🚀 go-pugleaf

In <CnE0y2.5vD@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> rjwells@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Enhanced 911 Services) writes:

>   o  The vast majority of us Canadians, as in *people*, agree 
>      with this idea of banning evidence to protect the accused.
>      You are "helping" to thwart the democratic desires of the
>      Canadian people.

I will always choose to help a minority who wants free speech, no
matter how large the majority which believes that the Government knows
what is best for them.

>   o  We have lots of ways of dealing with this.  We have our own
>      courts, our own media, our own legislatures -- that are lots
>      of Canadian things that a concerned Canadian can do about it.
>      Thanks for the offer, foreigner, but we don't need your help.

You do not have your own net. There is only one net, and that is
exactly the point. I could not care less about what happens to your
newspapers, for example, nor would I try to use paper to break the
ban. the idea that there is a Canadian USEnet which it is proper for
the canadian authorities to regulate is absurd, but more importantly,
it is unenforcable from an engineering standpoint.

>Finally for all you foreigners who seem to know so little about Canadian
>democracy, and yet are so concerned for its future, here is a history 
>lesson for you -- 

We are not concerned about Canada per se. We are concerned when a
national entity tries to regulate the content of the net. I can only
hope that you will help us when the NSA tries the same tactics here.

>Do you know what happened the last time a Canadian government pissed off 
>the Canadian people?  That's right -- we smashed them out of existence,
>down from a vast majority of some hundreds of seats to TWO SEATS. That's
>right, TWO.  They're not even an official party anymore.  When was the 
>last time something like this happened in America?  Not recently?  I'm
>not surprised.

Nor am I. The political circumstance here is terrible, largely because
of the two party system, as you rightly note.

[.....]
>Democracy is alive and very, very well in Canada, thank you very much.

We are not concerned about democracy. We are concerned about freedom
of speech.


-- 
Clay Shirky