Question:
The right to free speech and expression must include the expression of ideas through means not shared by the majority, including flag burning

For society to be free and democratic it must have provision for the expression of views contrary to the mainstream, and even directly oppositional to it. This must furthermore extend to the means by which to convey such messages. Public disgust is certainly not justification enough to deny the right to expression. The exercise of a right can only be denied to someone when there is a direct harm to others by exercising that right. In terms of free speech, the words or expressions used by someone must result in actual harms to others, harms that outweigh the inherent harms of denying someone their rights, which is itself a kind of violation. No such harm exists in the case of flag burning1. Some people have an irrational attachment to the symbolic significance of the flag, but it should not be expected by law that everyone share that view. The flag, like all symbols of beliefs and groups, is not inviolable, nor is anyone's piece of mind or health so attached to its wellbeing that the desecration or defacing of it could cause any true harm. Furthermore, the patriotism of individuals watching a flag burning is not affected by it. This view is upheld, for example, by Supreme Court opinion in Texas v. Johnson, when the opinion argued that there could be no better response to a flag burning by someone opposed to such an action than waving their own flag or saluting and paying respect to the burning flag2. People can thus show their opposition peacefully without infringing the right of a protestor to burn a flag. Banning flag desecration on account of a sense of moral disgust, or of the threat to public order caused by angry counter-protestors, is the prohibition of an otherwise lawful act for the reason that others will commit crimes in response. Clearly, these are not justification for banning flag burning.

1Welch, Michael. 2000. Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminalization of Protest. Piscataway: Aldine Transaction. 2Eisler, Kim. 1993. A Justice for All: William J. Brennan Jr. and the Decision that Transformed America. New York: Simon and Schuster.

The prevailing will of the majority can outweigh that of individuals with regard to free speech in some instances, namely when there is harm to people from the acts of individuals. Such is the case with things like hate speech, and certainly does so in the case of flag burning. This is because the American people have such a universal attachment to it that the desecration of the national flag is internalized as a personal attack on themselves. This is certainly a serious and real harm that makes the prohibition of flag burning entirely justified.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

All political hothouses are rife with gossip – usually directed upwards. It’s usually not given credence by being repeated by an experienced journalist who should know better. Perhaps she was having a bad day, perhaps it was a momentary lapse of judgement, perhaps there was just nothing else happening that day but it was a pretty foolish thing to say on national television and tarnished both her reputation and that of Calderón.

The Japanese have no intention of offending South Korea or China with their textbooks and these countries should not be taking offense over such minor issues. While it is regrettable that a tiny minority of students may get a biased view of history from the New History Textbook the actual harm is miniscule. No individuals are directly insulted by a sin of omission, and no one comes to physical harm. Even those who were victims of the Japanese would probably be better off attempting to get formal apologies for the actual crime rather than attacking misrepresentations that will be seen by so few.

For the most part this is an issue whipped up by the two governments who wish to use Japan’s WWII past to try and force concessions today and to direct nationalist ire away from the government. In China according the Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism, “anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together”. [1]

[1] Bajoria, Jayshree, ‘Nationalism in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/china/nationalism-china/p16079

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The power of the act of flag burning generates considerable attention making it a very effective tool of expression and protest

Flag burning is such a powerful and useful method of protest for the very reason that it is a visceral expression to which many people will respond. Jarring statements grab attention, and force discourse on the issue1. A conventional protest can be overlooked, but images of a flag being burned immediately drags in media attention and starts a commentary. While some commentary does center on the issue of flag burning itself, it also necessarily brings it to the cause as well. When protesters are called to explain themselves, they get a chance to explain their views and promote their cause to a much wider audience than they might well not have been able to reach otherwise. Thus flag burning can be very valuable for gaining attention, and if done thoughtfully, to generate support.

1Epstein, Lee and Thomas Walker. 1998. Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties, and Justice. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Inc.

