RSTA (Road Safety and Transport Authority) issues a notice saying that vehicles carrying obscene messages would be fined heavily / penalised. I was curious, what kind of messages? I have never obscene messages on vehicles...but what do I know?
But again, one of our reporters was told that some examples were "Lady Killer" on a truck, and "Awaaz do" and "Come together and revolt". I havent seen the last one, but they all sound harmlessto me. I mean was a guy really fined for writing "Lady Killer" on his truck? I mean, okay, he may not be the nicest guy around, but it looks like a little too much to me. As for the others, I dont know, they "carry political messages" according to the RSTA people. Now I don't know of a law that says you cannot carry political messages on your car. Are they going to arrest me for rooting for a party in the next elections by sticking one of their posters, maybe?
I don't like where we are heading.
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Our people still don't seem to understand or know what "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of Expression" mean. A Truck, Taxi or any vehicle driver has a right to put whatever words, obscene or not, on his property.
ReplyDeleteLet me start my comment with a hypothetical situation.
ReplyDeleteWhat if tomorrow someone invented a machine which given a source of mass could create anything from it? Let's say that consequently the inventor put the designs up on the Internet where anyone could get at them and build one for themselves.
Different people will respond to such an invention in different ways. I will give two scenarios which could happen.
a) People and governments embrace the invention, making our entire economic and monetary system obsolete overnight. All our energy and resource needs and problems are solved within a few weeks. With no scarcity left, no difference in status, and no need for power struggles, a new era in peace, prosperity, art, and scientific exploration begins. Everyone wins, we have achieved utopia.
b) Governments all over the world panic, and martial law is declared in a knee-jerk effort to save the world economy. Financial experts convince the world that this invention will lead to a loss of trillions of dollars. The largest companies of the world lobby for this invention to be censored, and the inventor imprisoned for the global chaos he has caused. The status quo is restored, and utopia is lost.
Can you imagine scenario (a) happening in our society? Why is that? It's because we humans resist change unless it happens at a glacial pace.
Something similar goes through the minds of conservative people when you mention things like "Freedom of speech/expression", "Victimless crimes". From their point of view, it opens up all kinds of Pandoras like pornography, blasphemy, brain-washing of children, protesters on the streets, divergent views, anarchy. Even though this is an exaggeration, they believe this is what can, and will happen.
This is just an attempt to explain what they think when making laws which seem utterly idiotic to us.
I posted a comment a week ago but it was not put through. Have I been blacklisted? or is someone who promotes free speech censoring comments coming in?
ReplyDeleteDear Kaali,
ReplyDeleteNo, I would not censor your comments, I don't know what happened, I never saw the one you sent...if it was under this post. Maybe it was a glitch...
That was a good analogy bheekling. For Bhutan, because we are coming so late into the media game, everybody has their own view or opinion of what is Freedom of Expression and Press, AND everybody also has differing views on how much of the freedom we can give.
ReplyDeleteThis debate could go on and on. I fully agree that pornography and violence should be controlled; but that is my view and some may not agree with me. We will have to seek consensus on this and then say a majority agree that porn and violence are wrong, then we have to define what is porn and what kind of violence.
What may be obscene to you, may not be to me. What I consider violent may not be violent for you. One person cannot be the judge of that because that is leaving room for censorship.
These issues will have to be debated and as we move with time and grow and mature into our understanding then I am sure we will have the proper mechanisms in place of dealing with these issues.
"A Truck, Taxi or any vehicle driver has a right to put whatever words, obscene or not, on his property."
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts exactly