W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AND LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, MARCH 2001,

PRIOR TO THE VOTING ON THE ITEM FOR THE L.C. No. 36, “CLASSIFICATION (PUBLICATIONS, FILMS AND COMPUTER GAMES) (MISCELLANEOUS)
AMENDMENT BILL 2000”

FROM THE AUSTRALIAN PRESBYTERIAN BIBLE CHURCH INC.

IN PROTEST AT THE ABOVE BILL AND PRESENTATION OF GROUNDS

FOR SERIOUS ADJUSTMENT

Dear Parliamentarians,

You may wonder that a Church should express its concern in this manner. However, information concerning this Bill has not long been with us, and since time is not now extensive before this Bill comes for consideration, it seems best to ensure that NO member of either body should be unaware of our concern, lest we ourselves prove deficient in such a time. What you do is your own concern; that you be given opportunity to study these considerations, is ours.

It is our concern that while the ostensible purpose of the Bill seems, in conjunction with the earlier Commonwealth Acts (see detail in enclosure), to be to prevent mental and emotional molestation, pre-eminently, of those who are younger, manipulation, exploitation being a category overall, and while this is an object which in principle we can heartily endorse, yet there is a grave problem in the Bill’s formulation.

Thus, its wording is such that it may serve not only a very different purpose, but actually make available authority to police and courts which, taken as it stands, would empower and enable repressive if not persecutory action against religious bodies, to name but one category, which would amount to intimidation, expropriation of just liberty and a reversion in history to times not always pleasant to recall. While we for our part trust in the deliverance of God, for His own purposes, and in His own way, it would seem irresponsible not to bring warning of the extraordinary dangers to this country, to your attention.

Again, we bring focus to the danger posed to Christianity, as this is our due concern, but it also has applications to other religions, and to other topics on the Internet. In view of our only recent awareness of this legislation in this State, we have not as yet alerted other churches, and so write in this way.

We would appreciate it, therefore, if you would address the enclosed pages, which relate in detail from the text of the various relevant Acts, and the Bill, the grounds of our concern. These cannot be dispelled by assumptions of great restraint and consideration, from those who hereafter would administer the Act, should it be passed in its present form, or one like it. What is written in any Act, will tend increasingly be what is understood, even if current thoughts might prevent that immediately.

Power is not always amenable to such considerations, and the more so, as governments change, and to use the type of terminology found in the legislation, as society’s acceptable morals and culture change likewise. Such changes become increasingly what are invoked as regulative principles in interpreting the legislation, which is expressly made sensitive to such things, in advance.

It is the principle which matters; and this principle of liberty, so much affirmed since World War II, while it needs defence against abuse, as has long been foreseen with many protective laws, also needs its integrity, so that such protection does not annul the reality. If freedom of expression for teaching, due presentation of moral and religious matters, exhortation to amendment of life and the application of relevant principles become seducible into very different categories because of the cultural norms, there is liable to follow a degradation in the land, which may cost it far dearer than either of the two world wars.

Great countries have often fallen for this. It is our hope that this will not be the next. In essence, it is necessary in the Bill due for debate in Parliament next week, to STATE what is meant, nothing less, nothing more, and to AUTHORISE what is necessary, nothing less, nothing more, and that both these aspects ally themselves to reality, maturity and liberty, while reserving the power of the law, its interference and sanctions, not for divergences from any contemporary norm, but for indisputable crime.

A suggested amendment, to limit the authority and protect the peace, is presented on p. 20 below. Please study this, for while it does not remove all the perils of the Bill, it does somewhat reduce them, and others may of course wish to protect further aspects of civil life, so that purity with peace, and sound endeavours with a good understanding, with words of correct limitation might adorn the land.

We do of course appreciate that this Bill is not from all Parties, and that some of you have had no part in its formulation, and that some in every Party, and Independents, may also oppose it on various grounds. All however have every part in voting for its passing with or without qualification, or annulment, or for the requirement it be re-written. There is no need to reply; ours is the responsibility to bring this to your attention; after that, it is moved to yourselves, each one.

Rest assured that if we did not conceive this Bill a major work of peril for this State, we would not be likely to be moved to any such step as this; but responsibility to our Lord, whose work it may adversely affect, and concern for the State make it on this occasion, unavoidable. The enclosure is adapted from a chapter of a work of the undersigned, and this is done in view of the impending legislation, as scheduled for attention next week, and its nature.

In the service of Jesus Christ,

Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson

Th.D., M.A., B.D., B.A., Dip. Ed.

Minister, for

The Australian Presbyterian Bible Church Inc.

Is liberty taking wings, to fly away ?
Or is she to be SENT flying in S.A. ?

THE VERY LARGE BILL THAT MUST BE PAID FOR

It is with horror and something not far from amazement that one finds Victoria greatly outdone by South Australia, not in an Act that merely invades liberty, but in a Bill that is to be discussed in days, this March, which makes Victoria's failure seem almost a gifted success, by comparison. (Cf. Galloping Events,Ch.7,.)

To give God the glory, however, one is delivered from being too amazed, because JUST SUCH THINGS as this have been forecast, and the forecasts of the Bible have often been considered, years ago, on this Web site (e.g. Mystery of Iniquity, in The Other News).

The Bill is intended, it appears, to implement with what, in Australia is apparently necessary in such a case, that is, the provision of authority at the State level, before the Commonwealth legislation on communication can take full effect.

Provisions of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act of the Commonwealth, 1995 ('the principal Act'), as developed or amended later, are now to be implemented and individualised by each State, it appears. (See earlier, Joyful Jottings 14, esp. pp. 101ff. and *1 .) By it was set up the Classification Board which defines, tags and applies. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill held further restrictions.

The latter developed the insistence on protection of minors by using an 'R' as a rating to require their protection. This, in principle, to many would very naturally seem in the right direction. However, this matter has taken on a sinister and in terms of presentation at least, sometimes a surreptitious air. The matter of minors has become a major restriction, vastly beyond the question of pornography, obscenity and allies, in terms of which explanation for the severity of the Act may at times be given. Such references cover merely a small part of the scope of the legislative action!

To aggravate this situation, there is now to be found the presentation of the idea (with force) of making material on the Web which gained such a tag, this 'R', this not suitable for minors, to be subject to multiple disciplinary action under Commonwealth law, since minors (under 18 folk) could conceivably look at it. In South Australia, added escalation is proposed.

Such teeth for juvenility! The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill now before South Australians, and soon D.V., to be debated, has further developed restrictions and specified penalties.

In fact, in January 2000, The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act, the Bill of 1999 became law. Flags might well have been half-mast. The shameless seeming character of this intrusion into academic and other presentation on the Web, so (relatively) soon after the two World Wars appears as an insult to many who fought in them. That it should be characterised as good, when it appears so evil in its debasement of human life at this internet level, is not unique. Many regimes have done no less. For Australia, however, it is a fall as from a cliff, to jagged rocks beneath. This great land would so be reduced by so small a conception that the trade mark, Australia Minor would be all too likely. Is this to be it ?

This Act of 2000, made provision that material not suitable for those under 18 should be restricted, and not allowed online without a filter of approved and complex kind, to distance people who might otherwise freely have access. It also provided for notice to be given for the take-down of material deemed restricted, and not filtered. This appears to have been the first of the acutely intimidatory, juvenile-constraint movements taken and able to act against highly moral and proper material, removing the reality of free speech and presuming to limit to youth level, in acutely compressed terms, ALL freely available on the net.

Let us however look more particularly at what however is required to attain the 'R' or restricted rating relative to minors. What is to be found in this category ? Evil things, of course, horrendous or ghoulish, inroads of evil corruption ... In the turmoils of the various references and referrals in this Commonwealth material, one finds reasonably well-written phrasings of undoubted evils, needing supervision, such as this:

"matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety".

That of course gets a stern rating, but there it is, looking at legitimate matters of concern.

While some, to be sure, might be concerned at possible misuse of such matters for censorship, at least the drift is quite clear, and the problem being faced quite concrete. It is precisely this which would lend some credibility to the effort of the law makers in this respect, were it not for such nearly incredible accessions and additions as are apparently without any shame, inserted into it, for the simple category of 'R', restricted!

That phrasing quoted above, incidentally, is to be found in Draft Enforcement Provisions, as it appears on the Net, "suitable for inclusion in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Act 1995 (NSW). " It proceeds to note: "If this Part is inserted into that Act, many words and phrases used in this Part will have the same meaning as in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Acts 1995 of the Commonwealth." Our point here is simply this, they have, and are already VERY aware of, some reasonably good wording in a preliminary sense, to cover what in principle are legitimate concerns, to which some censorship might be addressed.

