Rhode Island is the latest US state to discuss mandatory censorship of web content, at first targeting pornography:
Rhode Island Democratic state Senators Frank Ciccone (@senatorciccone) and Hanna Gallo (@hannagallo27) have proposed grandstanding, unworkable legislation, "Relating to Public Utilities and Carriers—Internet Digital Blocking" which would mandate the state's ISPs to identify all the pornography on the [I]nternet, and then block it for all Rhode Islanders, unless those Rhode Islanders specifically requested their porn to be unblocked and paid $20 for the privilege.
These proposals fly in the face of the observation that automated pornography filters don't work and that even the manual ones are neither practical, reliable, nor scalable.
Source : Rhode Island proposes blocking all online porn and charging $20 to unblock it. Boing Boing.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:07PM (22 children)
The trajectory of the U.S. is correct, but that doesn't mean the underlying system is correct—you can be right, but for the wrong reasons.
You have an increasingly free society built around an organization that can outlaw (and indeed has outlawed) beer for an entire continent. That's not something to scoff at; that's a serious problem worth deliberation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @05:17PM (10 children)
No, it didn't. That took a constitutional amendment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:25PM (7 children)
Nobody said that the Federal Congress can outlaw beer for an entire continent; rather, somebody said an organization can outlaw beer for an entire continent. The Federal Congress, along with the State governments, etc., constitute an organization.
That's why people can simply say "the government", whether it be a State issue or a Federal issue, or a municipal issue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @05:40PM (6 children)
They constituted 58 such organizations (50 states, 5 US territories, Washington DC, and two branches of Congress). Don't confuse group with organization.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:47PM (5 children)
I'm baffled why you think you have a point.
Are you saying that outlawing beer (which did happen) is completely consistent with a system intended to foster a free society, where individual rights are protected, especially the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Genuinely, I don't know what you're trying to say, or how it is that you think you've countered the point in question.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @05:52PM (4 children)
It was done by constitutional amendment not by an organization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:55PM (3 children)
As far as I can tell, you've just now made a senseless remark.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @06:50PM (2 children)
Finally, a constitutional amendment is not merely a law. It is a restructuring of the laws of the US at a fundamental level. For example, any law which runs counter to an amendment is void. So it wasn't just outlawing beer, but restructuring the federal government so that it could outlaw beer and enforce that regulation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
There's still Mexico and Canada: Redherring.
A group or collection is not an organization: Worse than No True Scotsman; the argument remains unchanged.
No mere law: Straw man. Redherring. No True Scotsman.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @10:00PM
The point is that you said "entire continent", but the US is less than half the North American continent by land area and a little under 60% by population. It is far from an entire continent.
Except that it becomes a more correct argument. Words have meaning and such large errors in your argument will detract from its persuasiveness. You do want better arguments, right?
Nuance matters. A legislative body didn't just outlaw beer. It took a supermajority of many such legislative bodies, all of them subject to public election, to do so. That indicates to us a lot more than just a number of "governments" of an "organization" outlawed beer, but that it was a substantial popular movement as well.
And at that point, mass democracy of any sort is susceptible to large scale popular movements destroying freedom. It's not that the US is not free, but that the public has made poor choices, such as outlawing beer, not protesting the internment camps of Japanese Americans, or allowing slavery to continue. Let us also keep in mind that these evils eventually were all revoked. So while the US of the past may not have been as aggressive as we would like with respect to such acts of tyranny, freedom did prevail.
This nuance is very important because the claim was made that US society was not free. But what free society couldn't choose collectively to make bad choices and harm the freedom of its citizens? In other words, how can you distinguish between a free society that occasionally makes bad, undemocratic choices and the US?
Recall that several of the founders emphasized that free societies were not automatic, but required constant maintenance in order to remain free (for example, Thomas Jefferson - "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."). In other words, they didn't expect perfection from the US, but a frequent and inevitable dipping of the toes into various sorts of tyranny against which they asked future US citizens to be vigilant.
TL;DR: There were several glaring errors with what was said which when corrected, will make the argument stronger. Those aren't "red herring" because such errors detract from the persuasiveness of the argument. Yes, it doesn't matter whether the US is a continent or not, but merely correcting that makes a silly problem go away.
Instead, the real problem is that you are simply in error about what a free society is. It is most certainly not a society where everyone is perfectly free. That society can't exist. Any real world free society will have flaws - injustices and occasional tyrannies in it, created from within or imposed from without. The determining factor of whether the society is free is whether in the long run these are successfully fought off or allowed to prosper.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday March 09 2018, @07:09PM (1 child)
You have recently been posting reasonable, informative comments. What have you done with the real khallow?
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 09 2018, @08:57PM
And whatever it was you did, THANK YOU.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by https on Friday March 09 2018, @05:24PM (7 children)
You have an amazingly incorrect definition of "continent" - once you realize the scope of your error, you might then wonder what else in your reasoning processes you're getting wrong.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:27PM
If that's all you've got, then I have even more confidence in my position.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday March 09 2018, @06:40PM (4 children)
He or she shows their true nature: to the AC, Latinos (Mexicans) don't count.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @06:51PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday March 09 2018, @07:22PM (2 children)
As far as I can tell, Canada has had prohibition across the nation, between 1918 to 1920, leaving Mexico as the only North American country that has never had national prohibition.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)
Here's a list of all the countries in North Americahttps://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/countries-of-north-america.html/ [countries-ofthe-world.com]:
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Canada
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Grenada
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago
United States of America (USA)
I think you need to extend your research a bit to see if any of the others listed have had prohibition during their existence as a country.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday March 09 2018, @11:11PM
I don't need to extend my research. The fact that there is one country that has never had nation-wide prohibition shows the lie that was posted before.
Also, excluding Canada and the USA, I think that all of those countries are predominantly non-white population. Mostly Latino, some Afro-Carribean.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:19AM
So, you are saying he is incontinent
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday March 09 2018, @06:38PM (2 children)
When was there a national ban on alcohol in Mexico?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @07:45PM (1 child)
See here. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday March 09 2018, @08:16PM
You really are an idiot, aren't you.
You claim that there was prohibition across an entire continent, but this claim is simply false because Mexico has never had national prohibition.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory