Re: DON'T Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age

At 6:35 AM 8/31/96, Arun Mehta wrote:

>There are two sides to this: after all, it is the Singaporeans who finally
>have to sort out this problem with their government, and denying them
>the Usenet platform for discussion would only hinder that process.

The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites
are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local
cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then
Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into
which *I* post such messages!

(This was done by many of us during the Karla Homulka and Teale trial in
Canada a couple of years ago: Canada imposed press restrictions on
discussion of the trial and the grisly evidence...and then was chagrinned
to find that the global Net did not adhere to their notions of what should
and could be discussed. They even seized copies of "Wired" at the border,
very much akin to Singapore's stone age policies.)

>Then again, inappropriate postings are the bane of the Internet: the consensus
>on which the Net functions relies heavily on people not posting
>inappropriately.

This works imperfectly, as all long-time surfers of the Usenet will attest!
And _never_ has it involved determinations of "inappropriate" by
_governments_!

Our point in protesting Singapore's actions (and Germany's, France's,
America's, India's, etc., in other cases) is to technologically subvert
their notions that their politicians can determine what the Net, Web, and
Usenet carry.

To be blunt, if Singapore wants to stop me from discussing the dictator Yew
and his feeble son, they can't. Except by pulling the plugs on forums in
which my posts are carried. I consider this a Good Thing (that politicians
in Country A generally have no power to tell citizen-units in Country B
what they can say and what they can't).

The point of being sometimes "impolite" (*) is to "force their hand."

(* I find it Orwellian that being "polite" is taken to mean not saying
anything controversial. It was impolite for Salman Rushdie to write "The
Satanic Verses," is was impolite for people to mention Karla Homulka in
talk.politics.canada, it was impolite to point out that the prime minister
of India drinks a glass of his own urine every day, it was impolite to
refer to Bill Clinton's dalliances with Paula Jones, and so on. In a free
society, all things are discussable. That various countries want to make
the Net less free is not something we should support, even if it is more
"polite" to accede to the wishes of their dictators, secret policemen,
demagogues, preachers, and henchmen.)

--Tim May


--
[This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
Act of 1996]
And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
"Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
Translation, TCM, 1996]

On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> To be blunt, if Singapore wants to stop me from discussing the dictator Yew
> and his feeble son, they can't. Except by pulling the plugs on forums in
> which my posts are carried. I consider this a Good Thing (that politicians
> in Country A generally have no power to tell citizen-units in Country B
> what they can say and what they can't).


Unless they adopt "Assassination Protection [of the "ignorant" masses]!!

And they won't use remailers ...

EBD

> 
> --Tim May
> 
> 
> --
> [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
> Act of 1996]
> And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
> don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
> just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
> "Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
> So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
> enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
> really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
> while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
> came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
> brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
> God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
> Translation, TCM, 1996]
> 
> 
>

Isn't that mostly an American thing?

bd

On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, Brian Davis wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> > To be blunt, if Singapore wants to stop me from discussing the dictator Yew
> > and his feeble son, they can't. Except by pulling the plugs on forums in
> > which my posts are carried. I consider this a Good Thing (that politicians
> > in Country A generally have no power to tell citizen-units in Country B
> > what they can say and what they can't).
> 
> 
> Unless they adopt "Assassination Protection [of the "ignorant" masses]!!
> 
> And they won't use remailers ...
> 
> EBD
> 
> > 
> > --Tim May
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
> > Act of 1996]
> > And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
> > don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
> > just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
> > "Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
> > So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
> > enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
> > really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
> > while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
> > came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
> > brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
> > God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
> > Translation, TCM, 1996]
> > 
> > 
> > 
>

> Brad Dolan wrote:
> Isn't that mostly an American thing?
> 
> bd

But we've taught them so much ....

