Archives For Classical Liberalism

Irrelevant LGBT Anti-Conversion Laws are a Trojan Horse for Totalitarianism

August 25, 2020 — Leave a comment

“Conversion therapy” hasn’t been practiced for decades, yet it’s a front-line concern for LGBT groups.

With how irrelevant anti-conversion therapy laws are, the implication is that the LGBTQAAI+ religion is seeking to outlaw anyone from leaving the LGBT lifestyle.

It’s highly probable then, that these laws are a Trojan horse for even more laws.

Laws that would consider it a criminal offence for anyone to help a person move beyond a lifestyle that encourages people to centre their entire identity on PRIDE, sameness, segregation, sexual preference, and sometimes a clearly discernible misogyny or misandry.

As Caldron Pool’s editor, Ben Davis pointed out earlier this week, ‘the ultimate push is to prohibit parents, pastors and religious leaders from calling people to repentance from “sexual immorality” as defined by the Bible. In their view, moral judgments, particularly as they relate to sexuality, should now be determined and imposed by the State, not God.’

These new cultural laws appear to lock individuals into a way of life, by locking other people out.

If so, it’s misleading to defend these laws as truly inclusive, liberating or even empowering.

With its negative implications for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion, anti-“conversion laws” are potentially as oppressive for the LGBT community as they are for the 97% heterosexual majority.

According to The Australian Christian Lobby’s legal analysis of the latest bill proposed for ACT:

1. ‘A parent counselling their male 5-year-old child that he is a boy, when he wants to be a girl, could be subject to criminal proceedings.
2. A faith-based school that teaches there are two genders could end up before the Human Rights Commission.
3. A pastor who teaches a Biblical view of sexuality could face the same fate.’ [i]

This isn’t an exaggeration of the LGBTQAII+ lobbyists’ position.

In February, Switzerland ‘voted in favour of new laws that would make “homophobia” a criminal offense punishable by fines and up to three years imprisonment.’

It’s the same all across the West.

Under the “Pride” movement’s corrosive hegemonic power, laws are being pushed through parliaments which will legally force society to lie to children about their own biology, as well as who their biological parents and siblings are.

The surreptitious nature of these laws is also established by how they exclude transgender conversion “therapy”.

Since “conversion therapy” has been established as harmful. Shouldn’t anti-conversion therapy laws include a ban on LGBTQAAI+ lobby groups encouraging children to irreversibly mutilate their bodies with surgery and chemicals, without parental guidance, and accountability?

If not, why not?

Commenting on Queensland’s “solution looking for a problem” anti-‘conversion laws’ in February, C.P’s Evelyn Rae noted:

It would be rightly considered child abuse if society, groups or individuals affirmed a teenager’s self-harm, negative self-image and/or eating disorder.

Yet, here groups are actively pushing arbitrary laws which lock individuals into a belief, identity, pattern of behaviour and lifestyle.

Outlawing outdated, non-existent practices in a contemporary context is a pretext for laws that will cancel anyone not in agreement with the ideology behind them.

Ten years ago Melanie Phillips documented this well, ‘in Britain, left-wing totalitarianism wears the pained smile of “good conscience” as it sends in the police to enforce “hate crime” laws, drags children from their grandparents to place them for adoption with gay couples, or sacks a Christian nurse for offering to pray for her patient.’ (2010, p.253)

Utopianism demands total allegiance. State terror cannot solve the problems of a society that has detached itself from objective morality. The consequential soul crushing void cannot be answered by inherently flawed ideological movements, that parade themselves as political messiahs.

As Phillips wrote, ‘from the Committee of Public Safety to Iran’s morals police, from Stalin’s purges of dissidents to British and American “hate crime” laws, utopians instigate coercive or tyrannical regimes to save the world by ridding it of its perceived corruption.’ (2010, p.257)

Unnecessary, arbitrary anti-“conversion laws” open the door for anti-discrimination laws to transition from being a shield into being a weapon.

Ambiguous, subjective, whim of the moment laws, are the lifeblood of tyranny.

