TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AND LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Is liberty taking wings, to fly away ?
Or is she to be SENT flying in S.A. ?

THE VERY LARGE BILL THAT MUST BE PAID FOR

It is with horror and something not far from amazement that one finds Victoria greatly outdone by South Australia, not in an Act that merely invades liberty, but in a Bill that is to be discussed in days, this March, which makes Victoria's failure seem almost a gifted success, by comparison. (Cf. Galloping Events,Ch.7,.)

To give God the glory, however, one is delivered from being too amazed, because JUST SUCH THINGS as this have been forecast, and the forecasts of the Bible have often been considered, years ago, on this Web site (e.g. Mystery of Iniquity, in The Other News).

The Bill is intended, it appears, to implement with what, in Australia is apparently necessary in such a case, that is, the provision of authority at the State level, before the Commonwealth legislation on communication can take full effect.

Provisions of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act of the Commonwealth, 1995 ('the principal Act'), as developed or amended later, are now to be implemented and individualised by each State, it appears. (See earlier, Joyful Jottings 14, esp. pp. 101ff. and *1 .) By it was set up the Classification Board which defines, tags and applies. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill held further restrictions.

The latter developed the insistence on protection of minors by using an 'R' as a rating to require their protection. This, in principle, to many would very naturally seem in the right direction. However, this matter has taken on a sinister and in terms of presentation at least, sometimes a surreptitious air. The matter of minors has become a major restriction, vastly beyond the question of pornography, obscenity and allies, in terms of which explanation for the severity of the Act may at times be given. Such references cover merely a small part of the scope of the legislative action!

To aggravate this situation, there is now to be found the presentation of the idea (with force) of making material on the Web which gained such a tag, this 'R', this not suitable for minors, to be subject to multiple disciplinary action under Commonwealth law, since minors (under 18 folk) could conceivably look at it. In South Australia, added escalation is proposed.

Such teeth for juvenility! The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill now before South Australians, and soon D.V., to be debated, has further developed restrictions and specified penalties.

In fact, in January 2000, The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act, the Bill of 1999 became law. Flags might well have been half-mast. The shameless seeming character of this intrusion into academic and other presentation on the Web, so (relatively) soon after the two World Wars appears as an insult to many who fought in them. That it should be characterised as good, when it appears so evil in its debasement of human life at this internet level, is not unique. Many regimes have done no less. For Australia, however, it is a fall as from a cliff, to jagged rocks beneath. This great land would so be reduced by so small a conception that the trade mark, Australia Minor would be all too likely. Is this to be it ?

This Act of 2000, made provision that material not suitable for those under 18 should be restricted, and not allowed online without a filter of approved and complex kind, to distance people who might otherwise freely have access. It also provided for notice to be given for the take-down of material deemed restricted, and not filtered. This appears to have been the first of the acutely intimidatory, juvenile-constraint movements taken and able to act against highly moral and proper material, removing the reality of free speech and presuming to limit to youth level, in acutely compressed terms, ALL freely available on the net.

Let us however look more particularly at what however is required to attain the 'R' or restricted rating relative to minors. What is to be found in this category ? Evil things, of course, horrendous or ghoulish, inroads of evil corruption ... In the turmoils of the various references and referrals in this Commonwealth material, one finds reasonably well-written phrasings of undoubted evils, needing supervision, such as this:

"matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety".

That of course gets a stern rating, but there it is, looking at legitimate matters of concern.

While some, to be sure, might be concerned at possible misuse of such matters for censorship, at least the drift is quite clear, and the problem being faced quite concrete. It is precisely this which would lend some credibility to the effort of the law makers in this respect, were it not for such nearly incredible accessions and additions as are apparently without any shame, inserted into it, for the simple category of 'R', restricted!

That phrasing quoted above, incidentally, is to be found in Draft Enforcement Provisions, as it appears on the Net, "suitable for inclusion in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Act 1995 (NSW). " It proceeds to note: "If this Part is inserted into that Act, many words and phrases used in this Part will have the same meaning as in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Acts 1995 of the Commonwealth." Our point here is simply this, they have, and are already VERY aware of, some reasonably good wording in a preliminary sense, to cover what in principle are legitimate concerns, to which some censorship might be addressed.

Is This a Reckless Rocket,

Apparently Aimed Also at those at Peace,
Poised to Charge them as it Lands to Explode in their Midst,
of being 'Reckless' ?

Or is it a Perfected Case of Adding Insult to Injury:
And of What it Stands Guilty, Uttering Condemnation ?

However, the matter has skyrocketed until it has become a space rocket, with an enormous space left from the earth, in an aerial survey proposed now by the Government, so that the Brave New World thought police are becoming much less surreal by comparison. Quickly can it descend to this earth! The sky is burdened with it, as with the Russian rocket, shortly expected to land in many pieces, in our sector of the world.

Now the official mood has manifested itself, enlarging on the weaknesses in the Commonwealth Acts, and beyond notable in the Draft Enforcement Provisions as mentioned above. 'R' does not at all mean MERELY notoriously or abominably corruptive from sources of ill-intent, or something in that direction. It means simply what is deemed NOT SUITABLE for minors.