Burning a flag may grab attention, but it will invariably be attention of a kind unwanted by the ones doing the burning. If individuals desecrate a flag with the intent of gathering attention to their cause they will be disappointed when they see that public opinion is turned against them not because of their cause, but because of their methods. An attack on the flag is often seen, and is often portrayed in the media, as being an attack on America itself. For this reason flag burning is almost universally counterproductive to the furtherance of a cause, whether legal or not.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

All political hothouses are rife with gossip – usually directed upwards. It’s usually not given credence by being repeated by an experienced journalist who should know better. Perhaps she was having a bad day, perhaps it was a momentary lapse of judgement, perhaps there was just nothing else happening that day but it was a pretty foolish thing to say on national television and tarnished both her reputation and that of Calderón.

The Japanese have no intention of offending South Korea or China with their textbooks and these countries should not be taking offense over such minor issues. While it is regrettable that a tiny minority of students may get a biased view of history from the New History Textbook the actual harm is miniscule. No individuals are directly insulted by a sin of omission, and no one comes to physical harm. Even those who were victims of the Japanese would probably be better off attempting to get formal apologies for the actual crime rather than attacking misrepresentations that will be seen by so few.

For the most part this is an issue whipped up by the two governments who wish to use Japan’s WWII past to try and force concessions today and to direct nationalist ire away from the government. In China according the Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism, “anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together”. [1]

[1] Bajoria, Jayshree, ‘Nationalism in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/china/nationalism-china/p16079

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Banning flag burning effectively bans questioning of what it represents, and thus bans questioning of the widely held values of the United States

When an individual's views are particularly opposed and contrary to those the national flag is customarily considered to embody, there can be no more valuable way of showing opposition. Should views be judged outdated or in error, people must have a way of showing it in a visceral way that will gain attention and spark discourse. Conventional patriotic views deserve to be challenged, if only to be reaffirmed by the public in the ensuing debate. The problem with prohibiting the act of flag burning is that it necessarily sends the message of banning discourse on the subject of what the flag represents1. It makes those values inviolable, but a free society should be able to question and change its values. Banning flag burning thus essentially bans dissent from the prevailing view. Yet banning something on the basis of majority opinion and their easily offended sensibilities is little more than a heckler's charter. If views are banned simply because the majority disagrees with them, it is little more than the tyranny of the strong over the weak, and thus clearly unjust2. The very reason there are checks and balances in the United States government is to prevent such tyranny. This is exactly why the Supreme Court has stood against the laws passed by the federal and state legislatures banning desecration of the flag; they protect the rights of citizens with a minority opinion from the majority seeking them away3. Flag burning is a form of free speech that helps people question what the United States should be. Banning it only serves to corrupt society.

1Welch, Michael. 2000. Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminalization of Protest. Piscataway: Aldine Transaction. 2Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty. London: Penguin Classics (1982). 3Eisler, Kim. 1993. A Justice for All: William J. Brennan Jr. and the Decision that Transformed America. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

All political hothouses are rife with gossip – usually directed upwards. It’s usually not given credence by being repeated by an experienced journalist who should know better. Perhaps she was having a bad day, perhaps it was a momentary lapse of judgement, perhaps there was just nothing else happening that day but it was a pretty foolish thing to say on national television and tarnished both her reputation and that of Calderón.

The Japanese have no intention of offending South Korea or China with their textbooks and these countries should not be taking offense over such minor issues. While it is regrettable that a tiny minority of students may get a biased view of history from the New History Textbook the actual harm is miniscule. No individuals are directly insulted by a sin of omission, and no one comes to physical harm. Even those who were victims of the Japanese would probably be better off attempting to get formal apologies for the actual crime rather than attacking misrepresentations that will be seen by so few.

For the most part this is an issue whipped up by the two governments who wish to use Japan’s WWII past to try and force concessions today and to direct nationalist ire away from the government. In China according the Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism, “anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together”. [1]

[1] Bajoria, Jayshree, ‘Nationalism in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/china/nationalism-china/p16079

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Risk of a two-tier Internet

As things stand there are relatively flat rate services. The concern is that ISP would charge higher rates for full Internet access or act to ensure that their own content arrived seamlessly and smoothly, while that of competitors was delayed or poorer quality or that higher bandwidth applications end up with a higher price-tag [i] .

