 23, 2008 | 3 Comments »
This is a disturbing and stark reminder of how much India lags behind the US in free speech.
The cyber cell of the Pune police on Saturday arrested one more suspect for allegedly uploading obscene and derogatory text about Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a social networking site.
The suspect has been identified as Nithin Chakravarti Suresh Sajja (22) [...]
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Posted in uncategorized musings, tagged law, freedom, liberty, government, laws, power, protest, libertarian, thought, disobedience, rebel, outrage, anger, civil disobedience on June 21, 2008 | No Comments »
If you are a rebel and the law comes in the way of your natural course of action, you would probably feel justified in violating it. But what if those in power decide they are going to stop you from doing something that you hadn’t planned on doing anyway? What do you do if there is [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged freedom of speech, freedom, censorship, offended feelings, laws, ezra levant, hate speech, canada, human rights commission, mark steyn, slippery slope, alberta, tribunal, ruling, macleans on June 11, 2008 | No Comments »
One of the many good arguments libertarians and other advocates of complete free speech offer in support of their position is the slippery-slope argument. Basically, once you restrict certain types of speech, the bar is lowered and the censorship gets more and more oppressive with the passage of time. The result is a slow but [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged aclu, anti-discrimination, civil liberties, first amendment, freedom, freedom of association, freedom of spech, laws, negative rights, positive rights on June 8, 2008 | No Comments »
The American Civil Liberties Asoociation has, over the years, done a lot of commendable work in defence of freedom. Particularly praiseworthy is its consistent defence of the First Amendment. It has frequently extended legal help to protect those whose free speech rights have been threatened. It has fought for the separation of the church and [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged annulment, consent, france, freedom of contract, government, individual freedom, islam, laws, liberty, marriage, nanny-state, privacy, virginity on June 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
France is perhaps the worst place in Western Europe for individual liberty — recall the recent conviction of Brigette Bardot for hate-speech — however, their courts do get things right once in a while. In a marriage annulment case, much in the news lately, the French judge did rule in favour of privacy and freedom. Here’s an excerpt from [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged canada, cartoons, danish, discrimination, ezra levant, fee speech, freedom of speech, hate speech, islam, laws, liberty, offended feelings, rights on June 1, 2008 | No Comments »
OMG, this is so awesome!
But a little bit of background first. Ezra Levant is the publisher of Western Standard, a right-wing Canadian magazine. I quote from Glenn Greenwald’s post on Salon, where I first came across the video that appears next.
In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group’s imam to file a complaint against Levant [...]
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Posted in India, libertarianism, sci, tech and gizmos, tagged India, laws, privacy, blackberry, security, encryption, wiretapping, rim on May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
The Indian government wants to be able to read all emails and messages sent by citizens. (Privacy, you say? Don’t be silly. We live in an age of terrorism. Hehe, those naive libertarian notions.)
However it discovers it is unable to decrypt the ones sent by Blackberry devices.
Pissed, it asks the parent company, RIM, to help it snoop. Hard luck, says RIM, [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged sex, laws, crime, legal, prostitution, countries, offence, brothel, sex workers, sex work on May 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
What does Ethiopia, Senegal and Turkey have that the US doesn’t?
The right to engage in consensual sex for money.
For a list of the legal status of prostitution in different countries, check this nice fact sheet. The oldest profession in the world is legal in most of South America, and virtually all of Europe. Keeping the US company, [...]
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Posted in politics, tagged economics, farm bill, fiscal, laws, mccain, obama, pandering, spending, subsidy, welch on May 22, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The current farm bill is a monstrosity. It is a grotesque example of ill-directed subsidy and government profligacy at a time when the US is deep in debt and prices are going up. Only one of the three presidential candidates has come out in opposition to the bill and that person is John McCain. Even [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, people, tagged freedom of speech, liberty, freedom of expression, violence, karen fletcher, obscenity, first amendment, laws, writing, artistic freedom, court, gulity, agoraphobia, stories, fiction, child pornography, sexual, trial on May 21, 2008 | No Comments »
Remember Karen Fletcher? The woman in the centre of the high-profile obscenity case I wrote about earlier? The reclusive lady who wrote violent sexual stories involving children in an attempt to cope with her own history of child abuse and was subsequently hounded by federal prosecuters? Well, the matter’s come to an end.
She battled the federal government’s allegations [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged media, freedom of expression, antitrust, obama, laws, free speech, regulation, freedom of association, anti trust, business on May 20, 2008 | No Comments »
I still prefer Obama over McCain, but some of his views are depressing.
For those interested, my position on anti-trust laws is here. This issue, however, is more worrying than the old-fashioned Microsoft harassment that was the motivator for my old post. The media, for all its faults, is a vital expression of free expression and any attempt [...]
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