The fascinating and all but incredible feature is this, that this high moral ground, very commendable in principle, which was being taken, and is still mouthed in reference to what appears this liberty death-yard Bill, has become a highly immoral ground. It is now the Bill which is immoral, in this that it brings in of its own accord, things not justly comparable to "abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety."

What then is it doing ?

It is presuming to open the way to harassment and limiting liberty of expression to an extent hard even to imagine in the wonder days of achievement, when World War II was just finishing, and thought and ideological tyranny was being given its due, when the value of liberty was still strong in the popular mind! and international formulation sought better things.

That is itself abhorrent, almost to the limit possible!

In the same draft, we find, as indeed likewise in the South Australian Bill shortly to be discussed in Parliament, with a view to making it law in this State, that a person may be found guilty of "recklessness" in not foreseeing the condemnation which could come to his/her material on the Internet. Instead of noticeable reason prevailing in enlightened discussion about the proper status of material on the Web, there is the implicit charge that you should have foreseen the criteria at some given point in cultural history, assessed it aptly, and that if you did not, instead of being given opportunity to defend against what may well be slander or blindness or both, for authorities are not per se angelic or enlightened, and are capable of cultural occlusion, you are already due for condemnation, since you dared to put it up, when doubt is assessed to have been the least possible emotion you should have felt.

True it is 'only' $10,000 for failed insight that you are to be charged, at the most: but this penalty for non-conformity to juvenility, and assessments thereof, seems so near to the work of dictators in the recent past, that if it be not thrown out at this stage, perhaps the land will deserve the next. Almost certainly, just as this 'advance' on the Commonwealth law is being presented in S.A., later advances will likewise come. There is a time to cease dreaming, as if words were merely political counters, and to awake.

Let us face it simply. If a content-provider did not correctly estimate the moral feelings of the Body which censors, this is reckless, or may be deemed so. If a prophetic gift is not required to make such an estimate of the rapidly changing, downwards directly mores of society, it is not far from it! Fail and you face fine. But in what are you to fail, if you are to be fined ? In this: that you speak on the internet in a way which would "not be suitable for a minor". THAT is the explicit criterion for exclusion, and whatever its modes and manners, this is the phrase, this is the objective as stated! FURTHER, the material is "unsuitable…" if it is such that it "would, if classified, be classified R…" (Part 7A, underlining added). So does classification reach retrospectively.

You might, as is explicit, be presenting religious issues, but if it is found by the Moral Body that you are out of the depth or scope of the minor who might listen in, or of what the Board considers fitting for that minor, though you may not invite: then of THIS mis-estimate you may freely be found guilty.

You dared to act as an adult in this sphere, a MORAL adult, it may be, but still, in this forbidden manner ... adult! Thus it appears you may become a criminal, to the great aid of the intimidation. Doubtless, this is progress; but the point is, it is in the wrong direction.

Anyone can lacerate liberty with comparative ease; to preserve it, however, and yet punish crime, it is this which requires apt government. It requires it indeed, relative to youth in its own integrity also.

THE GENTLE ART OF DEVELOPMENT

What in practice does this mean ? This, that by the time we come to the new South Australian Bill, things have come far beyond the original emphasis of the 1995 Law, and in some ways, that of 2000, both noted above. Thus, as we see, it is now the case that the 'R' or restricted rating is to apply to material not suitable for minors, under 18, and if you should dare 'recklessly' to fail to perceive what the Moral Censoring Body conceives to be unfit for the minors, then yours may be the demeaning rather than endearing fate of becoming a criminal, as well as subject to a fine up to $10,000 for

a) not being sufficiently like a minor in your presentation on the Web and
b) not foreseeing that someone else, or some group, who are officially meant to sense the mood, the values, the feeling of society, may, in a majority only, find.

Further, the areas under censorial review are now defined by the Commonwealth body as those not only that might not fit the cap of minors, but SPECIFICALLY issues which would render them "adult" and so those inclusive of "marital problems, emotional trauma... death and serious illness, racism, religious issues." To be sure what is DEFINED in the GLOSSARY provided thoughtfully by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, as ADULT THEMES, may not be compatible with the REQUIREMENTS of being SUITABLE FOR MINORS! It may be useful to quote in full from their glossary on the area of the FORBIDDEN, the VERBOTEN verbiage for Australians living in South Australia, if the Bill is to fly into Act, and become law.

Adult ? Why yes: "Issues dealing with aspects of adult life that are potentially harmful to minors, or disturbing. Adult themes may include verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol, dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues" (emphasis added). OUT, oh spot! (with apologies to Lady Macbeth).

Useless to try to defend this monolith of moral majesty erecting itself, by saying that the MORAL ARBITERS AUTHORISED to condemn, MIGHT not condemn. Certainly they might not, but are not materials by law (if this Bill pass) to be conformable to minors, if they are to be allowed to major on the internet!

