🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002 06:50:28 +0800, Ben Caradoc-Davies
<ben@wintersun.org> wrote:

>I believe that Abraham Lincoln once remarked that the best way to get a bad law
>repealed is to enforce it vigorously.

 http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm

"While ever a state of feeling, such as this, shall universally, or
even, very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every
effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me
not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances
may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been
made.--I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that,
although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as
possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example,
they should be religiously observed."

>When people are willing to openly break the law, and the authorities do
>nothing, the law remains the same. Individuals remain at risk of selective
>enforcement, and exercise their de facto freedoms in fear. Enforcement
>highlights the discrepancy between the law and what the public *actually*
>believe (not what politicians refer to as "community values").

 The law at present favours those who break it.  The profits are
enormous. 

 Are these freedom fighters I see before me ?

 I doubt it.  These are arguably people out for a "quick quid".  As
one US producer expressed it in an email explaining that he doesn't
authorise sales in New South Wales "Pirates have no overheads".  The
condition of such pirated material is unbelievably bad.

>Our biggest enemy is the lack of public interest. A well-publicised prosecution
>would be the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars worth of free publicity.

 I don't think in terms of a prosecution.  I seek a political
awareness of the lack of effectiveness of current censorship law (as
it applies to adult material) and possibly some feedback from more
conventional media.

 The state of censorship of our allegedly free press is something else
entirely.