Governments should be cautious, if not entirely free from legislating arbitrary laws that will ultimately punish free citizens from refusing to align with Leftist, LGBT ideology, or punish people for apostatising from the LGBT religion.

References (not otherwise linked):

[i] ACL, ‘We Can No Longer be Silent & Comfortable’, News of the week, 19th August, 2020

[ii] Phillips, M. 2010. The World Turned Upside Down, Encounter Books

First published on Caldron Pool, 19th August, 2020.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Cartoon: Artist unknown

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

 

In Church, Classical Liberalism, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , ,
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A Layman’s Guide to The Separation of Church & State: What it is & What it’s Not

June 3, 2019 — 1 Comment

The separation between Church and State is not a divide between secular and sacred. Nor is this separation a divide between public and private. Church and State are spheres of authority within the structure of good government. Simply put: one wields the sword, the other the truth of the Gospel. As such the Gospel balances out the ideology behind who gets to yield the sword, when, why and how.

This is why every totalitarian state either twists theology or purges Christians and the Christian faith[1]. They need to suppress God’s moral standard for His creatures, in order to justify their arbitrary use of the sword in bringing about a perpetual revolution until the “utopia” of the proletarian dictatorship is achieved.

Ergo, within the parameters of good government the Church restrains the state, and sets an example of God’s divine world-governance (Providence). For example: rules of engagement like “fire only when fired upon“, is an outworking of just war theory.

It is restrained violence governed; it is restrained violence judged and measured by the Gospel. We cannot understand, or even reform the primarily Western ideal of the separation of Church and State, without understanding the theology behind it.

With the neglect of history, and malady of theological illiteracy that is so dominate in Western life, it’s no wonder that this unique concept, which is built on biblical Christianity (Judeo-Christianity), is widely misunderstood.

Believing in a false divide between secular and sacred, the majority of the German Church, in both World Wars, surrendered their voice and role to that of the State. Faith was a private affair, something for Sundays, not something relevant to every day in between. In World War One, along with 92 other intellectuals, theologian and historian, Adolf Von Harnack, who partly wrote the Kaiser’s speech announcing war, signed on to the State’s arrogant belligerence.

This unquestioning moral defense for engaging in the march to war compromised the separation between the Gospel and the sword; Church and State. Instead of the Church calling for restraint, it sought to give the State moral credibility for the slaughter and suffering of millions.

The same can be said for the German church in World War Two. After the disaster of WW1, the church underwent a process of introspection, lament and reform. It sought to get ‘back to basics; a rediscovery of the Bible, a reminder of the Reformers protest against corruption of the Church and the over-reach of the state.’[2]

Karl Barth’s diagnosis was that Western Civilization, not just Germany, had

‘failed to confront National Socialism firmly because the realization of the Christian revelation among the civilized people of the West had become dim. Men did not see the inherent atheism of the Hitlerian system. Hence, they could not see the robber state from the legitimate state, the democratic from the dictatorship.’[3]

Faith in Western culture was not enough to stop the blitzkrieg before its bombs began to fall, and its gas chambers, masked as welfare units, began to mass execute European Jews and political opponents. Appeasement failed, as Winston Churchill had warned it would. The lapse of, and apathetic faith, in Christian revelation allowed the State to use the Church as its mouthpiece.

Western civilization without Christian revelation; in other words, the State without the genuine Church, is a State without restraint. Ideology is restrained by genuine theological critique. This is the Gospel’s “yes” and “no”. Without the genuine Church being free to live and proclaim its mandate to love God and love others – without the genuine Church being free to proclaim the Gospel as it has been spoken to, Western Civilization will fall to the tyrannical gods that take its place.

Hannah Arendt, one of the most prominent Agnostic thinkers of the 20th century, revised her definition of the Nazis from ‘radical evil’ down to the ‘banality of evil’, because she was ‘aiming at stripping the Nazis of their god-like standing, taking from them the power to draw us to them as if they, and their storm troopers in gleaming black boots, had poured forth from the perils of hell itself.’[4]

Arendt understood the perils of a compromised separation between the Gospel and the sword; Church and State. Though it was worshipped as a god, the Nazi state was not God. Nazism serves as a prime example of the fact, highlighted by Karl Barth, that Western Civilization, without Jesus Christ, or with a watered down version of Him, is far from civilized.

