Burmese Blogger Banished for 20.5 Years.

[DSL Guy]

Just the beginning for Bloggers exercising freedom of expression.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5129509.ece

In the U.S.A. wrt radio it is called The Fairness Doctrine. WRT the internet it is called Network Neutrality. These are soft-sell terms meaning CENSORSHIP.

Is this in conflict with Article 19? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

[DSL Guy]

What's amazing? How many people don't take this type of thing seriously or who are so hateful toward freedom and liberty!

A week ago I posted this same link to this article in a thread at a site I use relating to e-commerce.
One of the users was so inflamed he asked the admins to shut down the thread (Censorship compounded upon a post about censorship - how amazing :confused:) .

I said nothing inflammatory. I pointed out the censorship and Burma - gave the link and did mention this as dictator love. Maybe that was what lit them up! Huh? ;-)

[FrankV]

Seems that the guy was free to use the blog and the internet was free to allow it to be published and the government that the guy lives in was free to prosecute the guy according to the laws of that country.

Ah, freedom. Such a lovely thought and dream. But freedom must apply to all for it to exist. That includes individuals, societies, countries and other such entities. Each has the right to determine what freedoms are allowed. In other words, there is no such thing as freedom. There are simply less restrictions in some places. I suppose that one could say that some places have more freedom than others, but is that really true?

I learned while working in refrigeration that there is no such thing as cold until the temperature reaches absolute zero. Anything above that and you have some heat. So remember; You are not cold. You simply have less heat than you desire. :wink:

Sometimes one has to look at things from that perspective to get a view of what is and isn't. :)

Each person, society and/or other entity wants their concept of "freedom" to be the only one. That obviously can not happen. Therefore we have disputes that can, and too often do, lead to undesirable things.:(

Enjoy your freedom. :)