When you have people like James Macintyre in the Spectator abusing his commenters ‘I bet you don’t have a job’ etc, it would seem that rational objective debate is becoming a lost art.

We try to keep it going in this little neck of the woods, so welcome!

the main use of the internet is to view pornography. and it is ever more extreme. where once, personal shame, social approbrium and some sort of understanding that one manages one’s baser desires would have limited people’s behaviour, now its all just a click away, and an online ‘community’ of like minded others loosens boundaries and reinforces deviant behaviour.

and that is exactly what happened with the anti mccann fora. a tiny minority of frankly self indulgent and self opinionated, distorted personalities with little grasp of or respect for prinicples of knowledge, judgement or respect have been allowed to collectively massage their own inadequacies, and materially impact on the lives of other people.

the idea that some sort of righteous campaign for free speech is going on here is laughable.

And… others like the McCanns haven’t? Please make media sense.

It’s all about money. Always.

Many people cannot afford to protect themselves by use of existing laws, or are afraid to try.

No, I have never wanted Government interference, but we sure as hell are going to get it.

Goncalo Amaral has used his spurious knowledge of The McCann Affair to make money, in which case he must expect his misdemeanours to be discussed. This does not mean that I advocate lies being told about him, anymore than I expect people to tell lies about The McCanns.

Please feel free to correct my grammar.

I also have to say that free speech has its limits. These are well defined in law. However, the internet, on the one hand the defender of the right of all of us to have a say – libertarianism – falls too easily into the hands of the right wing which is dominated by psychos and egocentrics, who actually don’t care about the harm they do, provided they get what they want out of the process. Possibly fame. Possibly money. Possibly just a jerk-off.

The McCanns, Jade Goody, Kerry Katona – who the hell are they in real life? They milk the media system, and when it doesn’t work out right for them, and make money, they bleat.

I have no time for these people. But, on the other hand, they have a right to access the law of the land. Currently the internet is Dodge City and is not protecting those honest citizens who may be just passing by in the gunfire.

This is not what it’s about. Speaking as a devoted libertarian leftist, every single one of us has the right to say what we feel and think with a few provisos:

1. We are not making money out of offering our heartfelt opinion.
2. We deliberately hurt no one by what we say.
3. We abide by the law of the land regarding libel, slander and copyright.
4. We have empirical proof on which our opinion is based.
5. We have not accessed a ‘publicist’, a ‘legal representative’, a ’spokesperson’ or anyone else to say what we want to say.

The internet is hurting people, every day. Not the people it can’t get to, in truth, like the McCanns, and the late Jade Goody. But REAL people, passers-by with valid opinions intending no harm, who are ‘outed’, ‘cloned’, harrassed, hurt, threatened, and become the victims of the psychos, who, can we be honest?, live and breathe and only exist on the internet.

My opinion, for what it’s worth (little, I imagine!) is a combination of my own subversive/leftist/libertarianism and pragmatic common sense. It is the route taken by some Far Eastern countries, that in order to access the internet you should have to give your National Insurance number.

Wheeewww – don’t like it for many reasons (can list them if you want me to!) But there is one over-riding reason that I DO like it. It means that socks can be traced. It means that those who make threats against other users can be tracked, and it means that those of us who can defend what we say, and have the imperative that we should not hurt, will use this facility wisely.

Those without a superego, are running riot in Internet Dodge City. This can damage people, and even kill them. Columbine, anyone? And the hurt continues, every second of every day.

If anyone doesn’t like the rules imposed by the person who has the soapbox, they should find their own soapbox.

There is always an issue over libel becasue it is invariably the blog owner who ‘carries the can’ for any libel spouted by posters, so naturally I’m not prepared to allow posters to libel on here.
There is also the problem of personal abuse towards other posters. The problem with personal abuse is that a) it can seriously upset some people, and b) it has the effect of silencing the less confident voices who are afraid to voice their opinion for fear of being rdiculed. That in itself is a form of censorship, but not one being excercised by me – so if I was to find myself in the position again of having a poster who hurled abuse instead of debating – yes, I would silence them. They have a choice, they can debate reasonably, but the person in the background who is frightened to speak up, perhaps English is not their first language, or even their spelling and grammar are not brilliant – why should they be cowering in the corner unheard? – and given the choice between that person being silenced by fear or an abusive bully being silenced by me, then I would opt for the abusive bully being silenced every time.

The idea that the freedom of the press is the big issue regarding freedom generally is an archaic notion which belongs in darker times.

Freedom of expression is something beyond the press and beyond the written word. Society is repressive – as it has to be to keep ‘order’.

The idea of freedom as it is expressed in the US constitution is also an archaic vision as far from reality as is the idea of natural justice is from our laws.

The fraud that is democracy – at least in our first past the post system – is just another element in the whole warped picture.

The web meister philosophy of ‘You can say what you like as long as I agree to allow you to say it’ is not freedom, the idea that their are those who have some kind of parental status to the rest of us is abhorrant to me.

I dont know what the answer is, but it sure isnt repression and censorship according to the rulers standards of freedom and morality.

There is an incredible media support from ‘writers’ (i.e. Fiona Phillips)and editors alike.

In my humble opinion, the media is filled with people who share a classification – they are middle class professionals – just like the McCanns.

They have sympathy because, as they see it, there but for the grace of god go they!

Where is the investigative journalism? would it be libellous for at least one paper to publish the list of questions Kate McCann refused to answer when any other mother would be thinking not of self defence but only of retrieving her child by whatever means and asak the question ‘why?’.

Not a single word published questioning the odd behaviour in the McCanns documentary where excessive attention focussed on which sid of the road Gerry chatted to Wilkins, not a single word about Kate in the same documentary recognising that the door was in a different position when she left it – even though Gerry was purported to have visited in between her last view of the door – and even then her reaction was to start to shut it (not to check the children!).

Would it really be a libel to discuss these and many other oddities?

I think not.

I suggest that everyone go take a look at the real motives behind this article about ‘hate’ sites…an open discussion of the Madeleine case is urgently needed, not an attempt to use views which dont match those of the media to shut down free expression….what we need is a constitution which places the people above Parliament, a higher law above the toothless and State caveatted ECHR. Freedom of expression should find its own level, as it will. Any State control can and will be abused and result in the burning of books and warping of truth. We dont need a nanny State, we need a written Constitution – and an end to Parliamentary Sovereignty. If I have learned anything from the McCann case (a situation used to build the fraud of the century in my view) it is that freedom of expression should lie in the hands of the people not in the hands of the media or a ‘web master’!

If I may offer a paranoid idea: could the mere reason for posting those comments have been to play indeed in the hands of the ones, who want to control internet?