That Pesky and Totally Unnecessary Bill Of Rights

The Australians are apparently very happy with the idea that the government can tell them what rights they have and don't have. A nice example of what it's like to live under such a regime:

For months now, the French-language twittersphere has lit up with a rash of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic tweets using the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew), #SiMonFilsEstGay (if my son is gay), and #SiMaFilleRamèneUnNoir (if my daughter brings home a black guy).

Last fall, under pressure from French advocacy group Union of Jewish Students (UEJF), Twitter agreed to remove some offensive tweets. In October 2012, at Berlin’s request, Twitter also suspended a German neo-Nazi account based in the city of Hanover, the first time the company had responded to such a government request.

Speech you don't care for? Get the government to make it illegal and jail the speakers. After all WHO wouldn't want racists to be silenced and punished?

On Thursday, the Grand Instance Court in Paris ordered Twitter to identify the authors of anti-semitic tweets by creating a mechanism (Google Translate) to alert French authorities to “illegal content,” on its French site “in a visible and easily-accessible [way].”

Yes. Please make it so that companies have to disclose the identity of those who "speak" material that offends someone. Please. My poor eyes and ears cannot take it. I mean really. People in France apparently feel that the people cannot even be trusted to view racist speech.

On Thursday, Sarkozy used a televised address to propose a new set of laws that criminalize the use of websites affiliated with terrorist sympathizers and hate groups. "From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished," he said.

I have regularly visited websites deemed racist, sexist, homophobic (whatever that is) because:

a) I want to.
b) I'm interested in what the latest commentary is.
c) I sometimes get a kick out of how dumb the people are.
d) I sometimes am surprised at how well thought out and factually supported the comments are. You never know. Really.

Why should I be restricted from visiting a site 'habitually" if I want to? Who exactly is harmed by that?

I guess having the government randomly decide what speech is legal and what you may or may not observe with your own eyes is far better than having a pesky Bill of Rights.