Tomorrow

Offtopic - but related:

Activision released a statement earlier in the week saying the OFLC
have just granted Soldier Of Fortune: Payback an MA15+ rating. What
this boils down to is in order to meet the requirements, the ragdoll
physics and blood levels have been toned down, and there will be no
dismemberment. This pissed me off. It pissed me off more than the
Manhunt ban pissed me off, not because I wanted the game (it is a pile
of poo), but because these fuckwits still assume the average gamer age
to be <12.

It has been happening since I was in high school, but the government
is beginning to really take a turn for the worst. Australia has become
a nanny state... If you disagree then you're not informed.

From how many pets we can have in our houses, to what games we can
play, to what porn we can watch and soon; even what websites we can
visit, the government nowadays is just restricting and regulating in
all sorts of crazy ways. If you ask me it's to ensure their
overzealous religious beliefs are enforced.

Unfortunately the Labor Party is even worse than the the current
Liberal Government. They have stated that they have no interest in
creating an adults only classification for games and want to mandate
ISP level filters for everyone in Australia. We've become one of the
most repressed Western nations in the world (the US takes this crown)
and unfortunately, due to the fact we have no real rights in our
constitution, nobody can do anything about it.

This is supposed to be a democracy yet the government never seems to
listen to what the Australian people want. They seem to be hell bent
on enforcing their Christian ideology on this secular state and so far
it's working for them. Overall Australia maybe a nice place to live
but in all honesty I'd much rather live in Canada or somewhere else
wherein the government actually gives people choice.

It's not just about banning video games; the government tells
P-platers what cars they can drive, what time they can drive, and how
many people they can have in the car. They tell you what you can do
with water YOU pay for and if you don't comply you get fined. They
even contradict the whole concept of democracy by FORCING all
Australians over 18 to vote and again, if you don't comply they fine
you. I would have thought that compulsory voting would be incompatible
with a democratic constitution but hey, you can always rely on the
Australian government to violate and disregard the rights of the
people.

Admittedly movies, books and music don't face the same tough
restriction games do, the fact remains that every form of media except
music is regulated by the government. Music is the one thing in which
cannot be regulated by law but even so pressure by the government has
made sure that the music industry undertakes self censorship. The
government even requires you to have a license to own a paintball gun
for fucks sake! Where does the regulation stop?

Regulation to this extent is not normal. It's an early warning sign of
a soon to be fascist dictatorship. We can't even pretend to be a free
country. Combine the lack of a bill of rights with the increasing
popularity of religion and Australia is what you get.

Regardless of what the Australian people say the government still
moves ahead with what ever it likes. Lets take the Workplace Reforms
as an example; the majority of people DO NOT WANT THEM IN PLACE! Yet
of course little Johnny Howard doesn't give a fuck, he'd rather remove
more rights of the people. He's a total disgrace to the Liberal party.
Liberal is supposed to mean open minded and well....LIBERAL! Howard is
just a conservative, pretentious prick. He shouldn't be allowed to
lead the Liberal party and be openly conservative at the same time.
Not to mention the fact that religion and state need to be kept
separate but we lack the laws in this country to enforce that.

Bah... this country has gone down the crapper. Who wants to move with
me to Canada, New Zealand or the UK?*

*Or any other country that allows dart bars.

mm