[y4mi]

i'm not sure i follow... the GP is basically saying: "its paid for by public money, it shouldn't be restricted"

how do you get from that to "i cant let anyone but people from my country look at this"?

there no logic in that whatsoever

[anjc]

The argument seems to be that access to research should be unrestricted because "scientific publishers represent institutionalised theft of tax payer money", i.e. that theft of tax payer money is bad. In that case, why should people who live in tax havens, low-tax countries, or countries that don't adequately fund academia, have their access to research subsidised by people who live in high tax countries and who fund the research via tax? This seems like the same issue except at a higher level, i.e. sovereign theft instead of institutional?

I have no problem with open access by the way, I'm not advocating for restrictive publishing practices here.

[y4mi]

still doesn't make sense because the foreign nations aren't depriving the people paying for the research of the information they paid for via taxes.

theft means that something was taken away from somebody else. this clearly isnt the case in your scenario, as the foreign nations just copied it.