First, if it is not for minors, but rather what adults discuss, then that is at once moving into the statutory realm readily to be dubbed the non-permissible, subject to discrimination and popular condemnation by a socially interpretative Board; and secondly, the array of materials spelt out as adult, above is so large, that it seems this potentate of patronage,

the censor,

	becomes a type of socialised god,
	whose failure in reasonable instruction
	(by definition, as 'he' merely reflects the conventions, cultural modes and so on, and statistical morals are a contradiction in terms, since numbers are not in themselves either an attestation of truth or of logic),
	induces more respect by imposing criminality and fines.

The moral matter is misconstrued (cf. below).

In the Glossary of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, in a work statedly approved by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Censorship Ministers, we DO find, to be precise, that "adult themes", while they are "issues dealing with aspects of adult life that are potentially harmful to minors, or disturbing", "MAY include verbal references to ... religious issues" (emphasis added). This does not formally BIND the Board of Classification to make ANY religious issue depiction to receive the tag "adult theme", since if they MAY include such references, they MAY NOT. Nevertheless, the issue is a loaded one, left securely in the hand of the Classification Board. Its rendering of mores could land degradingly on the turf of any church, or church oriented body, or indeed religious entity, merely to take one example.

To be sure, we find relative to "adult themes" in the classification which lies just below the severity of the 'R' rating, that of "mature accompanied", that "the treatment of themes with a high degree of intensity should be discreet". Of "discreet", the official Glossary tells us this, that it means "with little or no detail and generally brief". Thus a low level of intensity in treating matters of prominent adult need and challenge, may be perhaps permitted, if the two are FELT to be compatible; but if the thing is intense, as one would hope from the more effective academic or researcher, reformer or leader of thought, then brevity and little detail is the permitted pabulum, once the matter is deemed an "adult theme". The phrase as defined does NOT involve any moral wrong or evil, but quite to the contrary, is found in categories which per se can be noble and strengthening.

But what of such brief and low level approach to issues such as religious ones ? In academic terms, this sort of coverage of major issues is quite close to flat contradiction. It readily becomes unsophisticated, unlearned and crass.

So then might society, per Government, with whatever intention but with catastrophically clear impetus to result, monstrously adorn itself with power … But does it ? We will shortly see what it does, for it is only days away, this hideous infirmity: and why hideous ? and why infirm ? It is because it would so reduce the nature of manhood and womanhood on the Web. If you reason that this is 'only' in S.A., yet there is thought that in this legislation S.A. might lead and provide a prototype for the nation. What is this leadership to be ? To provide ? Here is an opportunity for something really worthy.

You may argue that it is not exactly into worms that the citizens, web-wise would be turned; but it is certainly not into children, for as the Bible puts it, "in understanding be MEN!" It can lead to a hideous defilement of excellence in the very areas desperately required, like a captain watching a whirlpool in childish abandon, and not playing the man.

ASSESSMENT OF
THE PATRONISINGLY INVASIVE AND
SUBJUGATIVE EVILS OF THE BILL

WHO is being unscrupulous ?

Is the real purpose of this Bill, then, to protect the young from the unscrupulous, or to be unscrupulous in dominating those who seek the welfare of all ? Is it to use police power to protect from abuse, or with it, to abuse the liberty for which this land has so long stood, in practice ? Such power is certainly invoked in the South Australian Bill, with apparent provision for criminal proceedings, seemingly with little notice for removal of the indicted material.

Is the objective to ruin the internet as a medium for the advance of learning, and its dissemination of intellectual enterprise, or to prevent gross and outrageous elements from serenading or corrupting the young, in a way that has NOT been done with literature in the schools, despite many protests, and is NOT done in libraries ?

Is the objective, web-wise, to make South Australians literally, in much, a police State, subject to the thought tyranny of some 17 supra-religious pundits, elevated to rule, or secular primates ? or is it to allow freedom of expression, except and until abusive and corruptive influences are shown to be present, and not to cast in the cast-iron of fines and criminality, the ruling mores of a given time, like little children playing games, giving no thought to what they mean, or why ?

If, further, the purpose is speedy removal of things obviously in this evil category, what is to be done about the premature and pre-emptive embarrassing removal, if it is later SHOWN to be unwarranted ? Even the charge is no small thing in society, and any disruption of a web site can be of vast importance, long before there is any question of finding guilty or fining. The loss of time and the disturbance alone could be a critical feature. Is all of this, if found to be in error, to be without repayment, apology, and free restoration in order to induce responsibility, on the part of false accusers ? for such have been prominent since the days of Daniel, and for reasons not always far different, envy and calumny for position, competitive advantage, revenge, obsessive desire and so on.

ACADEMIC OBLIVION ON THE WEB,
IN DEEP SOCIAL, INTELLECTUAL, EMOTIONAL, SPIRITUAL ISSUES
ON PAIN OF CRIMINALITY ?

Moreover, is the object, in part, to make of South Australians, relative to the Web, ninnies living in fear and cut off from the moral magnitudes that require the fullest discussion and penetrating understanding in the greatest depths, lest some 17 people fine them, because they deem society at that moment, to be thinking differently, and on the whole, not to be bent that way (by a majority of the 17 or so pundits) ? or the Review Board happen, on the same basis for judgment, to agree!