Add to this the horrendous history of Communism and we can say, with confidence, that the world has been well warned of the catastrophe, should these States who attempted to ditch Jesus Christ, be allowed to manifest themselves again.

The separation of Church and State is a founding principle of Western civilization. This separation isn’t about two competing entities. The separation serves God’s divine world-governance. The principle is a continuous challenge to the concept of the “divine right of kings”, and is as equally challenging to any twisted theology that promotes the idea of the “divine right of the State”.

The Churches’ proclamation of the Gospel restrains the State from abusing its power. This counterpoise to the power of the State, stops the State from operating with what Albert Camus called, an ‘unchecked will-to-power, where men become either a victim or an executioner, [a dehumanized number], within a [machine] cult of efficacy’.[5] In other words, the State, counterpoised by the Church, does not get to arbitrarily position itself as God, and determine the quality and worth of human life.

One only has to look at World War One, Communism, Nazism, The Vietnam War[6], Islamic State, and the tragedy of child sex abuse in the institutional church, to understand that the State without the Church is as tyrannical, as the Church who has forgotten, or watered down Jesus Christ.

In a subtle criticism of all forms of Socialism, Karl Barth noted two dangers:

first, ‘bureaucracy is the encounter of the blind with those whom they treat as blind. Second, the limits of all planning and philanthropy, but also all doctrine and instruction’[7], is that we lose sight of the individual created in the image of God. We lose our humanity in worship of efficacy and its assumed “benefit” for the collective.

Abortion and Euthanasia (by stealth) is no less part of this dehumanizing mechanization. An old family friend recently reminded me of how her husband tragically became a victim of this denial of the Gospel’s critique of the State. The health care system failed their family because it favoured the cold clinical ‘cult of efficacy’ and its mechanization of humanity, over against individual care; loving God and others, as we love ourselves.

Many of those who are quick to point out dehumanizing rhetoric are also likely to advocate the dehumanizing practices. Abortion and euthanasia are both part of Nazi eugenics laws. The doctrine, ‘life unworthy of life’ gave the National Socialists unilateral power to determine the quality and value of human life. Humanity was resigned to a number in a mechanized system under the ‘cult of efficacy’. These are the dangers of the State without the Gospel.

The Gospel impacts the State. The historical and present nearness of Jesus Christ categorically denies any State’s violent claim to implement a super-race. From this impact we learn that it is the ‘vulnerable who teach the rest of us what it means to be human’ (Jean Vanier)[8].

The voice and presence of the vulnerable mirror our own humanity. The vulnerable remind us not only of our own human limitations, but that where there is breath there is hope. Not just for the vulnerable, but for the humanity as a whole. As a result, biblical Christian doctrine opposes all pride, right down to Nietzsche’s “ubermench” and the Ayn Rand inspired, “greed is good”.

The Gospel transforms. The Churches’ critique of the State condemns the mechanization of humanity. The Church can do this, because the Church itself is critiqued by its own proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is Jesus Christ, the Word of God, freely spoken to humanity in time and space. This critique is God’s voice of freedom, grounded solely in His sovereignty. This critique births within us a ‘renewing of the mind’ which acknowledges that ‘conformity to the World’ is slavery, not salvation.

This is affirmed by Jesus with these words:

‘For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.’ (John 3:19-21, ESV)

Stopping Western Civilization from joining the dust of its forebears begins with reacquainting people with the Gospel and Civics; a proper understanding of the separation of the Church and State as one of the founding principles of Western civilization.

This separation is about good government dependent on God, not the government becoming a god. The separation of powers is not a divide between secular or sacred, public or private. As though God’s grace and commands only apply to the inner life, not in our deeds.

The separation between Church and State does not create two competing entities. The Gospel impacts the State, restraining the State from abusing its power.

The Gospel isn’t based on a subjective conscience, or consciousness. The Gospel is good news, and objective Word from God spoken to humanity in time and space.