Is This a Reckless Rocket,

Apparently Aimed Also at those at Peace,
Poised to Charge them as it Lands to Explode in their Midst,
of being 'Reckless' ?

Or is it a Perfected Case of Adding Insult to Injury:
And of What it Stands Guilty, Uttering Condemnation ?

However, the matter has skyrocketed until it has become a space rocket, with an enormous space left from the earth, in an aerial survey proposed now by the Government, so that the Brave New World thought police are becoming much less surreal by comparison. Quickly can it descend to this earth! The sky is burdened with it, as with the Russian rocket, shortly expected to land in many pieces, in our sector of the world.

Now the official mood has manifested itself, enlarging on the weaknesses in the Commonwealth Acts, and beyond notable in the Draft Enforcement Provisions as mentioned above. 'R' does not at all mean MERELY notoriously or abominably corruptive from sources of ill-intent, or something in that direction. It means simply what is deemed NOT SUITABLE for minors.

The fascinating and all but incredible feature is this, that this high moral ground, very commendable in principle, which was being taken, and is still mouthed in reference to what appears this liberty death-yard Bill, has become a highly immoral ground. It is now the Bill which is immoral, in this that it brings in of its own accord, things not justly comparable to "abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety."

What then is it doing ?

It is presuming to open the way to harassment and limiting liberty of expression to an extent hard even to imagine in the wonder days of achievement, when World War II was just finishing, and thought and ideological tyranny was being given its due, when the value of liberty was still strong in the popular mind! and international formulation sought better things.

That is itself abhorrent, almost to the limit possible!

In the same draft, we find, as indeed likewise in the South Australian Bill shortly to be discussed in Parliament, with a view to making it law in this State, that a person may be found guilty of "recklessness" in not foreseeing the condemnation which could come to his/her material on the Internet. Instead of noticeable reason prevailing in enlightened discussion about the proper status of material on the Web, there is the implicit charge that you should have foreseen the criteria at some given point in cultural history, assessed it aptly, and that if you did not, instead of being given opportunity to defend against what may well be slander or blindness or both, for authorities are not per se angelic or enlightened, and are capable of cultural occlusion, you are already due for condemnation, since you dared to put it up, when doubt is assessed to have been the least possible emotion you should have felt.

True it is 'only' $10,000 for failed insight that you are to be charged, at the most: but this penalty for non-conformity to juvenility, and assessments thereof, seems so near to the work of dictators in the recent past, that if it be not thrown out at this stage, perhaps the land will deserve the next. Almost certainly, just as this 'advance' on the Commonwealth law is being presented in S.A., later advances will likewise come. There is a time to cease dreaming, as if words were merely political counters, and to awake.

Let us face it simply. If a content-provider did not correctly estimate the moral feelings of the Body which censors, this is reckless, or may be deemed so. If a prophetic gift is not required to make such an estimate of the rapidly changing, downwards directly mores of society, it is not far from it! Fail and you face fine. But in what are you to fail, if you are to be fined ? In this: that you speak on the internet in a way which would "not be suitable for a minor". THAT is the explicit criterion for exclusion, and whatever its modes and manners, this is the phrase, this is the objective as stated! FURTHER, the material is "unsuitable…" if it is such that it "would, if classified, be classified R…" (Part 7A, underlining added). So does classification reach retrospectively.

You might, as is explicit, be presenting religious issues, but if it is found by the Moral Body that you are out of the depth or scope of the minor who might listen in, or of what the Board considers fitting for that minor, though you may not invite: then of THIS mis-estimate you may freely be found guilty.

You dared to act as an adult in this sphere, a MORAL adult, it may be, but still, in this forbidden manner ... adult! Thus it appears you may become a criminal, to the great aid of the intimidation. Doubtless, this is progress; but the point is, it is in the wrong direction.

Anyone can lacerate liberty with comparative ease; to preserve it, however, and yet punish crime, it is this which requires apt government. It requires it indeed, relative to youth in its own integrity also.