Such a scenario is certainly in this respect, just as totalitarian as Communism, which also likes people to follow its ideas, as it has them, and puts on penalties if they don't!

Further, is the objective of the Bill, CAB 2000, to preclude, or at least to supervise, and certainly ludicrously to limit discussion of vitally important and wholly searching "religious issues" - to use the term which is explicitly subject to constraint in this Bill, lest they should not be "brief", or have a modicum (which is more than little) of detail ? or is it to use sanctions if they seem indiscreet in the eyes of 17 or so people, for failing to be presented in some limited and very superficial way, lest being in the 'adult' category, and hence 'not suitable for minors' without these restrictions, they become assessable as 'R', or restricted, and hence subjectible to condign punishments ?

If convicts in the 19th century were indeed sent to Australia for trivial crimes, out of all proportion often, to the exile and status of convict, what of this, where there is not necessarily any crime but rather faithfulness to one's calling, and no fault but insistence on the moral, spiritual and rational criteria of the word of God, for example! If a small fault led then to a large penalty, stirring our sensibilities and compassion, in the 1800s, what of this, where a large virtue on the Internet, can at a breath, become a crime, by the churning tide of cultural preference, and may be fined!

· Is this to be the glory of South Australia: to become a provider of danger, for work to be dubbed with an 'R' rating for being adult (as adults ought to be), for treating searching topics with maturity and depth, as befits much discourse, and hence to be excludable and subject to penal financial servitude (as totalitarian States normally do) ?

· Is this to be the wonder of the State, that it gratuitously provides an impediment of potentially disastrous proportions, at the level of intelligent and benevolent - if searching and deep - discussion on the Internet!

Disastrous ? Well, not entirely JUST because of the stigma which appears to be provided, 'criminal', or the fine taken, to $10,000; but rather, to take one illustration only, because the work itself - which may and could be, carefully and sedulously prepared from the word of God, and at the command of Christ - can in this way be taken down, removed, hidden away, brought to a ruin like that narrowly escaped by Adelaide this Summer, from locusts. In this case, it would however be the State which acts the locust, not the locust which attacks the State.

It would then be liable to become a State of Decline, as well of Immaturity:
academic integrity in major components being dismissed on the internet, universities themselves under the rod.

Just what might legislators imagine they are called to be, if this should - after examination and review - be passed. Is it to serve by dictation, prescribe by intimidation, make freedom of thought, however benevolent, a crime because adult, if expressed with vigour, depth and detail, as often called for, in this vital and potentially serviceable medium of the 21st century ?

· Or might S.A. become the State of Backwardness?

· and how does all this fit with the proposed positioning of South Australia
as a kingly contributor to the Electronic Age, as was evidently the case in the governmental earlier paper, "INFORMATION ECONOMY ..."!

It is a king not provided with the implements of majesty, but rather set in his grave, by some ... error. Could it not far rather be dubbed, INTERNET ORPHAN ? or RESTRICTED ACCESS ECONOMY ?

But then would not the Information Economy paper itself need considerable re-writing!

Yet it may be said, THIS is certainly not the intention of the Bill, nor is there any limitation on freedom of speech intended, for did not the Commonwealth Minister, Senator Alston, himself declare that this was so! and is not the endeavour to implement that Commonwealth Act ?

How could South Australia be apparently so blatantly acting, as if to excise freedom of speech so deeply from the internet, when the Commonwealth Minister who took prominent part in the initiative, assured his hearers at the time of the Commonwealth action, that freedom of speech was NOT in question.

In the context, he did not mean, since he was protesting the sagacity of the legislation, that freedom of speech was obviously going to be dismissed, but rather that it would be sustained: and this ? ... it is sustaining! As well might a lion sustain when it assails you!

The legislation as it stands, would alas seem to sustain no small part of what it governs not with food, but with iron, making childhood the mentor, and ground of censorship!

If, then, this is NOT the intention, then there would appear an inefficiency or overkill in the Bill as currently worded, which may conceivably be unique in our history. It would not, in any case, adorn it. In fact, however, in a large society, many influences may be at work, religiously repressive, culturally oppressive, socialistically invasive, or even communistically occlusive, anti-God and so on. Thus might be explained much in the Bill, for the strange distance between its apparent aims and obvious means. This however is charitably NOT to be imagined unless we should be compelled, and the ensuing session of the S.A. Parliament should reveal much. Perhaps the trouble is not least a desire for easy administration of the legislation afterwards; but as so often, ease is not wisely purchased at such a price.

Whatever, however, may be the inefficiency or other error lying at the base of the relevant legislation in this country, it is raising a potentially dictatorial head which the wise - unlike the case in so many other countries, so often - will cut off before it rears! Many may make USE of what it is not clear and adequately defined, for their own purposes. Hence, whatever the reason for the formulation in this legislation, it should be altered till it is not vulnerable at all. This may make it harder to administer; but then many things make matters harder to administer, in family, church or society, when the objective is good, and precious things have to be preserved, untradable standards.

