Uh yeah just go. Die or go but don't complain if you die because you didn't wanna go. This was to be expected

I doubt UK could surpass China and Russia in terms of internet censorship any time soon

I mushed a lot of things together in my post. Copyright and political censorship have very different motives behind them. The point is that, to enforce copyright, you need extensive surveillance of online content and the means to shut down the exchange of information. That requires an extremely expensive technical infrastructure. But once that is in place, you can use it for political censorship without having to fear pushback over the economic cost that would come even from politically sympathetic actors. Conversely, if you introduce political censorship, you might get support by the copyright industry, including the news media, for helping their economic interests.

Where it gets to political censorship, the paradox of tolerance is exactly the lunacy that I'm talking about. In mad defiance of all historical fact, there is belief that liberalism is weak, that political dissidents must be persecuted, information suppressed. Never in history has democracy fallen because of a commitment to tolerance. All too often, they fall because majorities feel their personal comfort threatened by minorities and support the strong leader who will "sweep out with the iron broom" (as a German idiom goes).

Do you notice how that Wikipedia article has nothing to say on history?

I've never voted for a Republican OR Democrat that I didn't know personally in my entire life. Why do I add that qualifier? Because I did know some older small town politicians, in both US parties, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when my grandfather was still alive, and they were his friends.

Parents have the ultimate say-so of what their kids have access to.

I don't believe there needs to be a law that says that, no.

If a parent decides their kid is responsible enough to have their own money, then it's the parents who are to blame if that kid buys "bad" things with that money.

Same thing online. If a parent decides their kid is responsible enough to have unrestricted internet access, then it's their fault if the kid then goes to a "bad" website.

It's not the store's fault. Nor is it the website's fault.

We have given away far too much of our parental responsibility over to 3rd parties, and now we don't know how to parent anymore.

Support? Absolutely not.

Allow? Not my child.

Make illegal? Nope. Not my business to tell other parents how to raise their children.

And that's exactly the problem here. People like YOU, who think that if I don't want something illegal, than that of course means I like that thing, or that I personally want to do that thing.

Nope. It has to do with personal autonomy. I'm not your boss, I shouldn't get to tell YOU what you can do to yourself. Period.

Nope. It has to do with personal autonomy. I’m not your boss, I shouldn’t get to tell YOU what you can do to yourself. Period.

Wait, this way every **laws **is useless then, I am not your boss, I shouldn't get to tell YOU that you cannot drive while drunk.

We have given away far too much of our parental responsibility over to 3rd parties, and now we don’t know how to parent anymore.

A responsible parent can do as you say, but there are also not so much responsible parents out there, so maybe we need a backup option in these cases.

Do you think those debates are for real and not a show that ends with whatever has been decided elsewhere?

If that was the case, then the Lords wouldn't have blocked the 2016 Disability Bill. You remember the one. I don't think that was theatre, I think people in the Lords looked at that and went "lol fuck no." They also wouldn't have done a lot of shit if it was all planned behind the scenes and some shadowy cabal actually just called the shots.

Here's the thing: "It's all planned" is the cornerstone of most conspiracies, from 9/11 to "Covid is a bioweapon" or "Covid isn't real" to literally every major conspiracy theory. But wanna know something? All of that is a weighted comfort blanket to sooth people, it is soothing to believe that there is someone or something in control and it's just a case of getting rid of them, and it's an ego boost to believe that You are part of a club that figured it out. They used to call it being "woke" until the far right took that term as an Alias for "Degenerate" as the Nazis used it.

But the truth is this: There is no man behind the curtain, there is no shadowy cabal who actually control everything. It's call Capitalism, Sociopaths, and Morons who either want to make money or think they're doing good.

I have lived through two governments (a Labour one and a Conservative one) that have floated the idea of banning encryption publicly. Both times they quietly dropped the idea when they were told that doing something like that would crash the economy. My parents are both former Civil Servants. My dad watched the Scottish Secretary at the time nearly type "Thatcher is a Bitch" into a Teletype machine that sent out press releases to every major newspaper.

I watched my own MSP (and Leader of the Scottish Lib Dems) address a crowd of mostly transgender mostly leftist people and ask them to applaud Tories who voted for the Gender Recognition Act.

There is shit in Hansard that looks like it came from a bad sitcom. There are people who are in parliament right now who I wouldn't trust with a fucking Self Scan Checkout, let alone a seat in either of the houses.

Are there scheming bastards, genuinely Machiavellianism Motherfucks in parliament? Yes! Politics attract people who score high in the Dark Triad. Starmer, Streeting, and Farage are all genuinely horrible people. Starmer and Streeting openly want to harm transgender people, Farage wants to fund the fucking Taliban, and if we wanna talk about non-MPs, Boris Johnson stated he's rather have mass death than another Lockdown and the last government used Covid as a way to Launder Money.

But alongside that, a good chunk of the people in our parliaments are simply fucking morons. They might be good at a collection of specific things, but they are also impressively Moronic on a level that would make the Thick of It and Yes Minister look fucking optimistic. Indeed, some of the more bastardous people I have listed and not listed here are also, weirdly, fucking morons. Look at Trump's first term for example.

And if you wanna cling to "there's a puppet master behind all this", be it Satan or the Illuminati, to save you from the genuinely terrifying thought that the people at the Helm of the ship of state are Francesco Schettino, Yiannis Avranas and Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, fair, but personally, I'm a realist and the only conspiracy I hold is that the "Phillip Killed Diana" conspiracy was invented by the British Press so they wouldn't face a shitstorm when people realised what the paps did when they got to the crash scene.