The separation of Church and State is not between the State and Christ. Jesus Christ still has a relationship with the State, as Lord over both it and the Church. Any such forced ejection of Christ from the State is the rejection of God’s grace towards humanity.

Such a rejection creates a void which is filled by nihilism (no morality), false prophets, and superstition. This is what Jordan Peterson has penned the ‘displacement of the Logos from Western Civilization’.

Faith in Western Civilization is not enough. Just as faith in the Logos (Word; Jesus Christ; the Gospel) was central to moral revolution that saw the rise of Western civilization, the dislocation of the Logos (Jesus Christ) from Western civilization will be its downfall.

The 20th century warns us of the perils of this displacement. The State forcing theology into the service of its ideology leads to bloodshed and suffering on an industrial scale, for in ‘hating the light, they brought death upon themselves’[9].

Therefore understanding and upholding the important role of the Churches’ critique of the State, in its proclamation of the Gospel to the State, not as its patron, but its conscience, is the only sure refuge; all else fails by comparison.

Tolstoy’s indictment fits what the State without the Church looks like:

“Bereft of [that] religion [which establishes the relation of man to the All, to God], men possessing enormous power over the forces of nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given as a plaything.” (Bethink Yourselves!, 1904)

In sum, know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.

References:

[1] Jean Bethke Elshtain, 2008. Sovereignty: God, State, and Self, Basic Books

[2] Karl Barth, 1942. The Church & The War, The Macmillan Company (p.2)

[3] Ibid, 1942, p.5

[4] Ibid, 1995, p.75

[5] Jean Bethke Elshtain, 1995. Augustine & the Limits of Power, Notre Dame Press (p.71)

[6] J.William Fullbright (Dem.), 1966. The Arrogance of Power, Random House

[7] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics,  3:2 p.252

[8] Jean Vanier, ‘Why The Strong Need the Weak: J.V at the House of Lords’, 30th January 2015. Sourced from Youtube, Together for the Common Good 2nd June 2019

[9] Augustine citing Virgil, City of God, Penguin Classics, (p.29)

Photo by Ken Theimer on Unsplash

(Originally published on The Caldron Pool, under ‘The Separation of Church & State: What it is & What it’s Not‘ 3rd June 2019.

©Rod Lampard, 2019

In Classical Liberalism, Confessing Church, Karl Barth, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , ,
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Can Ita Buttrose Reform the $1 billion Dollar Tax Payer Behemoth That is The State Owned ABC?

March 5, 2019 — Leave a comment

This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that well known, and trusted, Australian media royalty, Ita Buttrose, would be taking on the chair of the Australian Broadcasting Company (The ABC).

Her appointment to the chair provides hope for many of Australia’s tax payers who want to see a return to a fairer, more representative ABC; one that represents Australia, Australian culture, and Australians.

In other words, having a National broadcaster, that upholds a healthy Australian nationalism. Buttrose’s statements during the press conference point in this direction.

“[The ABC] is a voice of the Australian people. I think it reflects our identity, it tells our stories not just here in Australia but to the rest of the world, and I have grown up with the ABC.”

Adding weight to this, Scott Morrison reminded people that the ABC, needs to do what Ita has always done, put the viewers, the listeners, and their readers first.

“..It’s about the viewers, it’s about the listeners, it’s about the readers, and the services the ABC provides to Australians”[1] […] “Australians trust Ita. I trust Ita and that’s why I have asked her to take on this role and I’m absolutely thrilled that she has accepted”[2]

For the growing majority of Australians who consider the ABC to be an echo chamber for urban Leftist elites; or a propaganda machine for the radical Left, Ita might well be a false dawn, but given her professionalism, service to the community, real change is not just possible, but likely.

Buttrose is a hard worker and comes from the private sector. Having been in the media industry since the early 1970s, her long management experience puts her in a position to not only be blunt in pointing out the bad, it also means that Buttrose isn’t afraid to ask questions that might lead to necessary reforms which will correct imbalances, cherish and preserve the good.

For all those concerned with the ideological, and cultural, direction of the ABC in the past two decades, Ita Buttrose’s appointment might just be the rekindling of a light long extinguished by a collective, who are hell bent on sentencing Australians to the shackles of globalist imperialism, and the leftist cult of modern liberalism.