· It is not necessary to endeavour to determine the purpose of all of the government, as though one could read hearts; it is enough for our present purposes to consider, with the welfare of all at stake, what would be the RESULTS of its proposed action. Nor has the government taken this action yet; and it is in hope it will abandon these evils, that it is necessary to speak, in good time. It IS necessary to conceive these results in terms of stated purpose, however, in order to show the cleavage between just purpose and proposed action, lest much damage to many result, and this to the State as one whole.

But as things stand in this apparently preposterous Bill, what is the case ?

Is this land then Web-wise, to become a State for children, a child-State (and put that on the licence plates), or would it submit to become a State of Immaturity, as far as adults are concerned, an undisciplined State, which, unable to watch over its children, now is or soon may be, legally prepared for attacks on its adults, even in their moral and ideologically benevolent activities ? Should this Bill in present form pass, then free at least so to repress at the will, desire or caprice of its people, whose mood and ideas are to be interpreted by the Board from time to time, the State can act in response to the 'ruling' social ideas or desire, as discerned by a very few! It can then degrade, fleece and fulminate at pleasure, not only justly at manipulative and corruptive criminals, but at those who at sacrifice seek to build in morality, lead in truth and instil justice!

Is liberty a thing that so many slaved to obtain, that it should be so detached, like the bottom half of a receipt, and sent on! What has become of wisdom, that such intolerance should so be authorised, and that quite explicitly, in the name of the values and so on, of society, as if some being criminals, all must become children! Is it not enough to punish crime, without making it crime to think differently from your society, as Christ for example did, and was rather more than fined!

TOWARDS THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN STATE ?

If this is to be so, this bids fair to become, in one basic aspect in this crucial field, an anti-Christian State. In what aspect ? in this,

that it is refusing liberty for Christian adults to proceed to communicate on the Web -

in great depth and detail,

without fear of, or provision for, the provocation of persecution -

the prodigious wonders of the grace and power of God over evil and for good in Christ:

because in some point some Board may feel that this is not suitable for minors -

to present what the Bible declares!

The Bible is VERY deep, not at all BRIEF, exposes much great wickedness and suffering to overcome it, touching to the heart, and its word divides, in fact, as it says, between soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12).

· It is of course not harmful to youth or anyone else, but beneficent, benevolent, and instructive, as the word of God (as demonstrated in Chs. 1-3,10 and verified continually on this site). However, all that is needed is rejection of the Bible as such, in terms of social mores, which is the alleged determinant for the judgments - and these CERTAINLY in their endless variability are not the word of God, but of man - and behold, man as judge in militant secular humanism, judges man who serves God. That would be reckless indeed, but it is far from uncommon in societies, and some such leaven as this appears to have been conspicuously at work in S.A. education already, as attested in That Magnificent Rock (TMR - Ch. 8).

· In fact, the Bible describes itself as "living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing..." and as in all therapy, it points out the disease in ways so far from soporific or humanistic, or relativistic that it both announces the truth and condemns from the mouth of God, all other sources, than Jesus Christ and the law and the prophets of old. Jesus Christ can and DID cause enormous division, and SAID so (Matthew 10:34-35), and His words were not muted in public by concerns that they might prove rather too much for any youths who heard!

· Nor is it merely that there is POSSIBLE interference. Let us take the Christian case. Those who so present things, with intensity, without being brief and what is called discreet, and do so on the landmark magnitudes which Christ unveils, are ALREADY being told they may be subject to the charge of "RECKLESSNESS" for NOT realising as they might, that this is NOT brief, or NOT discreet, or NOT treating things in a way suitable, in the opinions of a few people, FOR MINORS. Imagine now a great medical specialist being told that all his books must be suitable for minors!

· While we, with many, are satisfied there is nothing the world needs so much as Christ, this is to cut Him off from one of the main media in the AMPLITUDE OF THE BIBLICAL DEPTH on many issues, and hence crimps, cramps and attacks, assault or even insults His servants by telling them IN ADVANCE they are criminal if caught out, in NOT presenting things ONLY fit for minors, AS deemed fit for minors, ON THE WEB, as the Board may deem the case to be, from time to time!

What a pity for the city of churches, and what hypocrisy could lurk there, if the Bill passed. For then it would have a name for religion, when in fact, Caesar on the internet, would be ruling with violence over the thrust of thematic and practical freedom of Christ's ministers, elders and teachers in particular, rendering them liable to be put in financial chains or perhaps called criminals! Are they not - to mention but one religion, as an example - Biblically called to present through all the world the word of God, the gospel of salvation ? Are they in particular, with such a known commission, to be chained on the internet, made to keep things to the level of immaturity, 'suitable for minors', on pain of sudden and virtually unpredictable insurgence of 'criminality'! if so, what is this State becoming ?

Further: is there ANY religion which more emphatically, dramatically and practically DEMANDS that its WORD (NOT its power over people by authoritarian strictures) be presented throughout the world, and not the gospel only, but ALL that He has commanded (Matthew 28:;18-20), which is statedly penetrating between soul and spirit! In fact, Christ in Matthew 24 indicates that He will not RETURN as king in this world, until this presentation is made over the whole world. Such State limits in such a vast medium are therefore an enormous discrimination against THIS particular religion, which specialises so that in this none surpasses it, in dissemination, communication, unabbreviated and penetrating, and this global.

