Never Trade Liberty For Security

CENSORSHIP is being considered as a possibility in the land of iceland, specifically, the elimination of pornography on the internet. Obviously, a tiny little island nation near the north pole cannot possibly hope to get porn off the net, only to keep it off of the computers in iceland.

Exactly how this can be done is questionable, but evidently there are ways. In China, north korea, and iran, among other places, certain websites are blocked. The quickest way to enforce internet censorship seems to be government leaning on all internet service providers in its country.

Somehow, you just sense that censoring the internet might turn out, in the long run, to be about as effective as preventing illegal drugs, guns, and money from crossing international borders; namely, not at all.

The icelandic government, currently comprised of just the right combination of dull consrvative thinkers to allow consideration of censorship, claims the purpose would be to protect children, and that  parents cannot be held solely responsible for keeping children away from porn, because parents cannot be wth their children twenty four seven.

What a laughable crok of nonsense. Agreed, parents cannot protect their children from bad drivers or gun violence every moment of every day, and society in general must do this. But....any parents who can't keep their children away from porn, merely by instilling values and communication....

If you citizens of iceland give your government the power to ban one part of the internet, what's to keep your government from banning other parts of the net, or other forms of culture, communication, entertainment, or speech?

The people of the world would be well advised to form a huge special interest group, consisting of about seven billion people, devoted to preventing the national governments of the world from censoring the internet.

We the people of planet earth like the internet just the way it is; unregulated. At least, if we really think about the issues and implications, that's what we want: no regulation of the internet. So what if half of it is pornography?

 How many second amendment consrvatives in the united states, defending their right to own guns, will defend their first amendment free speech rights? Freedom of speech means freedom of unpopular speech, recall.

An internet poll indicates that forty seven per cent of internet users favor censoring porn, and thirty nine per cent are thinking clearly,and are aginst censorship, with the other fourteen percent either not caring, or not understanding the question. This is alarming, very alarming.

It would seem to indicate that about half the population wants the government to have the power of censorship.  Surely second amendment conservative american NRA members are not among the forty seven percent.

there is never a good time to trade liberty for security.