Just as a side-note, sometime soon I’ll deliver either a blog, or series of blogs, on the gap between “fact” and “theory” in physics and science. Specifically I’ll address how science (that is the mainstream accepted viewpoint) ignores certain evidence that contradicts present theories.

Now with this blog entry I’m going to concentrate on only one thing: policing the market.

In the past, we have determined that a separation of powers is absolutely necessary. If you are familiar with this concept, then you would understand that certain service providers cannot cease a service to a client without either a court order or due process. This also protects tenants who are late or behind in rent; they cannot immediately be kicked out; they have statutory rights.

In the same way, your utility provider cannot simply switch off your gas and electricity suddenly without warning (unless there’s a court order to do so), and so forth. Iinet made this case as their defence in AFACT V Iinet, and won in the High Court of Australia; Iinet provides a service; and AFACT had argues that Iinet should police its usage, the court heard, correctly, that no they should not.

So with this in mind, imagine my horror at the latest Wikileaks scandal; PayPal freezes Wikileaks donations. Well, it’s without surprise I’m afraid, PayPal is notoriously bad like this; they do police their own usage and have polices on what you can and cannot receive money for (yeah, I’m not even joking). https://cms.paypal.com/be/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_full

Wouldn’t it be interesting if major banks started doing the same thing to businesses? In every State in Australia (not the Territories), selling pornography is illegal. But it’s not enforced. Could you imagine what would happen if banks stated saying “we’ve frozen your Eftpos accounts and reversed thousands of transactions because we determined you’re selling a prohibited product”? Yet PayPal gets away with this nonsense!

In the UK at the moment there are violent protests over the university fee increases. All I can say to that is the same thing. I have no sympathy for the UK students. I’m sorry, but rioting is a form of civil misconduct; it’s literally the rioters attempting to police the market.

I can’t understand why you would decide “oh we’re not happy with this, so we’re going to take direct action against people who aren’t even our enemies”. You know, it isn’t the fault of the UK police that their country is in a dire financial state.

In my next entry I will deal with Wikileaks, and discuss the implications of current affairs.