bd2 




> On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, Brian Davis wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> > 
> > > To be blunt, if Singapore wants to stop me from discussing the dictator Yew
> > > and his feeble son, they can't. Except by pulling the plugs on forums in
> > > which my posts are carried. I consider this a Good Thing (that politicians
> > > in Country A generally have no power to tell citizen-units in Country B
> > > what they can say and what they can't).
> > 
> > 
> > Unless they adopt "Assassination Protection [of the "ignorant" masses]!!
> > 
> > And they won't use remailers ...
> > 
> > EBD
> > 
> > > 
> > > --Tim May
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --
> > > [This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
> > > Act of 1996]
> > > And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
> > > don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
> > > just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
> > > "Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
> > > So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
> > > enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
> > > really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
> > > while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
> > > came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
> > > brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
> > > God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
> > > Translation, TCM, 1996]
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
>

On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites
> are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local
> cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then
> Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into
> which *I* post such messages!

Just let to add my comment in regard to this unforuntate discusssion.

To understand the sitution better, you should not impose America 
idealogy and perspection on how things to be done to Singapore. Singapore 
maybe young but there are certain culture too.

Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually comes as a 
relieve to many people, especially parents who worried about the bad 
influence of it. We can go into the same discussion about whose 
responsibilty it is but before you do that, please bear in mind that this 
is Singapore. As an example of what i mean, few years back, when they 
introduced R rating movies uncensored in Singapore for people above 18, 
it cause a surge in soft-porn movie to be screened. There is a general 
dissatifaction among the people and the government was force to shift the 
age limit to 21. And then later revised the R rating to R(A), where A stands 
for artistic which rules out soft-porn. It may be surprising but many
people (in Singapore) do welcome censorship sad to say.

In addition, you need to see the method of censorship deployed in
Singapore. For press media like papers and magazine, it is done in a
passive manner. They _do not_ read every issue of every magazine available
in Singapore. They only do so when there is enough complains. For example,
the incident of "Wired" banning due to the article "Disney with a Death
Penalty" was prompted by complains by the public before action is done. 
(This is related to me by some frens of mine working in the ministry who
is directly involved in the incident). Similarly, they are deploying the
same method to WWW. 

One more point. They know it is impossible to censor everything. It is
possible for me to order Wired directly from US. But still they do it. To
quote, "We are doing it for the sake of doing it. The intention is to make
it difficult to access to such information although we know it is
impossible to prevent all." (I may missed some words but the idea is
that). I have a long argument with this person, telling him that despite
what they have done, i could still access to those stuff which they ban.
his reasoning is "how many people can do it? 10%? 5%? That's fine with us.
If the people really wans it, they can get it". 

In actual fact, the move to put all people on proxy was not a surprise to 
many of us. The first time i know of such an intention was in Aug 95, 
which is one year back. They _have_ been doing studies and testing since 
then. The ISPs have been well informed and have been doing their own 
testing too since then.

I am writting this based on an experience in Singapore for more than 12 
yrs (Yes, i am not a Singaporean). if you wish to rebuke the points which 
i mention above, please feel free to do so but do so in the context wrt 
Singapore culture. Do not impose the general idealogy and culture within 
your country into your argument. (Oh yea, dont give me the "Bull shit! 
This fren of mine so-and-so have said that ....". We talking about 
general idealogy of the people, not of a single person)

Lastly, do _not_ misunderstood that i support the censorship. I never do 
and never will. Nor do i really feels that what they doing are right.  
There are some people like me who disapproved the moves but the voice is 
really too small to make a difference...yet.

> To be blunt, if Singapore wants to stop me from discussing the dictator Yew
> and his feeble son, they can't. Except by pulling the plugs on forums in
> which my posts are carried. I consider this a Good Thing (that politicians
> in Country A generally have no power to tell citizen-units in Country B
> what they can say and what they can't).

Now, what makes you think that citizen of Country A has the power or 
rights to tell politicians of Country B what to do and what they cannot do?
Just wondering.

ps: Sorry for the off-topic discussion.

-James Seng

James Seng wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> > The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites
> > are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local
> > cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then
> > Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into
> > which *I* post such messages!
> 
> Just let to add my comment in regard to this unforuntate discusssion.
> 
> To understand the sitution better, you should not impose America 
> idealogy and perspection on how things to be done to Singapore. Singapore 
> maybe young but there are certain culture too.
> 
> Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually comes as a 
> relieve to many people, especially parents who worried about the bad 
> influence of it. We can go into the same discussion about whose 
> responsibilty it is but before you do that, please bear in mind that this 
> is Singapore.

