Politics, News & Issues >
Political Issues
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedGoogle claims that Internet censorship is the same as international trade barriers
Results so far:
| Disagree | 57% | 92 votes | Total: 160 votes | |
| Agree | 43% | 68 votes |
Disagree
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesCensorship and trade barriers do not cover the same ground exactly. Censorship is the prohibition or suppression of information while trade barriers attenuate the transference of money for goods and services. Knowledge and money are two distinct things, though it can be argued that they are two distinct forms of information, or two different forms of intrinsic value.
The suppression of either one can be fairly described as impositions of degrees of ignorance and/or poverty on a subject population for political purposes. They are also similar in light of the proliferation of, on the one hand, information services of all kinds including the internet, and on the other hand of free markets worldwide, in that suppression of either are increasingly difficult. Free markets are notoriously impossible to control, and in the last few decades information exchange has undergone a transformation that is truly unprecedented in history.
Five hundred years ago, the cost of the written word plummeted by a factor of more than a hundred in a single generation due to the development of the printing press and has continued to drop ever since. So much for the dark ages. Today, the cost of information has essentially vanished and the implications can be difficult if not impossible to grasp. Information isn't just cheap, it's free. There is no heart to cut out of world communication; it repairs itself, circumventing damage, circumventing interference.
Is censorship the same as trade barriers? Not exactly. Censorship more closely resembles burying ones head in the sand, your constituents still have access to that information whether you like it or not. The recent growth in world free trade is growing and exhibiting similar increases in immunity from such things but has not made quite the same quantum leap; trade barriers still have the power to impose hardships, but now they no longer have the full advantages of propaganda they once enjoyed for their justification. I think that slight difference is important.
Learn more about this author, John Groeneman.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Agree
I would have to agree with this unusual and insightful statement. International trade barriers inhibit the free exchange of goods and services. And it's safe to say that all international trade barriers are detrimental to someone. One country or organization has an advantage because of these barriers and another country or organization has a decided disadvantage. From the prospective of a true 100% global economy international trade barriers are detrimental.
The internet deals in thoughts ideas and creative expression and to censure one thought process, or group, or group of people, is the same as building a trade barrier against them.
Even if you take something as offensive and morally wrong as child pornography as an example, by prohibiting some people and nations from selling it you are pushing the customer to deal with other countries or nations that have a more liberal policy in it's regard.
Please don't misunderstand and assume that I am for child pornography because I am not, but the fact is that some people are, and those people spend millions of dollars a year to buy, sell, trade, and produce it. When we as a country censure it this does not stop this thriving underground economy, it only forces it somewhere else. The demand is there and it is real, so by erecting trade barriers against it or censuring it in the case of the Net, we are only making this commodity more scarce and more valuable.
Learn more about this author, J. Swaney.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Political Issues
- Congress's approval rating is worse than President Bush's
- Should US leaders approve the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights?
- Should members of the Bush Administration be prosecuted for torture?
- Should Congress approve Obama's "end global poverty" bill with the $845 billion price tag?
- Should the US allow torture as a means of fighting the War on Terror?
- Should tax cuts and spending increases be offset by an equal amount of tax increases and spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget?
