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Freedom of the Press Act
Topic Started: Aug 16 2009, 09:23 AM (157 Views)
DMHowe
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Under Investigation
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Bill
 
Under this bill, the newspapers will be free to print any article, of opinion in nature, be it degrading to the government, racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and all other manner of things that may be deemed "inappropriate".


The reasoning for this is that attempting to silence opinions only leads to opinions becoming more extreme. By allowing the publication of any item, a public is able to choose for themselves what their minds are saturated with, as opposed to being told by the government what is "okay" and what is "not". Furthermore, by being able to read a full opinion instead of one that slips by censors via clever wording to make it more "acceptable", extreme views may be far easier to find and be aware of.

(OOC: Yeah, because THIS'LL pass ¬¬')
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Commoncold0
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That's annoying - I was going to dismiss this as unconstitutional, but I think it probably isn't, so I'll just oppose it on the grounds that your logic is twisted and also that it would dangerously undermine libel laws.
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DMHowe
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Commoncold0
Aug 16 2009, 10:36 AM
That's annoying - I was going to dismiss this as unconstitutional, but I think it probably isn't, so I'll just oppose it on the grounds that your logic is twisted and also that it would dangerously undermine libel laws.

My logic here:

Quote:
 
Furthermore, by being able to read a full opinion instead of one that slips by censors via clever wording to make it more "acceptable", extreme views may be far easier to find and be aware of.
?

I don't believe that for a second. :P Its just a really sarcastic way to say "look, you can still spy on people and say what is right and wrong!". This basically comes back to treating the people who vote for you like people intelligent enough to make decisions. If we are voted into this house, then decide the entire country is full of idiots who need to be told what to think, that makes a very interesting statement about the reason we are in this room. Why take away the option to take in an alternate view?

Also, libel is a falsified statement expressely stated or implied to be factual. For the sake of argument, to claim a politician had slept with a person when they hadn't, would remain libel. This can be proven to be wrong. To make statements that are of opinion and therefore unprovable, should be a freedom. A newspaper can make the claim it believes a politican has slept with a person, but cannot say this is fact without proof. (I will now edit the wording of the bill itself to make this more implict [aka: unavoidable in wording :P].)
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