Integrity vs cowardice

Sweden Demanding that possession of child porn should be legal would leave you out in the cold today, as former Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge experienced in 2010, when confirming to journalists that banning possession of child porn indeed was a restriction of information freedom and that this law therefore should be abolished. He had to resign shortly after. But in late 1990s, before the ban on possession of child porn became effective in 1999, Falkvinge's views were shared by the Pulishers' Association and many individuals, several of them nameworthy journalists.

In 1997, many of those signed a petition where they protested against a law that would ban possession of child porn - real child porn, not only cartoons. I found that list in the internet archive (yay!), and started contacting the signees to ask them if they still thought possession of child porn should be legal. As you would expect, they didn't. They all had some excuse for having signed the list back then, and I will not name names. My point is rather to show how eager people are to have the right view, how arbitrary the right view is, and how quickly people are ready to change their view to its complete opposite.

source: Article 'Integrity vs cowardice' by Karl Andersson; The Lover, issue 02, spring 2016