Sunday, January 10, 2010

Copyright infringement in Malaysia

Churches in Malaysia have been under repeated attacks lately. Apparently Muslims dislike that non-Muslims can use the word Allah. And, most recently, a Roman Catholic newspaper that in its Malay-language edition describing the Christian god with the word.

Whether legislators in our part of the world are following this clear infringement of usage of a religious word isn’t clear, however one can assume that this is so.

It seems that the Malaysia's majority Muslim community suspects Christians of wanting to use the word Allah to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity. Maybe that’s the case; I am however more concerned over how such a clearly Muslim word can/should be allowed to be used by infidels. And if the violent religious types get their way, how will they proceed? Can journalists that don’t pray towards Mecca write the word? Can teachers that eat bacon say it in the classroom? And will blogs like this one, with content that surely passes through Malaysian borders now and again, be sued? The possibilities for any legislation in this regard is endless, and so we can be sure the thought police around the globe are pondering on this Malaysian-story right now.

I am actually quite surprised that similar stories haven’t broken out yet. This should be the next logical step. Can a note within a song be copyrighted? A certain sentence? A word? Will we save our entertainment industry if we charge people every time they use words like ‘Hollywood’?

Sure in this case we’re talking religion and for many a way of life, but imagine if we head down this road, which is pretty likely comes to the future, and think what this means to education, songs, religions texts and our history. And imagine a religious debate between a priest, a rabbi and an Imam where none of the combatants can mention any word the other religions have patent on. Not a very exciting debate eh?

And how about the stuff the monotheistic religions have in common? I mean they are pretty much in agreement on the Old Testament so what to do? Should Jews that sort of stick to those stories have exclusiveness? And what about Jesus that Muslims regard as an important man, do they need to erase him from their texts? Maybe they can solve it with some kind of general blip-blip-blip? Instead of “Jesus” they can call him Mr. X. This however poses a problem when time passes by, a couple of generations down the road people will not know who Mr X really was. “Oh, he’s the guy who walked on water, turned water into wine and preached about Mr Y (God)and was the OomphOomph(Messiah) according to the Sect (Christianity) we don’t like”

I’ve also wondered what to do about holidays, certain traditions and what about our number system? Our western way of writing numbers is taken from the Arab part of the world. Can they take it back? Claim patent? Should we pay the Italians royalty to take back the Roman numbers instead? How far back should we take this? Can Sumerians (today Iraqis) reclaim the old testament for themselves since all of those stories comes from their ancestors?

Okay, okay, I know we’ve sort of landed on a decade or so come to patent and I’m ranting, but if these Malaysian life-forms have their way, will not others follow? Surely we will see a lot more of the same no matter what the outcome in that particular part of the world.

Your body

There’s only tree ways of looking at ownership.

1) Anyone can take whatever from whoever whenever
2) Some people can take whatever from whoever whenever
3) No-one can take anything from anyone without permission

The same goes for your own body. In a decent civilized society you would be your own king. You would decide what to eat, smoke, inject, and drink. And since the body is your kingdom no-one has the right to claim it in any way.

But of course things does not work this way. As an example, when it comes to rape you get violated many times over. Not only by the hands of the rapist that force has you to do something against your will, but also by government that outlawed you from protecting it. And then, when things cannot get any worse, or so you think, you get screwed again by forcing yourself to sit through an arduous trial and then the justice system that, if convicting the rapists, hardly gives the offender a punishment. And if you had the audacity to protect yourself or even uhuh… hurt the offender, oh my, the sledgehammer will come down on you from the legislator like the wrath of God.

You see, your body isn’t yours, it belongs to the government. It is the job of politicians, bureaucrats and their hired guns to protect you, tell you what to do, what to eat, drink and smoke. The same goes with the rapist; you shouldn’t protect yourself, that’s an assignment that belongs to those deemed better.

If you smoke, do drugs, drink too much or any other number of things, you’re evil according to the righteous elitists. But the worst thing in the eyes of the powers that be is if you to protect you. Nothing can be more heinous. Just imagine if people started carrying guns. How could any tax-collector then feel safe?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Fuck government. If you have the need to, get a gun, and if anyone ever jumps your bones, kill the bastard. If the powers lock you up, at least you’ve made the world safer and planted a seed of doubt in the heads of any would-be rapist.

Canis Lupus

As I’ve stated before I feel kind of uneasy about the whole hunting-wolf thing. I hardly see the point in chasing down and killing a close to, in Sweden, extinct animal and I definitely don’t endorse the pointless hunting. Sitting in a hut shooting some stray animal walking by? What’s the fun in that? Highly stupid.

However, I hardly see any reason to outlaw it either. If people want to be idiots sitting out in the wilderness knocking of some furry beasts, that’s their business. Even if I like wolfs, I like human rights more.

One thing that has been bugging me though is the usage of animals in captivity and parading them around for amusement. I don’t care if people hunt down and shoot at elephants, but I do however care if we keep those majestic animals locked up, make them do our bidding and walk them around so we can clap and be marry. Even when I see murderess Polar Bear that actively hunt man and should be rendered extinct lurking around within some confine surrounded by wires and electrical fences I feel it is wrong. Kill them sure, eat them, take their skin and do whatever, but to force wild beasts into a small habitat and make them do what we want just so we can applaud? Now that is cruel.

I know I know, some animals may go extinct if we don’t, at least that is what we’re told. But why shouldn’t they? If Mother Nature or, in rare cases, mankind makes an animal obsolete then that’s it, let them go in peace. Why should we play ‘benevolent’ God all of a sudden? 99.99% of all animals that ever existed are gone, poof, not here anymore. So what if some more dies out? What’s the diff?

Ohoh… the eco-system… Yeah, so what? What about it? Any habitat will automatically adjust, new species will evolve, and others take the extinct ones place. That’s the way of the game. The only way we can really make any problem, in the short run, is if we knock out several species or entire areas at the same time. Maybe it leads to rats taking over; more mosquitoes or antelopes grow in numbers. So what? There are chemicals or different ways of hunting to solve that if it ever were to happen, which isn’t very likely.

Anyway, my point is that some bloodthirsty fuck of a man wants to sit in the forest and shoot at harmless animals, I can deal, however, when some wolfs somehow escapes from captivity and get riddled with bullets I see it as a grouse violation of how we should act as human beings. Not really the shooting part, but rather the captivity thingy that sort of make wolfs dangerous, more so than any free roaming beast. This happened recently in southern Sweden, so not only are Swedes killing off the few we have in the wild, we’re also slaughtering the ones we have breed for our amusement. Is this really showing a good behavior from the dominate species of the planet? And if not, how should we act?