In the past two decades the ABC has undergone a gradual takeover of its mandate, through its soft treatment of, and pandering to the ideas, and apologetic preaching platforms of Leftist ideologues.

Nowhere is this witnessed better, than the weekly Q & A program, and the unforgettable, infuriating, Howard-hating, Kevin07 fanaticism that made an over-excited, Kerry O’Brien, of the ABC’s 7:30 Report, jump with joy, on live television stating, “We’ve got him! We’ve got Him!” the night John Howard lost the 2007 election.

The looming question is can Ita Buttrose reform the $1 billion dollar tax payer behemoth that is the state owned ABC? And can she do this without making the ABC more of a financial burden on Australians? I think she can. Her first order of business should be a cost-benefit review of staffing and infrastructure. Then start in on a review of how well the service promised in the ABC charter is being delivered to the Australian public.

With Ita Buttrose in the chair, we might see, not just the return of the ABC to its mandate, or its roots, but a return of the ABC to the Australian people.

References:

[1] Laura Tingle, Ita’s Message for Scott Morrison, 3rd March 2018

[2] The ABC, Ita’s Vision for the ABC, Sourced 28th February 2019

©Rod Lampard, 2019

(Published on The Caldron Pool 4th March 2019)

In Classical Liberalism, Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
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Is Activist Journalism, & Social Media, Hindering Due Process & The Right to a Fair Trial?

February 27, 2019 — Leave a comment

Photo by Melany Rochester on UnsplashRegardless of whether the recently convicted George Pell,  is innocent or guilty, there is a precedent in the latest Pell case (verdict) that should send a shudder along the spine of every citizen in Australia.

Greg Craven, lawyer and columnist for The Australian, explains why.

Craven asks whether social media, and the MSM had on influence on the juror’s view of Pell. His question is a good one. Is bias in media reporting, and among some officials, responsible for Pell having been convicted of the crime, in the minds of his jurors, before he was even brought to trial?

“The police and media should be impartial, reporting cases fairly…Media and police never combine to form a pro-conviction cheer squad. This is where the Pell case has gone terribly wrong. Impartial judge and jury accepted, parts of the media – notably the ABC and fromer Fairfax journalists – have spent years attempting to ensure Pell is the most odious figure in Australia.
They seemed to want him in the dock as an ogre, not a defendant. Worse, elements of Victoria police, including Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton co-operated in this. Ashton’s repeated announcements of impending charges and references to “victims” rather than “alleged victims” were matched only by the coincidences in timing between police pronouncements and favoured media exclusives…this include a book from Melbourne University Press, called Cardinal: The Rise & Fall of George Pell, was printed and published before the gag order made it into the public.
This reputational blackening works in two ways. First, at the human level, is there any Australian who does not now associate the word “Pell” with “child abuse”? Second, is there any public official in Australia who does not understand that any action, no matter how appropriate, that might tend towards Pell’s acquittal, will meet swift, public retribution?
This is not the story about whether a jury got it right or wrong, or about whether a justice is seen to prevail. It’s a story about whether a jury was ever given a fair chance to make a decision, and whether our justice system can be heard above the media mob.’
(Excerpt from The Australian, 27th February 2019, p.7 )

I’m not Roman Catholic, and I consider child abuse, institutional or otherwise, to be as bad as abortion. Child abuse doesn’t just involve sexual sin, it’s also an abuse of power.

However, Craven’s question is important.

In light of Kavanaugh, Trump, Covington School boys etc.; We should all be asking, has activist journalism, and social media, hindered due process and the right to a fair trial?

Related reading:

Profiteering from Falsehood: Proof that Leftist Australian media needs a narrative of racism and oppression to stay relevant.
Death by lynch mob: Brett Kavanaugh, Asia Bibi and the shared rage of the mobs out to get them.
Ford Vs. Kavanaugh: The Attempted Hijacking of Justice?

