Politics and the Internet

The tutorial regarding Politics and Internet required me to achieve as many of the below displayed directions as possible, while sticking to your political beliefs.

• Sign an e-petition.

 I have signed the Queenslad Parliament E-Petition for Stricter laws governing sentencing for cruelty of animals. If you would like to join this partition, please follow this link.

•  Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.

 The Wall Steet Journal posted up a blog about travelers having their flights canceled and are therefore stranded at an airport. The blog is called When Bad Things Happen to Good Travelers. I have left the following comment for the professional blogger: "Knowing that you are stranded at an airport indefinitely surely ruins your holiday! I have been stuck in an airport for a few days until the soonest flight could be booked for me. Luckily the exchange rates were good and I managed to find a cheap hotel room in the mean time. Therefore I agree with Chris, safe up some more cash before you go traveling just in case something goes wrong!"

• What is Barak Obama up to today?

According to the latest blog from Alex Wagner, who is a white house correspondent 'President Barack Obama will walk into the Capitol building (this afternoon).'

•  Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.

Local representative - Ron Clarke (GCCC)

State representative - The premier is Anna Maria Bligh. There is a list of the members on the Queensland Parliament website. 

Federal representative - Member for Labor is Julia Gillard. There is a list of the members on the House of Representatives website.

http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/advocacy/advocacy_article.jsp?articleId=2386#QLD

•  Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.

The last time Mr. Peter Joseph Lawlor spoke in parliament was on the 24th November, 2010.

http://www.peterlawlor.com.au/southport2/index.php/category/parliamentary-speeches/other-speeches/2010-other-speeches/

• Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.

Unfortunately I was not able to leave a comment on Mr. Peter Lawlor's speech because I did not see any opportunity to do so on his website.

• Read the lecture and the readings, pursue a couple of the topics that you find most interesting and then post your blog with your well-considered thoughts about the theory and practice of politics. 

During the lecture, an article written by John Gilmore, called Free Speech and Censorship - The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it has grabbed my attention. He explains that free speech is what makes democracy happen and that the battle between freedom of speech and censorship of the internet has 'taken many strange turns'. He also wrote the libel case against Prodigy assumes that the Net is like a newspaper. Then he continued that it is not accepted as 'mass media', since internet is only one source sent to a lot of recipients. John wrote that once something is put online it can never be taken off again.

Personally I believe that theory and practice of politics are two very different things. What might work for a society in theory might not always be the best way in practice. As John Gilmore explained in his article, there has been an ongoing dispute about free speech and censoring the web. Freedom of speech and democracy is great but when it comes to the internet my view changes. The internet itself has a lot of dangerous and harmful websites. Therefore I am happy to have certain offensive and socially inappropriate organizations and other sites censored. This does not mean that it affects the freedom of speech and ruins our democratic society. It simply means that the internet is a safer place for the majority of citizens. You won't have to worry about random very distressing website 'pop ups' as you're going online nor inappropriate advertisements next to a news article. 

Some things don't belong on the web.