I’m letting you have the last word. Others may draw their own conclusions.
Really, so then Australia doesn’t have federal laws that make it “unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult,** humiliate** or intimidate another person or a group of people; and the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person, or of some or all of the people in the group”?
Similarly, the Australian government has never shut down websites which claim the Holocaust is a hoax?
Also, you’re saying that it would be ridiculous to claim that Australia has among the most restrictive policies on the internet of any western country and that the government doesn’t have “communications power” that allows it to regulate “postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services,”?
Finally, you’re saying that anyone who claims that various state and territorial governments in Australia have passed laws prohibiting the distribution of “offensive” material would be full of shit?
Also, and this is an honest question, not a gotcha, but what are Australia’s libel laws like.
Most people in America would certainly consider the UK’s libel laws absurdly restrictive and attempts to impose similar ones in the US would certainly be struck down.
Are Australia’s libel laws more similar to the US or to the UK?
Thanks
Anyway, back to the OP.
It seems to me that declaring what lobbies have names that are “misleading” and what ones aren’t is way too much in the eye of the beholder.
For example, let’s list a few prominent lobbying groups in the US.
Concerned Women of America,
People for the American Way,
The Children’s Defense Fund,
Young Americans for Freedom,
People who’d never heard of these groups but forced to guess their political allegiances or beliefs would probably make dramatically wrong guesses. For example I remember when one of my Communications professors asked her students to guess the allegiances and motivations of Concerned Women of America, the largest political women’s group in America, they all thought it was a feminist group, when in reality it was an organization that considers Phylis Schlaffly a hero.
Lobbies always go for have nice, fuzzy sounding names that are going to appeal to almost everyone without giving away what they’re for.
I’m with the NSW Government on this one, especially because of the “medical information” nature of the issue.
And generally, I don’t think advocacy groups should be allowed to have misleading names either. If a (hypothetical) organisation is called the National Puppy Coalition (couldn’t find one on Google, but if it turns out one exists, then any resemblances/similarities in name or otherwise are purely coincidental, this is a fictional situation, etcetera etcetra) then I think a reasonable person would most definitely feel misled if it turns out said organisation’s stated goal is the kicking and swift deportation of all puppies in the country.
If nothing else, a misleading name appears to me to be “tricking” people into seeing views they would choose not to be exposed to if they were aware of them upfront - thus, people who would never consider kicking or deporting puppies might visit the National Puppy Coalition website (beliveing it to be about hugging puppies and finding rewarding ways to interact with them), only to find possibly distressing anti-puppy nuttery. Not cool, basically.
I think the democratic party needs to change its name.
So does the tea party. I went to several of their get togethers and never got any tea or those little cakes.
True, but on the other hand, if a law like this were passed, the people enforcing it would most likely not be reasonable. And such a law would be pretty dangerous in the hands of unreasonable people.
They can’t say anything on the internet that isn’t true!
Bon Jour!
Right, we are so easily influenced in the wrong direction that we need laws to ensure that we are only exposed to the truth.
…does the United States have “Free Speech Zones?” Is it true that the US has a current Press Freedom Ranking of 32, with the United Kingdom, Australia, Ghana, Namibia and Jamaica all ranked higher? Also, you’re saying that it would be ridiculous to claim that the United States is one of the worst performing countries in respect to freedom of the press of any western country and that it has detained more reporters without charge than any other western country since 9/11?
Is it true that Mike Diana was charged and convicted for obscenity because he drew and published a comic book? Does the United States have an act called the “Smith Act” which makes it illegal to advocate the overthrow of the US government?
If you want to pull out select examples and make the claim that Australia doesn’t have “free and open speech” I can do the same with the US all day. And lets not even start with Corporate Censorship: something that the US excels at. I stand by my statement.
When the most you can engage in is a “you too” defense you’ve lost.
Australia has no guarantee of free speech in its constitution, has the harshest restrictions on the internet of any western country and readily punishes people for having the wrong ideology, even when the ideology is non-violent.
Obviously, the US isn’t perfect nor is Australia say Iran(another country which claims to have free speech) but you made claims that have been disproven.
Or, are you going to try and claim that punishing people for hate speech is not a violation of free speech?
With just a couple very minor edits, I’d take this post for a witty derision of the government position.
Instead-- seriously? It’s government’s job to protect citizens from “not cool” people with “possibly distressing” ideas?
It seems rather unfair to excoriate Australia for not having “free and open speech” if you can’t point to any other country that has it, though.
What of course do people consider to be “misleading” names.
People for the American Way?
The Children’s Defense Fund?
Concerned Women of America?
The Family Values Coalition?
Committee to Protect Marriage?
How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which always had large numbers of members who were non-veterans and by the end was dominated by non-veterans?
I wasn’t excoriating Australia.
He rather foolishly claimed that Australia believed in free speech, something that it hasn’t claimed and it felt no need to enshrine in its Constitution.
I demonstrated that it didn’t by pointing to laws that would have been struck down in two seconds in the US.
I have no problem with misleading names, just the anonymous donations made to them to further their advocacy. If something like The National Endowment for the Security of Our Youth is a anti-gay marriage group that’s ok, I just want to know who’s financing them.
Okay, but then you kind of have to give him the Smith Act and free speech zone stuff.
…I haven’t lost anything. Despite your alleged “constitutional” protections there are just as many, if not more instances of the US suppressing free speech. It is the worst of the Western nations in regard to freedom of the press and its culture of commercial censorship is almost Orwellian in nature.
Is the US perfect? Nope. Does it have free and open speech? Well if you can claim that it does despite its having such an oppressive anti-press regime then so can Australia even if it has hate speech laws.
Or are you going to try and claim that punishing people for writing comic books and forcing them into free speech zones are not a violation of free speech?
Free speech doesn’t need to be enshrined into a constitution: this again is a rather United States centric view of the world. The United States is probably the only country where the people hold a series of documents with such reverence: it simply isn’t done around the rest of the world. Most New Zealanders wouldn’t even know they had a constitution in place, but they would know about the Treaty of Waitangi. Our press is freer than yours: our businesses are freer than yours. Over here a woman can participate in a monetary exchange legally with a man for sex and not have to worry about ending up in jail and a criminal record.
I never claimed that Australia believed in free speech. Australia is a continent, a collection of land masses in the middle of the ocean, and land masses don’t have brains and can neither believe or choose to disbelieve in free speech. I never claimed that freedom of speech was enshrined in the constitution in Australia. I chose my words carefully. I said that Australia has free and open speech: and it does. Nothing you have posted has demonstrated otherwise. If you want to twist my words to make it fit into a narrow “US centric” vision of free and open speech I will continue to demonstrate just how much the United States hates free speech.
Freedom is not a “United States only value” no matter how much you want it to be.
Just a little innocent curiosity, of course.
Land masses can’t talk! durp durp durp :rolleyes:
Come on, BB, you know perfectly well what he meant by “Australia.”
In any case, all this US-vs-Australia nitpicking is rather a distraction. The cultures are similar enough that we can make the same kinds of arguments about how things should be.
The Smith Act is over seventy years old, has been repeatedly amended, I don’t think has been enforced in years and most of the people convicted under it had their convictions reversed in the 1950s.
Moreover, in it’s final incarnation, it prohibits calling for the violent overthrow of the government, or to put it another way, encouraging people to engage in violent crimes.
That’s vastly different than Australia’s hate speech laws which would entail prosecuting people for claiming that Jews control the US foreign policy.
Do you think that people who claim Jews control US foreign policy should be prosecuted.
By contrast, the laws I referenced against pornography, hate speech, and the disementation of “offensive” material are quite recent and strictly enforced.