 

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Three Reasons Why You Should be Concerned about Silicon Valley’s Connection to Communist China’s Golden Shield Project

January 25, 2019 — Leave a comment

If you’re not really into Information Technology and are not aware of what the Golden Shield project is, you’re forgiven. The majority of Chinese people either don’t care or aren’t aware of its existence either.

The Golden Shield Project is Communist China’s massive firewall. It’s designed to keep a lid on dissent and ward off foreign influence on Chairman Mao’s, carefully constructed Communist culture, which was largely forced on the Chinese people during the Marxist/Maoist Cultural Revolution[1].

Some basic history: ‘The Golden Shield project has been in development since the 1990s’[i]. According to a Tom McDonald field study published by the University College of London (UCL) in 2016, ‘The Golden Shield Project is the best-known mechanism of Chinese state control over the internet…though most Chinese people are unaware of its existence, those who are, are largely unconcerned about it.’ (ibid)[2]

Both the UCL study (p.147) and Stanford’s Torfox, state that the ‘self-censorship[3] by Chinese internet users, is essentially the byproduct of both Government censorship’ and an unspoken social media etiquette within China, which views ‘posts regarding news, politics and current affairs as inappropriate’ (p.148).

Whilst the UCL study and Stanford’s Torfox online articles don’t talk in an outright manner, about the role fear plays in self-censorship, with what has happened to China’s Uighurs (Muslim community), and the continued harassment of churches, and house churches, along with the imprisonment of Christians, it’s fair to assume that fear of the Socialist State, plays a sizeable role. Heavy Government restrictions[4] on internet use, means online dissent against the Communist Regime is rare. (As a side note to reasons for how fear plays a role in self-censorship, Communist Chinese authorities also silently encourage doxing. It’s labeled, ‘online vigilante justice’, called “Human Flesh Search Engines“.)

Of the two reports, only Torfox makes the suggestion that self-censorship is the result of compliance with totalitarian Government:

‘What makes the Great Firewall of China so effective (and controversial) is not only its complex technology but also the culture that the system engenders – a culture of self-censorship.  The Chinese government mandates that companies be responsible for their public content.  In other words, it is the job of these companies to make sure that their online portals do not contain any prohibited topics or obscenities.  Leading online news media in China, such as Xinhuanet.com, Chinadaily.com.cn, Chinanews, and Baidu.com obediently follow the government’s decree, pledging that they “will make the Internet a vital publisher of scientific theories… maintain social stability, and promote the building of a socialist harmonious society” (Torfox, Stanford).

Tom McDonald’s field study published by UCL also hints at this reasoning:

‘limiting users access to social media platforms, and certain types of content appearing within them, in order to promote  a social media aligned to both the state and family interests,  was only one aspect of state control. Another method was by populating these platforms with content – propaganda and ‘patriotism’ (p.151) […] ‘Most social media posts about politics are nationalistic. There were very few posts that directly criticized the central government, or policies and attitudes of the state’ (p.161).

There are three good reasons why you should be aware of The Golden Shield Project. First, the project is “supported” by Big Tech (Silicon Valley) Companies. Second, it’s a Communist tool used not just to suppress free speech[5], but create and police, a culture of total compliance with Government approved thought, speech and content. What makes this second point even more alarming is that the technology used for The Golden Shield Project is now being exported. Third, the Golden Shield Project is promoted as being something that upholds family values, while underneath this the Government enforces the socialist state, through total surveillance, and sleight of hand, statist propaganda[6].

Although I use the word, “supported” cautiously, it may not come as a complete surprise that the Golden Shield Project is supported by Big Tech (Silicon Valley) Companies.

According to Torfox, ‘transnational Internet corporations such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft are also subjected to self-censorship regulations.  Although censorship is very much against Western ideology, the size of the Chinese market is too profitable for the companies to bypass these opportunities.’ (Torfox, Stanford)

This raises the question, does participating in active censorship, and complying with China’s Golden Shield Project, make these Western, and largely Leftist companies, hypocrites? Further, does this active compliance mean that participating companies are profiteering from an oppressive regime?

Put another way, does the active compliance of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft, Motorola, and Nortel Networks, with China’s Golden Shield Project (which is designed to abolish, punish, and silence dissent, ‘and promote the building of a socialist harmonious society’) mean that these big tech companies, are profiteering from oppression?