Further ramifications of this appear in Joyful Jottings 12, and 14. The minatory prescription in such areas ? suitable for minors! The interface at this point is not so important as the direction, on pain of recklessness if social standards in vogue are not "read".

That, such a limitation, is or would be, a hostile act! If it is not so in intention, it is so in result. In this sense, it would be hostile not to Christ alone, but to those who perform His word no less, and this eminently if not pre-eminently; and the gospel and biblical commission in particular, given at the proper adult level for millions, would be curbed by oppression, met by discrimination. With such limitations, many it might well not reach in its Biblical depth as prescribed, with the whole word of God, because of this punitive prescription, this artificial limitation of adults to the minds of children. This explosive provision, the electronic medium, would be under threat to be tossed into the water of the well.

It is, once again, not necessary to try to plumb the intent of the legislation, or the parameters which have guided its particular type of construction; only to seek to measure its direction for results.

But as to the latter, it would not be unfitting to ask this: Are then newspapers on line, to omit all strong address and depth also, as if - in the result, whatever the purpose - real examination of what is occurring cannot be made, lest it surpass the mind of youth, as it is deemed to be, and criminality ensue, for them likewise ? Is this to be a nation, electronically, of kids or criminals, then, as the definitions move from time to time, as prescribed ? Do you preserve youth by mocking it, by making men and women act like it, as if some sort of social leucotomy were in view ? rather than having them to be examples of tenacity of purpose and depth of comprehension!

What moreover of politics ? this surely is an adult theme! and the glossary definition merely lists EXAMPLES of adult themes, and does not propose to exhaust them in its list! Is politics to be subjected, as indicated in the glossary definition of adult themes, to such limitations, so that those in power are freer from this aspect of exposure, lest it surpass junior minds in scope, in the OPINION of a few people! Does this make for political stability and restraint ? Does history suggest that!

Moreover, what are teachers to do, who scale their material to different ages and levels of attainment ? Is education to become a subdued farce because a Bill cannot or will not differentiate between the removal of corruption and corruptive influences that cannot be doubted, such as enticement to immature obscenities or drug dependency, on the one hand, and the removal of liberty, on the other; and because it will not in this, have adults to be adult, but rather degrades all to what in its time, is fine, to youth, because it will not or cannot control what it should where it should!

Already as TMR Ch., Ch. 8, show so plainly, there is in South Australia a seemingly impervious insistence on teaching in an absolute and monopolistic fashion, according to unsustainable preference in a biological area, something which has enormous implications for behaviour and social bearing. The problem, of which this is part, now appears planned for solution by sacrificing adult maturity in much, whereas it is better reduced by providing childhood training in truth. It is better to treat children as children than adults as children, and in secular education to present creation and its theoretical competitors, unsustainable though they are demonstrated to be (see The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, That Magnificent Rock, A Spiritual Potpourri for example), so that youth may consider, rather than to indoctrinate in the ill-considered propaganda which so readily substitutes strife for Creator, and imagination for evidence, and rational exclusion of much, at the teaching level.

But what of this current solution on the Internet, to the problem thus exacerbated by bad educational technique, as Russian prize-winning Dr Dmitri Kouznetsov so well attested of it, when he lectured to Adelaide University students ? It is sensitively treated facts, not pre-prepared dogmas which they do not warrant or sustain, which are appropriate scientifically, when the creation of this universe’s energy and life is concerned; and in fact, in terms of scientific method, the degradation of things to self-invention is not warranted by observable processes or logical rigour. As we show in TMR Ch., Ch. 8, it is excluded! But in S.A.'s State High School situation, the thing is not even left rationally open! If to exclude the only viable logical option is not commendable, far worse is it to exclude competition of ideas. This, as a basis for thought, in the interests of what is thus in practice, a monopoly, is simply not in accord with scientific method.

The point here, however, concerns simply what has for so long been without stated rational ground, rejected by the S.A. Government: Secular education should enable students to ponder the issues, not exclude the use of teachers from so much as the rational presentation at all of the things which are with reason adduced for this or that approach. We do not need in the secular realm of education, forced intellectual labour camps, in which pre-slanted results are substituted for reasoned ones, with an apparent effrontery fully contrary to student needs, by command of the political powers that be.

It is this violation of scientific method, as well as of godly values in the implications (see demonstration of the breach, TMR Ch., Ch. 8), which is a contributory factor in the constitution of the youth problem faced; the full force of which is currently being faced in the Bill under discussion. The Classification Bill method of addressing an answer to such things, at the adult level, is as incorrect as the educative approach which tends so to augment it. Here is found, alas, a double negative which assuredly in this case makes no positive!

What then ? Thus incurring their own aggravation of the youth problem, is the Government now to use disastrous escalation into the adult sphere, perilously ill-defined and what appears outrageously unqualified powers being granted to a control board OVER ADULTS, because of the misdirected young ?

