SMH - Jim Wallace

Jim Wallace's opinion piece is best described as lazy and dogmatic.

So, I've opted for a lazy, unstructured stream of thought response which I typed as I read his opinion piece.

For a start, the title: "Filtering the Filth". Who are you to tell me what is filth? Why would I value your opinion over my own? Mr Wallace mistakes the nature of his forum. He is not standing at a pulpit preaching to a room full of doe-eyed, wish-thinking Christians looking for a free ride to heaven. In this public forum you need to offer some proof for statements. Your dusty old book is not proof here. Jesus is your imaginary friend, you do what he says.

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan

Why would I trust your spin on the minimal effects to internet speeds and usability over the considered, informed opinions of internet experts. You are talking outside of your field of expertise here, Mr Wallace. You may hope that a net filter wont the harm the internet but your opinion in this matter is not supported by industry experts. I suspect that you, like most Christians, fear the power of the internet, its power to allow people access to information so that they can form their own opinions. This is the intellectual laziness that most Christians wallow in.

Why would we want to implement a system that wont work in the hope that it will work in the future? This approach doesn't work with the mass changeover to green power or electric cars. They clearly can't fulfill our current requirements so the onus to perfect them first is put back onto the developers. They need to show that their idea is working now. Your refrigeration model differs to the current argument in that refrigerators were not made compulsory during their developmental stage and we aren't being told to degrade a system that 95% of people (based on the low takeup of the Howard government's free filter) just don't see as being broken.

93%?
. EFA says it is a misleading statistic:
. 2003 is ancient history in internet time.
. 377 is not a conclusive poll
. the filter discussed in the question is different to the filter being offered now.
. 5% take up of current free government NetAlert software speaks more of the public's desire for filtration.
. If you don't know how, your ISP would have helped. ISP help desks were not overrun with people concerned about this.
. Your computer shop would have put NetAlert on your computer if you'd asked them especially if your insisted before paying for it. It would be a 5 minute job for a junior staff member.
. Even if you have to pay for it, it would be cheaper than the ISP level filter on offer. Remember, tax money is your money. It doesn't come from a magic money tree.

As his letter rolls on, Mr Wallace's arguments tend towards the real issue. This filter is not to stop child pornography. It is trying to legislate hysterical christian anti-porn laws. Teenagers looking at pornography is not child porn. That is young adults being curious. Real education would satisfy their curiosity with real information but real sex education is discouraged by church groups.

GetUp's campaign has been supported and funded by 95,000 people. This is not a flash in the pan. These are people who have seen a problem and gone looking for a solution. Mr Wallace's main problem with GetUp, is suspect, is that people joined GetUp to change society instead of joining a church. Joining a church to change society is like trying to drive only looking in the rear vision mirrors. They never look forward they just cling to the past.

Again, refrigeration is not a good parallel buying a refrigerator was never going to be made compulsory. Similarly, owning a computer or being online is not compulsory. If people are that concerned about porn don't go online.

Now the argument has moved to the sex industry. Mr Wallace does not understand that child pornography, normal pornography depicting normal sexual acts between consenting adults, just like him, and prostitution are entirely different things. I have never seen an online brothel. I don't see how the concept would work, frankly.

It is one thing to say that we are having a trial only at this stage. Conroy gives so little information about what the trial will entail and is pushing so hard to have this scheme implemented that I do not believe that the results of the trial will have any influence on whether the filter will be implemented. He has been told that this wont work by industry experts. What if engineers told him that building a skyscraper from used tissues was a bad idea, would he order a 40 million dollar trial. Ideas that will not work don't need to be trialed to show that they wont work. Wait... I'm talking to a Christian... illogical ideas that don't work are your favourite kind.

92% success is not successful blocking, this is just going to make 8% of websites very popular with Australian surfers. The other 92% of websites will not take long to catch up with that 8% of how best to be ignored by the filter.

I don't think that the trial will prove me wrong. I think that the trial's results will be ignored and Conroy will bow to mindless pressure and implement it anyway regardless of the consequences.

Harm to children:
If up to 84% of children have been harmed by porn, what are their symptoms? What is the treatment? Does it have a medical sounding name that we can all be very frightened of? Was the exposure accidental of were the teenagers involved looking for porn. If it was purely accidental why is the figure skewed towards boys? Wouldn't that indicate that these teenagers were looking for it?

Don't try to medicalise your religious view that teenagers shouldn't learn about sex because sex is only for adults who's union has been sanctioned by your church. The church uses sex as a way to gain power over people. If the church loses its mandate over matters sexual, like it has lost its mandate over most every issue, it will cost at the tithe box. That's all that matters really.

How do you know that bestiality sites show images of non-consentual sex? How much consent does a dog have to give as he's humping away there? This is not to my taste but you have to show that it was non-consentual sex if that's your claim.

Rape and child porn sites are abhorrent. This money would be better spent tracking down and prosecuting rapes and child abuse.

Parents need to parent. They are smarter than the average pew-bots that Mr Wallace has contact with. Why should society be reduced down to the lowest common denominator? Idiocracy here we come!

What are the dreadful repercussions again? You are saying there are dreadful repercussions. I would expect that if 80% of male teenagers have seen porn online that there should be thousands of teenagers walking the street mentally and physically ill choking the medical and psychiatric systems... wait, that's not happening. Perhaps their parents are treating them at home for these serious porn injuries.

Mr Wallace has stated his claims but he hasn't made his case. He has made the paper and that will probably keep church funding coming in at acl.org.au and keep him in a job.