Or, as Grant Clark from Bloomberg suggests, are these companies to be viewed also as victims of China’s Communist heavy restrictions?

Simple examples of this compliance include, when Winnie the Pooh, was temporarily banned in  2017.

More complex data shows Google actively blocking the use of its search engine to look up words unapproved by the Chinese Communist Government.

As highlighted by Harvard’s 2002 comprehensive list of searches blocked by Google in China, by request of the Chinese Communist Government. (Complete Chart) Top Ten:

1. Tibet
2. Taiwan
3. equality
4. dissident China
5. revolution
6. dissident
7. freedom China
8. justice China
9. counter-revolution China
10. news China/Democracy China

With this evidence, and these examples in mind, Western concerns about Big Tech companies, which are often ridiculed as fanatical, and fear mongering, are justified.

When these same companies choose to block dissent or a different opinion on their servers/social media platforms in the West, they are importing the same political lockout system that they (at least, in the case of Google, as shown above) apply to Chinese citizens, under the satisfied and watchful gaze of the unelected Chinese bureaucratic caste.  When these companies block dissent or a different opinion, they are choosing to restrict freedom of speech. They are picking a side, and imposing their favored form of ideology on those who may have no choice, but to use their technology or social media platforms.

This should be of concern to Westerners, because the technology used in the Golden Shield Project is now being exported[7].

According to the McDonald field study for UCL, ‘in China, while propaganda frequently ends up forming the basis of news, not all news comes from, or is, propaganda […] [However] 80 to 90% of China’s news is fake news’ (McDonald 2016, pp.151 & 155). Since ‘the Chinese government controls all of the national authority name servers’ (source), it has total control over social media and social media companies.

Evidence of propaganda is seen in the defense of the GSP. Advocates say that Golden Shield Project is only a tool for protecting family values.  The GSP, however, was designed to protect the Communist state, not families. Its primary purpose is to guard the state against the ‘use of the Internet by domestic or foreign groups to coordinate anti-regime activity.’ (China Golden Shield, 2001)

Stanford’s Torfox confirms this, stating that ‘the government initially envisioned the Golden Shield Project to be a comprehensive database-driven surveillance system that could access every citizen’s record as well as link national, regional, and local security together.’

Ergo, even if upholding family values is now a small part of the usefulness of the GSP, it was not part of the Golden Shield Project’s original intent.

In conclusion, it’s reasonable to have governance of the internet based on a nation’s laws and boundaries, but that governance should be small, effective, and preferably have at its core classical liberal ethos, anchored by the Judeo-Christian moral compass. It’s important to remember, that ‘human beings do not have to serve causes, causes have to serve human beings’ (Karl Barth, Against the Steam p.35).

If when talking about the GSP, our focus is on protecting family values, than the GSP is an easy sell. Protections that include internet safety for Children and adults with addictions are plain common sense. For true freedom to exist, it has to have a certain degree of parameters to ensure and uphold its existence. Otherwise, we become enslaved to the machine, and land somewhere in the Matrix.

However, if the goal of governance over the internet, such as the GSP, is the protection of an ideology, an unelected bureaucratic caste, the invasion and suppression of citizen’s rights, and that control is masked by propaganda about protecting family values, then instead of being controlled by the Matrix, we enter a land controlled by those who own the Matrix, which is as equally horrifying.

References:

[1] For a full explanation of this, see Jacques Ellul’s, 1965 publication, ‘Propaganda’.

[2] For a deeper reading of the history, see Bloomberg’s article called, Quicktake: The Great Firewall of China by Grant Clark

[3] McDonald, author of the UCL field study further claims that ‘such reactions can be understood as ways that townsfolk form a strategy for coping with inflexible  controls that they are  otherwise unable to influence’ (p.148). However, ‘the controls which receive the greatest attention outside China – the Great Firewall and deletion of social media posts – are the ones that typically concern local people the least […] Other systems of control – such as checking users’ ages and restricting access for young people – that act at a local level are immediately visible and very important to townsfolk. Some of these measures come from people’s own convictions about the appropriate use of social media, rather than just from state- imposed restrictions’ (p.150)

[4] Bloomberg: ‘Critics say China’s Great Firewall reflects its paranoia over the internet’s potential to spread opposition to one-party rule. As well as impeding freedom of speech, China’s approach constrains it economically, they say, by stifling innovation, preventing the exchange of important ideas and cutting access to services used by businesses like Google Cloud.’