If you wanna know what is actually happening here it is:

A Dunfermline based investment firm, charitable trust and think tank (yes you heard) by the name of Carnegie United Kingdom Trust invested money in data collection firms and age verification firms like YOTI, so they lobbied the government and even basically wrote the Online Safety Act. The government sometimes lets outside groups write legislation for them because Corruption, they have other shit to do, and they don't often know shit about the fucking shite they're voting for.

Some of those MPs also likely had investments in YOTI and VPNs. When this was presented to the government, some poor sod of a Civil Servant had to sit down the PM/Minister responsible and try convince them that it's a bad idea, clearly they failed. So, utilising the moral panic around Porn, Extremist Material, Pro-Ana content and the like, they passed this bill, even when a good number of these fucking numbskulls don't even know what a VPN is, just "we need to do something" and "it's just common sense".

Now not only do they (and future governments, God help us if Reform get in and use this against "woke" content like they're doing in Kent Libraries) have the ability to age gate literally anything, but the companies they have invested in have got a GOLDMINE of very sensitive Data they can sell to people, be them from the Private, Public or "underground" sectors. Line goes up for the Investment firms, MPs with shares in YOTI and the rest. When it comes down to it, it comes down to Money, Moronity, and Kneejerk reactionism.

So you just don't vote for most offices then?

Except you forget about the whole "as long as it doesn't directly affect others" thing.

Or, more likely, you intentionally ignored it in order to score some "gotcha" for Internet points.

The problem with that is that you quickly become responsible for EVERYONE, and then you wind up right back where we are with government bureaucrats telling parents how to raise their children.

If a law or rule can be used to harass otherwise good people, then it will be.

If you give some self-important bastard an inch, they'll take a mile. Just look at the police.

No. Voting for the lesser of two evil is still voting for evil. I'll write someone in before I vote for some party functionary that only cares about their own political power.

Except you forget about the whole “as long as it doesn’t directly affect others” thing.

I followed on your steatment. If I forgot it, you also forgot it.

But my point stand, by the traffic code you cannot drive drunk also if you don't affect anyone else on the road.
Generally it is not that you can do something that is illegal thinking that it is ok as long as it doesn't affect others.

So functionally, you abstain from voting and dont express a preference about how you are goverened.

My preference is plain to see. I will NOT vote for the false dichotomy.

Keep voting for evil if you want to, just quit trying to force everyone else to.

Republicans or Democrats. They're nothing without complacent voters with no real convictions.

You have no right to lecture me on my belief in self-governance when it's plain to see that you lack even a modicum of conviction in your political beliefs.

You'll vote for a party shill simply because they're a party shill, despite the party not following through on any of their promises for the last 100 years, and then you have the absolute gall to try to lecture me?

At least I have the courage of my conviction to stand on principle.

What do you have, boot licker?

Given that I havent expressed a preference and have never voted either Democrat or Republican in a single election (owing to not being American) I believe you may be inventing things about me.

And what I said stands, you functionally dont express a preference and what you do is equivalent to staying in bed and not turning out to vote.

"Move or I'll kill you"

Ah yes, the one that's being said to is at fault

Let me turn that around on you.

You think people should be charged with a crime they haven't done yet? Because that is exactly what happens in some DUI arrests.

Sleeping it off in your car but have the engine on because it's cold/hot outside? DUI.

Then there are the idiotic open container laws where even an open alcoholic drink is legally a DUI, even if the driver isn't drinking.

And if you can't afford a good lawyer? It's a conviction. Which goes on your permanent record.

A guy I worked with had a motorcycle try to pass his company vehicle as he was turning left. The motorcycle driver was killed.

It fucked the guy up so bad, mentally. He began drinking. Never at work, but he drove a company vehicle. See where this is going yet? If not let me finish.

A block from his house, he cracked open a beer. Now even if he had chugged it, there's no way he'd be even slightly drunk before he got home. But he didn't realize the worker who sold him the beer had already called the police and he was being followed.

The arrested him for DUI in his own driveway, due to idiotic open container laws, despite blowing a 0.

He took a plea for reckless endangerment, but it didn't matter. He was 4 years from retirement. He was fired.

Let me turn that around on you.

You think people should be charged with a crime they haven’t done yet? Because that is exactly what happens in some DUI arrests.

Of course not, but then maybe the problem is not the DUI law, it is the fact that you cannot fight it if you cannot get a good lawyer, which cost money. Basically your justice system is fucked up.

Sleeping it off in your car but have the engine on because it’s cold/hot outside? DUI.

Slippery slope. How can police know that you just turned on the engine but not moved instead of driving and then stopping because you fall asleep ?

Then there are the idiotic open container laws where even an open alcoholic drink is legally a DUI, even if the driver isn’t drinking.

That is a stupid law, I agree, but it is the law.

A block from his house, he cracked open a beer. Now even if he had chugged it, there’s no way he’d be even slightly drunk before he got home.

Well, he should not have done it. He know the laws. I can feel pity for him in the specific case, but he breaks the stupid law.

The arrested him for DUI in his own driveway, due to idiotic open container laws, despite blowing a 0.

That was the problem here. The laws is written so you fail either way. Here if I have an open wine bottle in the car but I blow a 0, nobody could do anything to me.

But assuming I agree with you, what would be your suggestion to avoid people driving around while drunk ? Or to avoid minors to access porn material ? Aside the charade "parents need to educate they children" that obviously you cannot take for granted.