This is of concern both to end users and to the producers of content. There are very real concerns here, as a result, about the impact this has on freedom of expression. The best way to avoid censorship – either commercial or political – is to ensure that it remains impossible to achieve in the first place.

Once it becomes possible to give preference to some forms of content or points of origin, then commercial censorship at least becomes a great deal easier.

[i] BBC News Website. “BT Content Connect service faces ‘two-tier net’ claims. 4 January 2011.

This has absolutely nothing to do with censorship – not having net neutrality will not stop users accessing certain sites, just make it slower. Data from some points of origin, especially games and file-sharing programmes slow down the entire network. It’s unfair to other users.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Threats to Freeware, Shareware and Objectivity

There are very real concerns that ISPs have a commercial interest in guiding people away from certain sites – especially when those sites provide services or products for nothing when the ISP or a related company charges for a competing product. File sharing more generally is an obvious target. The example of Comcast against NetFlix and other file sharing sites is simply the most obvious [i] .

There are also concerns about the impact on objectivity more generally; the Internet works most effectively as a tool because it is, by definition cross-referencing. Although there are many mistakes on many sources as a whole it is possible to reach something resembling the truth. Essentially, “We need freeware, we need shareware, and we need open access. People need to be able to trust sources that they can find on the internet, rather than have them controlled in a small number of hands or by the government.” [ii] Making some sites more accessible than others reduces users’ choice and their ability to check multiple sites so preventing this cross-referencing.

[i] A useful overview of some of the more notorious examples can be found here .

[ii] Bob Gibson, Executive Director of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership, on the Charlottesville, VA, politics interview program Politics Matters with host and producer Jan Madeleine Paynter discussing journalism http://bit.ly/pm-gibson

The idea that there is a virtue in providing things for free takes a somewhat cavalier attitude toward jobs. It is a predicate of this, and many other, arguments that the Internet should be either free or very cheap, but this does little for protecting genuine sources of expertise. Equally the costs incurred by ISPs for carrying the huge data loads of heavy users will simply end up being met by users who aren’t using that level of data. It doesn’t seem that unreasonable that those using the data should be paying for that at least. After all, they’re already avoiding paying the studio, the writer, the actors, musicians [i] and many others involved in the production of goods. Freeware may be freely given, but plenty of other pieces of intellectual property aren’t. Why should those people then have the data usage subsidised by others as well?

[i] Songwriters Guild of America. Rick Carnes. “Demythologizing Net Neutrality.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Privacy

This was the clinching argument in the Dutch example. Labour MP Martijn van Dam, one of the bill’s co-authors said that Dutch ISP KPN was similar to “a postal worker who delivers a letter, looks to see what’s in it and then claims he hasn’t read it. It is simply a basic principle of the Internet that for it to continue working as it does now, all data needs to be treated the same otherwise judgements will be formed on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ data [i] .

The principle here is that the data being used is simply none of the ISPs business. Their job is simply to provide an agreed bandwidth, at an agreed price to the end user. How the end user makes use of that band width is up to them. If, for example, they’re choosing to Skype from a mobile device – one of the points of contention – it’s hard to see what that has to do with the ISP.

[i] PCWorld. Matthew Honan, MacWorld. “Inside Net Neutrality: Privacy and BitTorrent. 14 February 2008.

The postal worker analogy is an interesting one. Certainly, the end user wouldn’t want the worker snooping through their mail; however they would expect to pay more for the stamp if they were sending a parcel – the equivalent of sending voice messages or receiving films rather than email and text. It is also not directly analogous to a postman looking at the contents of someone’s mail because to tell what type of data it is and the size ISPs don’t read the content of the data.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Allow ISPs to monitor and remove illegal or unwanted data

Many ISPs are responding to user interests when cutting out particular types of data. At the request of the user why shouldn’t they be able to monitor what is delivered to a certain IP address. Most ‘net nanny’ software is not that difficult to get around [i] .

Why not let parents who bought their kids a computer to help with their homework not be able to block them from making calls or watching movies?

If you compel net neutrality then, say, the ISP who caters for religious customers can no longer deliver the service that they have requested. Denying freedom of choice seems a high price to pay so that someone can get movies without paying for them.