[5] Greg Walton: ‘Many people in China have been arrested for Internet-related “crimes,” ranging from supplying e-mail addresses to Internet publications to circulating pro-democratic information or articles that are critical of the Chinese government, in blatant contradiction of international human rights law guaranteeing freedom of speech.’ (China Golden Shield, 2001)

[6] Greg Walton: ‘China’s Internet regulations and legislation are guided by the principle of “guarded openness” – seeking to preserve the economic benefits of openness to global information, while guarding against foreign economic domination and the use of the Internet by domestic or foreign groups to coordinate anti-regime activity.’ (China Golden Shield, 2001)

[7]  Stanford: ‘China even exports its technology to other countries such as Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Belarus.’ (The Great Firewall of China: Background. Sourced, 23rd January 2019)

[i] McDonald, T. 2016 Social Media In Rural China, ULC Press, U.K. Link to a free copy of the PDF  (p.146)

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2019

(Also published at The Caldron Pool, 24th January, 2019.)

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Voting “No” To Same-Sex Marriage Was Never About Imposing “Christian Law”

November 19, 2017 — 3 Comments

It always surprises me that people tend to only take from what I write, the things they most want to hear. Both for good and for bad. I could write a sentence, draw a picture, create a song or write a poem, and no matter how simple, it would be taken the wrong way.

So let me clarify:

Voting “no” to Same-Sex marriage was never about imposing “Christian law”, to say otherwise is to misrepresent the facts. Voting “no” to SSM was about bringing truth, some semblance of balance back to politics and preserving what is good about our society for future generations.

If the people don’t take an interest in governments, governments will govern outside the interests of the people. It is in all our interest to preserve classical liberal freedoms, to keep science free from ideological prisons, to keep the rule of law as it exists in its basic form, influenced by the moral revolution that saw Western Civilization rise from its solid foundation in Judeo-Christianity.

This basic form exists as 1. Habeas corpus – the right to justice, a fair trial. One that limits the power of the court, king and community. 2. The vote – the right to have your voice heard and participate in the sociopolitics of the day. 3. Private property – the right to earn, create, and serve others without hinderance or threat.

Today’s generation has the responsibility to use the freedom they are given responsibly.

Confusing children about their gender, rejecting biological fact, endorsing forms of misogyny and misandry among many other things, is an evil that must be rejected and stood up against.

We are to cling to the good, and abhor evil. Not encourage it. Evil being the manipulation of others. Evil being the perversion of science. Evil being the corruption of theology for the service of ideology. Evil being the worship of the creature instead of the creator. Evil being the false doctrine that demands truth be whatever you feel it is.

Evil being the sexual corruption of the young to serve the sexual desires of those older than them. Evil being the turning of man against woman, and woman against man, through fear, suspicion, hate, indoctrination and idolatry. Evil being the false doctrine that says the State is my god, parent and lover, my sole provider, my owner, and therefore my master and lord.

For me and many others this loving “no” includes acknowledging the Lordship of Christ; truth, life before any others. It’s about living out our gratitude for what we have been given. It’s about refusing to allow all aberrations of freedom, justice and love.

It’s about saying no in a loving way, so that good – as defined by God in His revelation to us – will be held in distinction from all that threatens it. Therefore, our “no” is a “yes” to freedom, not a denial of it.

This is far from imposing a christian law or a theocracy. It’s about upholding classical liberal principles against a cult of modern liberalism, its lust for power and all that it demands.

Related content:

To Everything There Is a Season: Deifying Our Neighbour Isn’t One of Them
Conscientious Abstention From Same-Sex Marriage Is Not The Same As Racism
They’ve Paved Paradise & Put Up a Parking Lot…
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