It is entirely comparable with removing, in the transport sphere this time, all cars lest some youth should find one, and being of immoral mind and evil purpose, steal it! Shall we then ban transport, unless suitable for minors, who might steal a car if they saw one, before their time.

What then is to be said in Biblical terms ? Woe to any folly which maximising man, minimises God, and thus deals with what is not there, for the only God is Almighty (SMR)!

BETRAYING CHILDREN BY ACTING
ON THE BASIS OF IMMATURITY

It used to be said, Children should be seen and not heard. Now has the pendulum swung so far, that it seems electronically that it is adults who must be seen and not heard, lest children should overhear them, because without discipline they eavesdrop!

Now if these are NOT, and one hopes indeed, EMPHATICALLY NOT in any sense the objectives of this Bill, then as presented, it is seriously amiss, because it permits them; and it thus needs amendment. Should such a type of amendment, of limitation and qualification, as is here proposed - and this is merely one - be rejected, if this should occur, then the Government of this State (for however long it may remain in government - and in this case, in view of national trends, it might not be very long) becomes morally guilty of needless intrusion in the varied and well-intentioned affairs of its members.

It then is guilty of making provision for a reversion, in some ways, to medieval times, and turns back the clock of history while the people sleep. But they will not sleep for long, with such an Act, if this Bill as written should become one, as this!

VAIN it is, to say that the 17 or some such number of people to be put in the place of judgment, the censorship board, would never dream of persecuting established religions for presentation at the adult level and manner, on the internet; or that the Appeals bodies, should the religionists be accused or dubbed as criminals for presenting what is their religion or its grounds or applications, would never uphold such a judgment. By then, much damage is done. It can be of prodigious proportions, in terms of reputation alone, and cessation can be nearly calamitous. Who pays ? Where is the provision for that! And ... where is the purse for it!

Or is justice to be disregarded, evil wrought on those disapproved by the fiat of the Board, at the will of Commonwealth and State elevation of man to moral-maker in place of God, and a variable maker at that, without recompence even if guilt is later found misplaced ? If however, guilt is falsely attributed by these merely social morals, though they are in this Act seemingly seen as simply social statistics, then the evil is doubly dealt, being without social recompence, or financial, and the work impeded, however good it may be!

Nor is this all. In history, incredible seeming views, mental constructions, ideologies (cf) can readily take possession of whole peoples, and if these last two wars have not successfully taught that to this State, then much of their suffering would appear in vain. This country alone, which came very close to the imposition of force in its ways, from outside its shores, is it now to do it voluntarily, in a self-inflicted wound, to its own members! Will it call evil good and good evil, as it substitutes its statistical preferences for morality, and uses force where it is useful, not simply where corruption is demonstrable!

To set up a Police State, at this level, in this area and in this respect, would alas, be a profound error: and if this is not the intention, then the abundant provision to act at once with criminal charges, and the Board’s power with impunity to harass the upright with whose presentations they may not agree, in applying the social mores of the day, makes a distinction in the realm of ideology and ideas, as well as religion, all but impossible to maintain.

But let us emphasise the sequence in the situation.

To limit conversation or presentation on the Net, to the level of minors under threat of duress, is an additional error of immense magnitude. To fail specifically to exclude the deep and conscientious religious discussion bent on good for people, from such an unfortunate if indirect tyranny of minors, and of police, and of politicians, is such an abasement of manhood and womanhood, as to induce the deepest concern for any people subject to it. Such treatment of ideas and ideals as these, bids fair to mark out this State for due recompence for violation of needed religious liberty, maturity and stimulus in this crucial area, for one. This, the religious, let us be clear, is simply one area; but it is nevertheless a vital example of the openness for misapplication of force which the Act enshrines, whatever the intention.

To correct the corrupters is a limited and just objective for an Act; yet to remove the correct with them, on the basis of arbitrary definition, based in current philosophic and social notions, as interpreted ... this is the abyss faced by the Bill.

· That any Party should so try to protect the young by abusing the mature, while taking over some of the prerogatives of God Himself, to do so, comes close to the testimony that "truth is fallen in the street" and "righteousness stands far off" (Isaiah 59:14). It has happened before.

· The question is this:

· Does this State want so to provide for it to happen again, at this time ? If so, the way may be open for it to do so, and so bring evil on all, while ostensibly the aim is to give protection to some. The way is likewise open to it to RESIST and REJECT all such things, not merely with noble words of good intention, but with a carefully crafted law which EXCLUDES such matters.

While one was not born in this State, and had served in several countries in the pastoral domain, before coming here, one has yet enough affection for it, to desire a far better future for it than this portends! and to delight in any action to prevent such a situation, as may in timely fashion, arrive.

KEEPING TO THE POINT AT ISSUE
WOULD BE SO HELPFUL,
AND IS SO NECESSARY

In the Commonwealth legislation, there have been formulations of what is abhorrent, morally outrageous: and these, if they are the real target, the real purpose of arraignment and arrest of communication, in terms of the Bill, could conceivably be used just as they stand. On the other hand, unqualified censorship power (over matters such as of adult discussion of "religious issues", to use the phrase in the Bill, on the Web), this becomes merely partial dictatorship. It brings with it an avenue to enmities, a beginning module for religious and other persecution, under whatever fine-sounding name it might choose to go, leading to very possible desire for revenge on what has facilitated the pomposities of power: this legislating without rational ground, over ideas.

