I don’t think we disagree on much, honestly. The point is vigilance. The slippery slope is precisely the problem and it’s that which I fear. It’s clumsy and it’s quick and it lurches out of control so easily. I fear for the fact that all an artist needs to do (Bill Henson is the typical example although I was hoping to avoid the clichés, since most people already have their minds made up on those topics, and I wanted to approach the issue from another angle) is accidentally say the wrong thing or legitimately attempt to explore the wrong topic (child or adolescent sexuality, for example) and they can become the target of excessive public vitriol within minutes, seemingly regardless of the sensitivity with which they treat their work, or its subjects, or even its contention. Government action feeds off community hysteria, which is rising, and hard conservatism which, by its very nature, is more organised and zealous than libertarianism.

The point is that if we don’t speak about these things they will become unspeakable. Australia already has some of the most restrictive censorship laws in the world, and the government has no problem adding more. Remember JH’s sedition laws? The brouhaha in Adelaide over accountability of comment? They’re introducing an internet filter for Christ’s sake. The fact is, the tools are there for them to use. We have been lucky so far in that government has bungled most opportunities to use them in the public eye. We won’t always be so lucky.

But I digress slightly.

I tend to both agree and disagree with your premise. Personally, I belong to the “information wants to be free” generation of people. Yes. censorship is bad, both as a form of social control and as a restriction of creation. But I feel the real danger with censorship is because it’s a slippery slope. Censoring ideas fails because ideas are subjective and rarely can language be found that quantifies “this is wrong” and “this is right”. Hence why classification codes are so ludicrously arbitrary and incoherent.

I still subjectively feel, however, that some “speech” is bad … to pull the pin on the cliché … child pornography is one such form of “speech”. But my definition of child pornography, the sexual exploitation of children, differs from others in our community who see Bill Henson, fashion labels and parents taking photos of their children in the bath tub as acts that should be censored, if not prosecuted. So, censorship. Fail.

There are clearly problems we need to solve … and “who will think of the children” is one of them … but censorship appears not to be the control that will do that and the consequences of its use are often unforeseen or unexpected hence it becoming a social or repressive control. Answers, I have none. *sighs*

As to where I disagree – are we there yet or even close? I don’t believe so – there are places in the world where bad, bad things happen to people who create ideas that regimes or cultures disapprove of, you just have to read PEN’s reports to see the evil done to writers who do so. The distance to me between Australia (if by “here” above you mean Australia) is a wide one. People disapprove of some forms of speech here, even hate some forms of speech, but actions against those speakers tends to be ad hoc rather than institutional or organised. Sometimes those actions against the speakers even tends towards the farcical. I don’t see any farce in the way countries like Iran and China censor their artists and their citizens.

Do we have to keep watch and hold a line? Yes. Has it got to the point where we fear for our lives and liberty by holding that line? I don’t believe so.

@Cass You’re a doll. x

I think, from what I know of you, that you’re a wonderful, strong person who won’t be alone because she’s true to herself. And I bet I have more freckles and whiter legs than you! x

*lets underlying content and subtext go over her head*