Equally, if ISPs themselves want to stay within the law and prevent people from accessing illegal or otherwise unpleasant sites, why shouldn’t they?

[i] Foss Force: Keeping Tech Free. Caesar Tjalbo. “Top 10 Reasons ISPs are against net neutrality”.

Censorship has routinely been presented in terms of ‘protecting public morals’ or ‘defending national security’ or some similar euphemism, with legislation aimed at pornography but catching everything else in its track as simply the most obvious example [i] . It doesn’t change what it is [ii] . In addition to which, there are very real reasons to believe that the incentives of ISPs here are more financial than moral – they would, after all, stand to make quite a lot of money.

[i] The New Statesman. Nelson Jones. “The Censored Isle”. 6 August 2012.

[ii] Boston College Law Review. Prof. Jonathan Zittrain. “Internet Points of Control”. Vol. 44, pg. 653, 2003.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Incentivise ISPs to provide more data capacity

If the ISPs were actually making their money on the basis of data provision rather than bandwidth then it’s in their interest to provide it. If they can’t, they don’t make money.

If they want to sell more data, they have to provide more bandwidth, otherwise they can’t do it. This way both the data gluttons and the dieters get what they want. The gluttons get a fast provision of the resources they want or the capacity to share those resources at a reasonable speed and the dieters get cheaper provision.

Measures being pursued by the European Commission aim to do exactly this. They will allow ISPs to control the passage of data across their networks but must, at the same time, make it clear what they are doing and offer low data use price plans accordingly [i] .

This is more so with mobile devices than with ‘plumbed in’ ones. For many people, it wouldn’t occur to them to use Skype for a call and a phone – even a smart one – is primarily just that, a phone. Why should they pay for a capacity they will never use because others can’t take a bus journey without watching a movie?

[i] Out-Law.com: Legal news and guidance from Pinsent Masons. European Commission to propose net neutrality measures. 30 May 2012 .

The reverse also applies. In most countries the costs of basic infrastructure are shared. Taxpayers don’t get a discount if they don’t have kids in education, any more than they would just because they disagreed with a war that their taxes help to pay for. The argument doesn’t make sense.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Realistic costs for users and providers of bandwidth and phones

The example of mobile devices is, perhaps the most clear-cut. Manufacturers of mobile devices expect to make their money back and make a profit. They need to do this to pay salaries, invest in the next project and keep their shareholders happy. To do that they make a calculation based on the price of the original product and what additional revenue they are likely to make over the lifetime of that product’s use.

Phone companies in particular have complained that major content providers are simply not paying a fair share of the costs with the VP of Verizon, for example, accusing Google of getting “a free lunch” at the expense of network providers [i] .

Net neutrality compels some companies to ignore basic financial realities [ii] . For all that Proposition – and others such as politicians in Amsterdam and Santiago – may think that changing the basic rules of economics is a good idea, they have yet to explain how this Socialist utopia will work.

[i] Washington Post. Ashad Mohammed. “Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google’s ‘Free Lunch”. 7 February 2006.

[ii] The Economist. “The Difference Engine: Download Dilemma”. 6 May 2011.

It’s no secret that many companies have had difficulty working out effective models for dealing with the internet. That doesn’t justify simple price-gouging. Neither does it justify an invasion of privacy. It’s the equivalent of a restaurant waiting for customers to order, eat their meal and then set the prices.

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
All history is edited

To state the obvious there is an immense amount of history. There is much more history than could ever be taught in school. This means there needs to be some way to cut down everything in history into a sensible sized syllabus. There are some obvious ways to cut down history to a manageable length; such as concentrating on the history of the nation, focusing on certain key events, focusing on things of particular importance to today, or sometimes just on things that are considered fun and interesting. In the UK there have been accusations, including by the current education secretary Michael Gove, that British history is neglected in favour of Nazi Germany and the American west – something that then avoids Britain’s less than comfortable imperial past. [1]

It should therefore come as no surprise that Japan does not highlight World War II and in particular the bad parts of that conflict. Does China teach about its invasion of Tibet?