Is this nation to be so stricken and so fallen, and this State to lead in the injurious stampede so that instead of giving challenge to the young, it abases itself in this electronic sphere: in outrageous disjunction from that of the printed word, still far freer and justly so, than this ? But abases itself to what ? It is to the child's level of mind, so that adults instead of providing examples of mature thought to which the young may aspire, are to made liable to become, at a word, the abused butts of Governmentally led, police assault. If the legislators' intention is benevolent, are they alone in that ? It is the provisions which count, and the use to which they lie open, like sun-bakers in front of a steam-roller.

And is the censorship body indeed to be enabled to call it "reckless" that material HAS BEEN PLACED on the internet, because it is at some subsequent time deemed to have shown an unacceptable level of knowledge of what the Board might think, as it approaches the changing social mores problem, and seeks to determine what ought to be, and what, therefore, is so wrong as to be ‘reckless’ ?

Is then what is DEEMED unsuitable and felt to be clearly so by the Board, to become the basis of accusation of those whom also it fines, for breach of integrity, because they so lapsed in obeisance to the current stream of social thought!

Though the intention may be plausible, the result thus all the more moves vigorously towards dictatorship of thought, on the Internet, punishment of divergence, and appears in principle, wholly indistinguishable from militant secular humanism, by legislation, and punitive legislation at that.

If the exclusion of below , or some equal ruling is not made in amendment, the Bill is PROVIDING for just such a thing, even if this be far from its purpose, in its use of censorial power, based on grounds inflated in kind and wholly inadequate in definition, qualification and kind.

And that ! It could readily become in itself an abuse of the Police themselves by the Government, that they should be asked to stoop to such things. As in Germany, there is always a beginning of such things, and as in Tiananmen, for a time at least, there may be almost an end through various kinds of duress, of that stimulus of liberty which may correct a nation, as so often, from going perilously astray.

If the State is to do this, or the nation to follow in such a method, it will suffer, and that justly, for abusing its gifts, insulting God by forcing its own moral standards on all, varying them precisely and explicitly indeed, as it sees fit: and this, instead of
what ?

Instead, simply of restraining with wisdom evil where its corrosive force indubitably aims at corruption, while promoting good with liberty. Good government is a difficult art (see Questions and Answers ), but there are principles, the sacrifice of which brings typical corruption.

The procedure to be installed, if S.A. is unfortunate enough to inherit this heavily intrusive and ill-adapted mechanism of control, and assault on freedom of expression, on the one hand, and the principles behind it, on the other: what are they like ? They are like a lion and a lioness. Alone they are terrible. Together they can produce many cubs, which growing, defile further those who were lax enough to suffer the parentage! History bulges with such progenies, labours under their examples, and laments for the litanies their litters produce.

Finally, it should be clearly stated that it is not the intention of this body, which now is constrained to write to S.A. legislators, to assume motivation or to assess capacity of any legislator; for the concern is to seek to avoid results which should not be intended, may not be intended, and to alert to a supreme danger of their eventuation: and this, both in the interests of South Australians in general, and of the Biblical faith in particular. History is not dumb; we must be alert with enormous care, at this point.

NOTES

The Bill ? "Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2000". We shall refer to this as CAB 2000, Classification Amendment Bill 2000.

The officially authorised Office of Film and Literature Classification declares this in its Guidelines: "When making its classification decisions, the Board is required to reflect contemporary community standards…", and of course, as to the intended audience or viewers, if "minor" is a necessity to be met, that intrudes officiously. What is 'likely to be objectionable to a reasonable adult' is the phrasing reportedly used by Attorney General Darryl Williams in 1997, in a Murdoch University speech. Under these circumstances, this tends to become the criterion of liberty, as sure as the winds, as secure as the waves, as ill-defined as the clouds, nugatory, nebulous, nubilous extravaganzas of unholy humbug, waving phrases, not praises, and making the very waves the ruler.

	Did reasonable men make Hitler ruler ? sustain him as he advanced ?
	Did reasonable men seek to exterminate the Jews to the extent of some 50% of the world population, and continue it for years ?
	Did reasonable men twist the thumbs, crush the bones and extort 'confessions' from countless impoverished and persecuted victims, in religious persecution in Europe, and continue such things for centuries ?
	Did reasonable men put millions of kulaks into Siberian torture and deprivations unspeakable, over years of horror, because they had the eminent crime, a matter judged to be so, by those who doubtless deemed themselves, reasonable people - of having farms ? …
	Did reasonable men make thousands of slaves, and make them work, after kidnapping them, in conditions often both miserly and inhuman, or deem them 'something else' than human ?

At their time, were they not of this persuasion ? Is superiority to become a criterion of judgment, then, for this nation ? We are too good, perhaps, to be so duped ? Delusion frequently precedes destruction, and elevation, depression.