Stop the Government's
Censorship
The Home Office has begun a process to make it illegal to possess extreme adult images.
These plans could lead to people being imprisoned for downloading images from the internet.
This is a step too far from a government determined to regulate every aspect of our lives and quash individual expression.
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Backlash is the campaigning organisation bringing together individuals and activist groups to oppose this legislation.
Roissy's Laurence Pay sent backlash this briefing. One of the best known people in the UK BDSM scene, he is an ex-Home Office employee with a great deal of experience of how it works.
The consultation document has a number of false premises - the principal one of which is that a reduction in supply will bring about a reduction in demand. This is so patently absurd that I am amazed the authors included it. A reduction in supply merely drives the price up and makes supply an attractive venture for organised crime.
The consultation document is bereft of strong factual argument.
The consultation document relies upon emotive language and unauthenticated opinion.
The consultation document offers no legitimate research findings to back up the authors 'beliefs'.
The consultation document attempts to compare 'apples and oranges' in some areas.
The consultation document employs a number of NLP devices throughout its text. (NLP = Neuro-Linguistic Programming).
The 'questions' posed in the consultation document are in the main 'loaded' and are designed to 'lead' the respondent. The choices are limited and the most blatent 'loaded' question has to be the one following paragraph 31.
The consultation document makes much play about 'protection of children' in relation to the internet yet it makes no mention of parental responsibility. An alternative proposal would be to make it an offence to permit a child to have access to the internet without a responsible adult in attendance (just like kids at swimming pools). It is high time that 'the state' stopped trying to sanitize the world and placed the responsibility for children where it belongs - with the people who had them. Using an unsupervised internet terminal as an electronic child minder is at best a feckless act and possibly tantamount to neglect in some cases.
The consultation document proposes restrictive legislation based upon 'mights and maybes' - as things stand there is currently no known method of accurately predicting the future; therefore it follows that in order to apply the legislation the agents of enforcement must rely upon either prejudice or clairvoyance - neither of which are acceptable decision-making tools in English Law.
Regardless of label, be it Politician, Lawyer, Psychologist, Doctor, Judge, Magistrate, Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker whatever, they are all ordinary human beings and as part of a species indistinguishable one from the other. They are to all intents and purposes 'the man on the Clapham Omnibus'. They possess no special psychological 'immunity'. If they sit in judgement of material to determine if it would deprave or corrupt 'ordinary persons' then they must view and be exposed to that material. As they are 'ordinary persons' themselves this surely must raise a paradox. If they are not depraved and corrupted by it then they must return a verdict of 'no harm' and permit the material into the public domain. If on the other hand they are depraved and corrupted by it they are therefore unfit to sit in judgement and must step down - which means that the case should be retried - and of course the evidence must be viewed - ad infinitum ! (I find that occasionally reducto ad absurdum helps focus the mind (grin).
The most dangerous concept in the consultation document occurs in the section 'Current Legislation' para 18 where it refers to the 'common law test'. As it stands in England the 'Deprave and Corrupt test' refers to 'ordinary persons' (the man on the Clapham Omnibus) - in Scotland however the 'Deprave and Corrupt test' refers to 'persons open to depraving or corrupting influences' - spot the difference? I'll spell it out - in England one could argue the point - in Scotland tha' goose is pre-cooked laddie. Watch very carefully for this being 'slipped through' as a minor change in English Law whilst everyone is looking the other way, it is the poison chalice.
The authors are both former Social Workers - child protection workers. Goggins has strong links with Catholic Church organisations. Jamieson has strong links with the Trade Union movement. Those factors may give them a mobilisable body of people to respond in support of their document - the numbers game. Both are ambitious political animals out to make names for themselves. This campaign is a good low risk one for them - high profile with low explosivity if it fails - they are going to push like hell.
© Copyleft backlash 2005-6