[1] Vasagar, Jeevan, ‘Michael Gove accuses exam system of neglecting British history’, guardian.co.uk, 24 November 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/24/michael-gove-british-history-neglected

Yes history has to be edited as it could not all be taught but that does not mean that these are the bits that should be edited out. Rather as other nations consider these parts of Japanese history important it is all the more important for Japanese students to study them so as to learn why South Korea and China react in this way

Liberal democracy is in a clash of ideologies with other competing systems, they promote their own systems through other means such as aid to regimes that are considered to be backsliding by liberal democracies with no strings attached. It is critical that the democratic paradigm not submit to the demands of other systems that would undermine the rights and values that democracy has come to view as universal. While liberal democracy may not be the only legitimate form of governance there are universal right, such as freedom of expression, which must be accepted by all states and should be protected both at home and abroad. China’s vibrant dissident community is example enough that the alternative rights framework that the Communist Party offers is deficient. Rather than let those fresh shoots of democratic advocacy be smothered, the West should nurture them, and give them protection when they face vicious threats from cruel regimes.

This is simply untrue; journalists decide what counts as news all the time. It’s called professional judgement. Indeed, it’s what they’re paid to do – sift through what is idle gossip and speculation and discover what is both true and relevant. That’s why we trust newspapers and broadcasters of record and have less time for scandal-sheets.

In this incident, the reporter didn’t just say that a protest had happened, she gave it credibility by commenting on it, despite the fact that she had no proof.

As Timothy Garton ash points out in his commentary on principle 7, there is a supervening value at work in any system of law or social values that obliges religions to demonstrate tolerance for one another and for non-believers. More than a mere value, this supervening idea is identified as a “higher good”. We are told that limitations to religion are necessary in order to prevent free speech from becoming a conduit for conflict. Principle 7 appeals to a universal understanding of risk and safety. It asks us to understand that we risk less conflict in society if we tolerate the existence and pronouncements of other religions. This statement contains that corollary principle that people who wish to see free speech remain a legitimate social force, untroubled by conflict and claims to absolute supremacy, should endeavor to ensure that debates on the fundamental elements of any religion- the existence of God, the divinity (or otherwise) of Jesus, the nature of the revelations received by Mohammed- should be conducted in an open, respectful and structured fashion.

Freedom to engage in a nuanced and calm debate on the nature of a religion is not equivalent to a right to mix the sacred with the taboo, with the specific objective of provoking an outraged reaction. It is revealing that the intended audience for- for example- art works such as “piss Christ” is largely secular and middle class. These are the individuals among whom artists and writers who oppose blasphemy laws wish to encourage debate. But this narrow minded approach does not consider the large numbers of believers who feel shocked and insulted by such images, and who are given the impression that their faith is under attack. If compelled to live in an environment in which unconstrained free speech is given fiat over religious tolerance, religious believers will be less likely to engage in discussions with members of other faiths or non-believers.

Finally, it should be noted that the existence of a state-supervised prosecution process will greatly reduce the possibility that members of a community offended by a blasphemous statement will decide to take action against that statement- be it protest or physical violence- themselves. It also ensures that members of religions that are targeted by blasphemous statements will not feel obliged to become involved in disorganised or violent protest activities.

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

Banning the burning of flags does not in any way ban opinions about the state or the ideals the flag represents. Arson is an essential tool in the quest for reform. Rather than using such methods that do more to offend than to inform, protestors should focus on actually starting measured discourse in a way that is not simply offensive.

This is clearly not the same as buying a gene as the timescales are quite different. These are not words sold off in perpetuity, neither were they previously in use by someone else as was the case with land grabs by colonizing settlers. This is a description of an event that would not have taken place without the sponsorship for the duration of that event. Both of the other examples are of the permanent acquisition of something that was previously communal property.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

It is exactly because of the visceral response it causes that flag burning is such an effective tool of protest. It draws media and public attention, thus giving the protestors the chance to speak to a wider audience than they might ever have been able to had they used other methods. While there might be some rhetorical backlash, it is not enough to make it not worthwhile. In the case of violent response, the ability to exercise a right should never be infringed by the potential for a violent response to its exercise. People's rights should be better protected in that case, not restricted.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim