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The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country.

by mohene1 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- Zirro 15y ago
  You are allowed to express your opinion. Your comment is still here. People dislike it (to the point of considering it trolling, it would seem) and downvote you, though.
  - jquery 15y ago
    Eh, his comment was fine. I think too many people have access to the downvote button again. PG should raise the threshold to 1000 karma.
vacri 15y ago
Australia has very little in the way of protests and the only uprising we had was 150 years ago... a mere thirty died. Yet we've slumped to 30th in the ranking. Besides, Papua New Guinea has armed separatists, plus Port Moresby is one of the murder capitals of the world, yet it's 10 positions higher than the US.
- mohene1 15y ago
  Why is Australia ranked low for press freedomthen? The only controversial thing I can thing of in Australia is the mining industry. Do you all have protesters against the mining industry...thinking of Midnight Oil's "Blue Sky Mine"
  - Zakharov 15y ago
    "In Australia (30th), the media were subjected to investigations and criticism by the authorities, and were denied access to information" according to the article. Personally, I don't see why the authorities have any less right to criticize the media than media have to criticize authorities. I don't think the mining industry has anything to do with it.
  - vacri 15y ago
    The public has done a bizarre about-turn on the mining tax. When it was introduced, the frothing middle-Australians were saying "How dare you bring down those who have brought prosperity to our nation!?". In the intervening years it's become apparent that those mining profits are largely going to overseas owners, yet still screw up the rest of our economy ("two-speed economy" - the rest of the economy is growing, but the mining makes our dollar grow faster yet...). Now middle Australia is whining that the gummint didn't tax those greedy miners enough, they're screwing us over and we aren't getting our cut. One of those times you actually feel sorry for the politicians. That's off-topic though - the mining tax has left public discourse in the last year, but there's lots of noise about internet content filtering, plus according to the page about Australia on the press freedom index, there's lots of obsfucation at the government level when it comes to requests for information. There's not much in the way of protesting, but there were things like reporters working on the wikileaks story having their work blocked.
hristov 15y ago
Or you can have protests but not use force against them. Or more specifically do not use force against the journalists. Of course one goes with the other, if you want to beat up some peaceful protesters you have to beat up the journalists covering your original beating too. The occupy protests were peaceful and they generally did not break shops and vandalize things. There was no reason to treat them that way.
- jquery 15y ago
  I'm sorry, the Occupy protests have NOT been peaceful. Just last week in SF, a couple police officers ended up in the hospital. Nevermind the amount of property they managed to trash. They were also lucky they didn't kill anyone, they were throwing bricks and objects off an abandoned hotel near where I live.
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    Upvoted (back to 1) for being able to give an example, but though there have been a few violent incidents associated with Occupy, for the most part they've been remarkably restrained - more so than I would have guessed. To the extent that police violence is justified by what Occupiers do we should ignore it[1], but was a single one of those 25 incidents of violence against reporters justified? Certainly few if any. [1] e.g. if you surround a group of police and tell them you aren't going to let them leave until they release their prisoners, I'm not going to cry over you getting tear-gassed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    Link?
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  Occupiers in Seattle and Oakland have broken into homes. There is also a post by a Seattle Occupy organiser who boasts about running around disrupting traffic: "Get the music blaring and then march aimlessly, blocking traffic the whole way, for hours" * I support the NYC Occupiers (I live in NYC) because they voice their cause while trying to minimize collateral disruption. If the NYC Occupiers were causing random destruction I would find it difficult to continue empathising. The police should be gentler in their force escalation by issuing plenty of warnings and then gently arresting for short detainment (as a cool-down). But as another comment mentions, sometimes their hands are forced, e.g. SF and Seattle protesters hurling bricks. I would prefer an early crackdown than let the dynamic spiral beyond legitimacy as it did in London. Temporary fix to the press problem may be the press wearing clearly identifying clothing. That dampens the police's excuse that they blend in with the hooligans (every protest, regardless of how legitimate, will attract its unfair share of these). *http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-outsmarts-police-creating-blueprint-for-other-occupations/ http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-o...
tripzilch 15y ago
Of course you're allowed to your opinion. It's just that people tend to downvote the really unintelligent ones that don't actually add to the discussion a lot. I'm sure that if you'd have given arguments for your statement instead of wording it as a brainless and inflammatory one-liner, people might have given you the same courtesy instead of immediately reaching for the downvote button. And in my opinion, that's a good thing. When there are no arguments, not even a statement of what exactly your point is, inviting discussion and what you say happens to be exceptionally uninformed and moronic, then yes, have at it with the downvotes because I don't need to read it. If the opinion would have any value whatsoever, somebody else is going to make it in an informed manner and back it with arguments. > The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country. FWIW: Let's assume, for the sake of argument you intended to say "violent protests" (regardless which side to blame for the violence, gov or protestors) as otherwise your statement is simply factually incorrect and any discussion may as well end here. Assuming that, you're (deliberately?) confusing cause and effect: Being high on the list gives rise to less (violent) protests and uprisings in your country. And suddenly, given that people value freedom as one of the highest things, and will go through great lengths to achieve it, that makes perfect sense.

The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country.

by mohene1 15y ago

The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Zirro 15y ago
You are allowed to express your opinion. Your comment is still here. People dislike it (to the point of considering it trolling, it would seem) and downvote you, though.
- jquery 15y ago
  Eh, his comment was fine. I think too many people have access to the downvote button again. PG should raise the threshold to 1000 karma.

vacri 15y ago

Australia has very little in the way of protests and the only uprising we had was 150 years ago... a mere thirty died. Yet we've slumped to 30th in the ranking. Besides, Papua New Guinea has armed separatists, plus Port Moresby is one of the murder capitals of the world, yet it's 10 positions higher than the US.

mohene1 15y ago
Why is Australia ranked low for press freedomthen? The only controversial thing I can thing of in Australia is the mining industry. Do you all have protesters against the mining industry...thinking of Midnight Oil's "Blue Sky Mine"
- Zakharov 15y ago
  "In Australia (30th), the media were subjected to investigations and criticism by the authorities, and were denied access to information" according to the article. Personally, I don't see why the authorities have any less right to criticize the media than media have to criticize authorities. I don't think the mining industry has anything to do with it.
- vacri 15y ago
  The public has done a bizarre about-turn on the mining tax. When it was introduced, the frothing middle-Australians were saying "How dare you bring down those who have brought prosperity to our nation!?". In the intervening years it's become apparent that those mining profits are largely going to overseas owners, yet still screw up the rest of our economy ("two-speed economy" - the rest of the economy is growing, but the mining makes our dollar grow faster yet...). Now middle Australia is whining that the gummint didn't tax those greedy miners enough, they're screwing us over and we aren't getting our cut. One of those times you actually feel sorry for the politicians. That's off-topic though - the mining tax has left public discourse in the last year, but there's lots of noise about internet content filtering, plus according to the page about Australia on the press freedom index, there's lots of obsfucation at the government level when it comes to requests for information. There's not much in the way of protesting, but there were things like reporters working on the wikileaks story having their work blocked.

hristov 15y ago

Or you can have protests but not use force against them. Or more specifically do not use force against the journalists. Of course one goes with the other, if you want to beat up some peaceful protesters you have to beat up the journalists covering your original beating too. The occupy protests were peaceful and they generally did not break shops and vandalize things. There was no reason to treat them that way.

jquery 15y ago
I'm sorry, the Occupy protests have NOT been peaceful. Just last week in SF, a couple police officers ended up in the hospital. Nevermind the amount of property they managed to trash. They were also lucky they didn't kill anyone, they were throwing bricks and objects off an abandoned hotel near where I live.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  Upvoted (back to 1) for being able to give an example, but though there have been a few violent incidents associated with Occupy, for the most part they've been remarkably restrained - more so than I would have guessed. To the extent that police violence is justified by what Occupiers do we should ignore it[1], but was a single one of those 25 incidents of violence against reporters justified? Certainly few if any. [1] e.g. if you surround a group of police and tell them you aren't going to let them leave until they release their prisoners, I'm not going to cry over you getting tear-gassed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y
- tripzilch 15y ago
  Link?
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
Occupiers in Seattle and Oakland have broken into homes. There is also a post by a Seattle Occupy organiser who boasts about running around disrupting traffic: "Get the music blaring and then march aimlessly, blocking traffic the whole way, for hours" * I support the NYC Occupiers (I live in NYC) because they voice their cause while trying to minimize collateral disruption. If the NYC Occupiers were causing random destruction I would find it difficult to continue empathising. The police should be gentler in their force escalation by issuing plenty of warnings and then gently arresting for short detainment (as a cool-down). But as another comment mentions, sometimes their hands are forced, e.g. SF and Seattle protesters hurling bricks. I would prefer an early crackdown than let the dynamic spiral beyond legitimacy as it did in London. Temporary fix to the press problem may be the press wearing clearly identifying clothing. That dampens the police's excuse that they blend in with the hooligans (every protest, regardless of how legitimate, will attract its unfair share of these). *http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-outsmarts-police-creating-blueprint-for-other-occupations/ http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-o...

tripzilch 15y ago

Of course you're allowed to your opinion. It's just that people tend to downvote the really unintelligent ones that don't actually add to the discussion a lot. I'm sure that if you'd have given arguments for your statement instead of wording it as a brainless and inflammatory one-liner, people might have given you the same courtesy instead of immediately reaching for the downvote button. And in my opinion, that's a good thing. When there are no arguments, not even a statement of what exactly your point is, inviting discussion and what you say happens to be exceptionally uninformed and moronic, then yes, have at it with the downvotes because I don't need to read it. If the opinion would have any value whatsoever, somebody else is going to make it in an informed manner and back it with arguments. > The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country. FWIW: Let's assume, for the sake of argument you intended to say "violent protests" (regardless which side to blame for the violence, gov or protestors) as otherwise your statement is simply factually incorrect and any discussion may as well end here. Assuming that, you're (deliberately?) confusing cause and effect: Being high on the list gives rise to less (violent) protests and uprisings in your country. And suddenly, given that people value freedom as one of the highest things, and will go through great lengths to achieve it, that makes perfect sense.