America is much less different from Singapore in that respect than
you might think.

igor

On Sun, 1 Sep 1996 ichudov@algebra.com wrote:

> James Seng wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> > > The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites
> > > are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local
> > > cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then
> > > Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into
> > > which *I* post such messages!
> > 
> > Just let to add my comment in regard to this unforuntate discusssion.
> > 
> > To understand the sitution better, you should not impose America 
> > idealogy and perspection on how things to be done to Singapore. Singapore 
> > maybe young but there are certain culture too.
> > 
> > Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually comes as a 
> > relieve to many people, especially parents who worried about the bad 
> > influence of it. We can go into the same discussion about whose 
> > responsibilty it is but before you do that, please bear in mind that this 
> > is Singapore.
> 
> America is much less different from Singapore in that respect than
> you might think.

Actually, it is. I've been living in South-East Asia for almost one
decade now, and I can tell you that most citizen are more socially
conservative than their governments. A few years ago, the Singapore
government had to backtrack from a very timid relaxation of rules on
soft-porn movies due to the negative reactions from the public. In
Singapore, the problem is compounded by the need of preserving good 
relationships with the even more conservative Malay minority, whose stances 
have strong backing by the two large neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia
(the case I mentioned had prompted accusations to the government, by 
members of the opposition Workers Party, of planning the "corruption of 
the Islamic youth").

Of course, one may argue that the racial, social and religious relations
are better handled the American way. That, however, is a controversial
issue, and adopting confrontational cowboy attitudes is not going to make
the social evolution any faster. Besides, I don't think that the Singapore
government can really believe to be able of blocking access to anything on
the net: a while ago I had the occasion of talking with some medium rank
officers, and they sounded fully aware of the Internet technology and its
implications - and willing to take the plunge. IMHO, the present measures
represent more a gesture of appeasement to concerned social conservatives,
not differently from the CDA in the US, than an attempt to control the
flow of information.

Enzo

Enzo Michelangeli wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Sep 1996 ichudov@algebra.com wrote:
> > James Seng wrote:
> > > Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually comes as a 
> > > relieve to many people, especially parents who worried about the bad 
> > > influence of it. We can go into the same discussion about whose 
> > > responsibilty it is but before you do that, please bear in mind that this 
> > > is Singapore.
> > 
> > America is much less different from Singapore in that respect than
> > you might think.
> 
> Actually, it is. I've been living in South-East Asia for almost one
> decade now, and I can tell you that most citizen are more socially
> conservative than their governments. 

... snippity snip ...

>                                                IMHO, the present measures
[in Singapore]
> represent more a gesture of appeasement to concerned social conservatives,
> not differently from the CDA in the US, than an attempt to control the
> flow of information.

Ummm, sounds pretty close to what we have here...

	- Igor.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, James Seng wrote:

> Now, what makes you think that citizen of Country A has the power or 
> rights to tell politicians of Country B what to do and what they cannot do?
> Just wondering.

I have every right as a citizen of country A to tell politicians of country B
what they should or shouldn't do.  This isn't about American Ideology; it's
about natural rights.  Politicians of country B can refuse to listen to me or
attempt to prevent my corrupt ideas from polluting the minds of its citizens,
but they won't succeed very well with the latter.  Of course, politicians may
be satisfied with making sure that only the most determined citizens will be
able to access information they don't want citizens to access, but as
technology progresses, it will become much more difficult to prevent this
information from spreading to the masses.

> 
> ps: Sorry for the off-topic discussion.

Cpunks is certainly not the best place to be discussing free speech.  However,
the link between free speech and the spread of cryptographic technology is too
close to completely overlook.

- -- Mark

PGP encrypted mail prefered.
Key fingerprint = d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348
http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/

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On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, Mark M. wrote:

> I have every right as a citizen of country A to tell politicians of country B
> what they should or shouldn't do.  This isn't about American Ideology; it's
> about natural rights.

