Fighting a cause

I agree with the Messiah's cause, which is its opposition to the Singapore government's policy of requiring website owners that publishes news to post up a performance bond of $50,000 if the number of unique visitors to its website exceeds 50,000. This has the effect of muzzling independent publishers. How can the Singapore government hope to produce independent thinkers and doers with this wholly unenlightened policy? What, or who is it afraid of?

Having said this, I do not think that defacing the government's websites will cause a change in policy. nor is it the right thing to do because this strengthens the government's position that one cannot allow unfettered use of the internet media to push an agenda, which is what this law is for. Furthermore disrupting these websites will only prevent government employees to complete their jobs. Delays will only create a backlog of work and inconvenience people's access to services that some may depend on for their livelihood.

Bringing down websites, or disrupting their normal functioning is no different from breaking and entering a house and defacing the property. If the Messiah thinks that he/she is bringing salvation and freedom to internet users, I for one beg to differ. There are certainly other ways of making the point These alternatives may take a longer time to produce results, but like Nelson Mandela, reasonable people will agree with a sensible position, if not today then some time later.

Let us be civil and reasonable. Right thinking people who make poor decisions will realise the error of their policies and come around.  If they are not right thinking, they will likely be bumped off in the next General Elections. If nothing. the weight of reason and the force of history will convince them to repent, one day. In meantime, affected parties like Yahoo News may just have to pony up the cash and continue to report without fear of losing their money or favouring anyone. We look to such as these to carry the banner. For the rest of us, we just have to move off-shore with the belief that truth cannot long be muzzled by time, place or coercion.