THE GENTLE ART OF DEVELOPMENT

What in practice does this mean ? This, that by the time we come to the new South Australian Bill, things have come far beyond the original emphasis of the 1995 Law, and in some ways, that of 2000, both noted above. Thus, as we see, it is now the case that the 'R' or restricted rating is to apply to material not suitable for minors, under 18, and if you should dare 'recklessly' to fail to perceive what the Moral Censoring Body conceives to be unfit for the minors, then yours may be the demeaning rather than endearing fate of becoming a criminal, as well as subject to a fine up to $10,000 for

a) not being sufficiently like a minor in your presentation on the Web and
b) not foreseeing that someone else, or some group,
who are officially meant to sense the mood, the values, the feeling of society,
may, in a majority only, find.

Further, the areas under censorial review are now defined by the Commonwealth body as those not only that might not fit the cap of minors, but SPECIFICALLY issues which would render them "adult" and so those inclusive of "marital problems, emotional trauma... death and serious illness, racism, religious issues." To be sure what is DEFINED in the GLOSSARY provided thoughtfully by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, as ADULT THEMES, may not be compatible with the REQUIREMENTS of being SUITABLE FOR MINORS! It may be useful to quote in full from their glossary on the area of the FORBIDDEN, the VERBOTEN verbiage for Australians living in South Australia, if the Bill is to fly into Act, and become law.

Adult ? Why yes: "Issues dealing with aspects of adult life that are potentially harmful to minors, or disturbing. Adult themes may include verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol, dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues" (emphasis added). OUT, oh spot! (with apologies to Lady Macbeth).

Useless to try to defend this monolith of moral majesty erecting itself, by saying that the MORAL ARBITERS AUTHORISED to condemn, MIGHT not condemn. Certainly they might not, but are not materials by law (if this Bill pass) to be conformable to minors, if they are to be allowed to major on the internet!

First, if it is not for minors, but rather what adults discuss, then that is at once moving into the statutory realm readily to be dubbed the non-permissible, subject to discrimination and popular condemnation by a socially interpretative Board; and secondly, the array of materials spelt out as adult, above is so large, that it seems this potentate of patronage,

the censor,

	becomes a type of socialised god,
	whose failure in reasonable instruction
	(by definition, as 'he' merely reflects the conventions, cultural modes and so on, and statistical morals are a contradiction in terms, since numbers are not in themselves either an attestation of truth or of logic),
	induces more respect by imposing criminality and fines.

The moral matter is misconstrued (cf. below).

In the Glossary of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, in a work statedly approved by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Censorship Ministers, we DO find, to be precise, that "adult themes", while they are "issues dealing with aspects of adult life that are potentially harmful to minors, or disturbing", "MAY include verbal references to ... religious issues" (emphasis added). This does not formally BIND the Board of Classification to make ANY religious issue depiction to receive the tag "adult theme", since if they MAY include such references, they MAY NOT. Nevertheless, the issue is a loaded one, left securely in the hand of the Classification Board. Its rendering of mores could land degradingly on the turf of any church, or church oriented body, or indeed religious entity, merely to take one example.

To be sure, we find relative to "adult themes" in the classification which lies just below the severity of the 'R' rating, that of "mature accompanied", that "the treatment of themes with a high degree of intensity should be discreet". Of "discreet", the official Glossary tells us this, that it means "with little or no detail and generally brief". Thus a low level of intensity in treating matters of prominent adult need and challenge, may be perhaps permitted, if the two are FELT to be compatible; but if the thing is intense, as one would hope from the more effective academic or researcher, reformer or leader of thought, then brevity and little detail is the permitted pabulum, once the matter is deemed an "adult theme". The phrase as defined does NOT involve any moral wrong or evil, but quite to the contrary, is found in categories which per se can be noble and strengthening.

But what of such brief and low level approach to issues such as religious ones ? In academic terms, this sort of coverage of major issues is quite close to flat contradiction. It readily becomes unsophisticated, unlearned and crass.

So then might society, per Government, with whatever intention but with catastrophically clear impetus to result, monstrously adorn itself with power … But does it ? We will shortly see what it does, for it is only days away, this hideous infirmity: and why hideous ? and why infirm ? It is because it would so reduce the nature of manhood and womanhood on the Web. If you reason that this is 'only' in S.A., yet there is thought that in this legislation S.A. might lead and provide a prototype for the nation. What is this leadership to be ? To provide ? Here is an opportunity for something really worthy.

You may argue that it is not exactly into worms that the citizens, web-wise would be turned; but it is certainly not into children, for as the Bible puts it, "in understanding be MEN!" It can lead to a hideous defilement of excellence in the very areas desperately required, like a captain watching a whirlpool in childish abandon, and not playing the man.

ASSESSMENT OF
THE PATRONISINGLY INVASIVE AND
SUBJUGATIVE EVILS OF THE BILL

WHO is being unscrupulous ?

Is the real purpose of this Bill, then, to protect the young from the unscrupulous, or to be unscrupulous in dominating those who seek the welfare of all ? Is it to use police power to protect from abuse, or with it, to abuse the liberty for which this land has so long stood, in practice ? Such power is certainly invoked in the South Australian Bill, with apparent provision for criminal proceedings, seemingly with little notice for removal of the indicted material.

Is the objective to ruin the internet as a medium for the advance of learning, and its dissemination of intellectual enterprise, or to prevent gross and outrageous elements from serenading or corrupting the young, in a way that has NOT been done with literature in the schools, despite many protests, and is NOT done in libraries ?

Is the objective, web-wise, to make South Australians literally, in much, a police State, subject to the thought tyranny of some 17 supra-religious pundits, elevated to rule, or secular primates ? or is it to allow freedom of expression, except and until abusive and corruptive influences are shown to be present, and not to cast in the cast-iron of fines and criminality, the ruling mores of a given time, like little children playing games, giving no thought to what they mean, or why ?

If, further, the purpose is speedy removal of things obviously in this evil category, what is to be done about the premature and pre-emptive embarrassing removal, if it is later SHOWN to be unwarranted ? Even the charge is no small thing in society, and any disruption of a web site can be of vast importance, long before there is any question of finding guilty or fining. The loss of time and the disturbance alone could be a critical feature. Is all of this, if found to be in error, to be without repayment, apology, and free restoration in order to induce responsibility, on the part of false accusers ? for such have been prominent since the days of Daniel, and for reasons not always far different, envy and calumny for position, competitive advantage, revenge, obsessive desire and so on.

ACADEMIC OBLIVION ON THE WEB,
IN DEEP SOCIAL, INTELLECTUAL, EMOTIONAL, SPIRITUAL ISSUES
ON PAIN OF CRIMINALITY ?

Moreover, is the object, in part, to make of South Australians, relative to the Web, ninnies living in fear and cut off from the moral magnitudes that require the fullest discussion and penetrating understanding in the greatest depths, lest some 17 people fine them, because they deem society at that moment, to be thinking differently, and on the whole, not to be bent that way (by a majority of the 17 or so pundits) ? or the Review Board happen, on the same basis for judgment, to agree!

Such a scenario is certainly in this respect, just as totalitarian as Communism, which also likes people to follow its ideas, as it has them, and puts on penalties if they don't!

Further, is the objective of the Bill, CAB 2000, to preclude, or at least to supervise, and certainly ludicrously to limit discussion of vitally important and wholly searching "religious issues" - to use the term which is explicitly subject to constraint in this Bill, lest they should not be "brief", or have a modicum (which is more than little) of detail ? or is it to use sanctions if they seem indiscreet in the eyes of 17 or so people, for failing to be presented in some limited and very superficial way, lest being in the 'adult' category, and hence 'not suitable for minors' without these restrictions, they become assessable as 'R', or restricted, and hence subjectible to condign punishments ?

If convicts in the 19th century were indeed sent to Australia for trivial crimes, out of all proportion often, to the exile and status of convict, what of this, where there is not necessarily any crime but rather faithfulness to one's calling, and no fault but insistence on the moral, spiritual and rational criteria of the word of God, for example! If a small fault led then to a large penalty, stirring our sensibilities and compassion, in the 1800s, what of this, where a large virtue on the Internet, can at a breath, become a crime, by the churning tide of cultural preference, and may be fined!

· Is this to be the glory of South Australia: to become a provider of danger, for work to be dubbed with an 'R' rating for being adult (as adults ought to be), for treating searching topics with maturity and depth, as befits much discourse, and hence to be excludable and subject to penal financial servitude (as totalitarian States normally do) ?

· Is this to be the wonder of the State, that it gratuitously provides an impediment of potentially disastrous proportions, at the level of intelligent and benevolent - if searching and deep - discussion on the Internet!

Disastrous ? Well, not entirely JUST because of the stigma which appears to be provided, 'criminal', or the fine taken, to $10,000; but rather, to take one illustration only, because the work itself - which may and could be, carefully and sedulously prepared from the word of God, and at the command of Christ - can in this way be taken down, removed, hidden away, brought to a ruin like that narrowly escaped by Adelaide this Summer, from locusts. In this case, it would however be the State which acts the locust, not the locust which attacks the State.

It would then be liable to become a State of Decline, as well of Immaturity:
academic integrity in major components being dismissed on the internet, universities themselves under the rod.

Just what might legislators imagine they are called to be, if this should - after examination and review - be passed. Is it to serve by dictation, prescribe by intimidation, make freedom of thought, however benevolent, a crime because adult, if expressed with vigour, depth and detail, as often called for, in this vital and potentially serviceable medium of the 21st century ?

· Or might S.A. become the State of Backwardness?

· and how does all this fit with the proposed positioning of South Australia
as a kingly contributor to the Electronic Age, as was evidently the case in the governmental earlier paper, "INFORMATION ECONOMY ..."!

It is a king not provided with the implements of majesty, but rather set in his grave, by some ... error. Could it not far rather be dubbed, INTERNET ORPHAN ? or RESTRICTED ACCESS ECONOMY ?

But then would not the Information Economy paper itself need considerable re-writing!

Yet it may be said, THIS is certainly not the intention of the Bill, nor is there any limitation on freedom of speech intended, for did not the Commonwealth Minister, Senator Alston, himself declare that this was so! and is not the endeavour to implement that Commonwealth Act ?

How could South Australia be apparently so blatantly acting, as if to excise freedom of speech so deeply from the internet, when the Commonwealth Minister who took prominent part in the initiative, assured his hearers at the time of the Commonwealth action, that freedom of speech was NOT in question.

In the context, he did not mean, since he was protesting the sagacity of the legislation, that freedom of speech was obviously going to be dismissed, but rather that it would be sustained: and this ? ... it is sustaining! As well might a lion sustain when it assails you!

The legislation as it stands, would alas seem to sustain no small part of what it governs not with food, but with iron, making childhood the mentor, and ground of censorship!

If, then, this is NOT the intention, then there would appear an inefficiency or overkill in the Bill as currently worded, which may conceivably be unique in our history. It would not, in any case, adorn it. In fact, however, in a large society, many influences may be at work, religiously repressive, culturally oppressive, socialistically invasive, or even communistically occlusive, anti-God and so on. Thus might be explained much in the Bill, for the strange distance between its apparent aims and obvious means. This however is charitably NOT to be imagined unless we should be compelled, and the ensuing session of the S.A. Parliament should reveal much. Perhaps the trouble is not least a desire for easy administration of the legislation afterwards; but as so often, ease is not wisely purchased at such a price.

Whatever, however, may be the inefficiency or other error lying at the base of the relevant legislation in this country, it is raising a potentially dictatorial head which the wise - unlike the case in so many other countries, so often - will cut off before it rears! Many may make USE of what it is not clear and adequately defined, for their own purposes. Hence, whatever the reason for the formulation in this legislation, it should be altered till it is not vulnerable at all. This may make it harder to administer; but then many things make matters harder to administer, in family, church or soci

	where the oppressed suffer from Mugabes with illicit manoeuvres of election results or their suppression, as from passé propositions used as support for a maladministration that shocks even sensationalism to the core.
	where same-sex marriage is by some confidently predicted if Obama wins the presidency, and much of the same direction is already in place as the USA for one, seems to be seeking fraternity with Sodom, in this already coming close to the condition of much in the EU.
	where Putin plays power with energy resources to intimidate neighbours, as if life were a game, spying, prying, trying, securing ...
	where the powerful if not uniformly, then frequently use privilege to get more.
	where Iran is seeking to reduce Israel to non-existence while scrambling for nuclear proficiency, by some estimated as a matter of months away.
	where Indians, for example, according to The Australian, October 28, in this country, may be found misusing other visiting Indians or varied temporary immigrants, whose tenure on temporary business-visa is felt to be unsure, in horrendous misuse of privilege, in 'co-ethnic exploitation': and many suffer incredible deprivations as fear of losing entry or hope is use to subdue natural justice.
	where slavery is in some places merely changing its name, but not its reality, as factory workers labour in sprawling shifts virtually under guard, and are exploited ...

	you are either to repent of your OWN sin and seek the Lord whom you may long have ignored in actuality (thus you could ignore a car in the garage and walk, but if you began to ignore the fact that it was there, it would be delusion and much worse, but in each case, you walk for your own wilfulness),
	or you may rebel.