There are no "natural" rights: a right is the contractual flipside of the
an obligation, and is only meaningful in the context of a society - which 
is a thing that evolves continuously.

Enzo
(more with Hume and Hayek than with Descartes and Rousseau).

On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, James Seng wrote:

> Most importantly, the move to censor certain WWW site actually comes as a 
> relieve to many people, especially parents who worried about the bad 

	And it is a pain for people whodevelop websites.

	To avoid offending those who are easilly offended, I 
	either have to put up a stupid << and very misleading warning
	label >> or block them out.

	My solution is to put up the misleading, and incredibly stupid
	"warning" label.   << Stupid & misleading, because although
	my pages do violate the CDA, and most other countries statues
	on what is acceptable content, the same text, if written
	would not even be given a second glance -- except maybe by 
	the humint part of that country, who would use it for training 
	purposes. >> 

> for artistic which rules out soft-porn. It may be surprising but many
> people (in Singapore) do welcome censorship sad to say.

	And what will happen to Singapore when "their beloved leader"
	dies, especially if a result of an assasination?   

> passive manner. They _do not_ read every issue of every magazine available
> in Singapore. They only do so when there is enough complains. For example,

	IOW, the newspapers, etc have to either not print stories that
	may cause complains, or print them, and go to jail.

	Censorship at its most vicious, and the most destructive of
	both the society it tries to appease, and the individual who
	doesn't conform to its sheere stupidity.  

> One more point. They know it is impossible to censor everything. It is

	And passing laws that are unenforceably, is simply another way 
	to ensure that laws in general are ignored, which leads to the
	increased instability of the regime, which leads to the precise
	opposite effect of what usually is intended. 

        xan

        jonathon
        grafolog@netcom.com

On Sep 2,  7:06, James Seng wrote:
> Subject: Re: DON'T Nuke Singapore Back into the Stone Age
> On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> > The point is to make clear to them that the Usenet and similar Web sites
> > are global in nature, not subject to censorship without a very high local
> > cost. If discussions of Lee Kwan Yew's dynasty are considered illegal, then
> > Singaporans will have to choose not to carry the various newsgroups into
> > which *I* post such messages!
> 
> Just let to add my comment in regard to this unforuntate discusssion.
> 
> To understand the sitution better, you should not impose America 
> idealogy and perspection on how things to be done to Singapore. Singapore 
> maybe young but there are certain culture too.

Let me see, our "American idealogy" is blinding us to the wonderful 
government of Singapore which jails and tortures its citizens for 
expressing political views which might call the government of 
Singapore into question.

Check out, for example, this interview with the former Solicitor
General of Singapore.

http://www.unl.edu/scarlet/v5n33/v5n33qa.html

Nothing earth shattering at this URL - just what we all expect from a 
police state. 


-- 
Mark Henderson -- mch@squirrel.com, henderso@netcom.com, markh@wimsey.bc.ca
ViaCrypt PGP Key Fingerprint: 21 F6 AF 2B 6A 8A 0B E1  A1 2A 2A 06 4A D5 92 46
unstrip for Solaris, Wimsey crypto archive, TECO, computer security links,
change-sun-hostid, Sun NVRAM/hostid FAQ - http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/

Senile tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) (fart) rants:

> (* I find it Orwellian that being "polite" is taken to mean not saying
> anything controversial. It was impolite for Salman Rushdie to write "The
> Satanic Verses," is was impolite for people to mention Karla Homulka in
> talk.politics.canada, it was impolite to point out that the prime minister
> of India drinks a glass of his own urine every day, it was impolite to
> refer to Bill Clinton's dalliances with Paula Jones, and so on.

Paula Jones is a virtuous woman. Her boss, Bill Clinton, pulled down his
pants and ordered her to kiss his erect penis.  She refused and was fired.
I think it's factually incorrect to describe this sexual harrassment as
"dalliances", but we already know that senile Tim May (fart) never lets
any facts get in the way of his agenda. It may be impolite to fart
in senile Tim May's (fart) general direction, but we do.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps