An internet blackout in protest of SOPA (and it's partner in the Senate, I forget what it's called).
First, I neither support nor oppose SOPA. I have not read the bill, and I am not about to blithely believe that it contains what someone so desperately wants me to believe it contains. I have this thing about agendas and whole truth being mutually exclusive way too often. SOPA is supposed to protect intellectual property, the supporters of it are purported to claim (purported by news services). SOPA will enable the government to steal the very breath of life, that of free knowledge and the sanctity of free speech, from all of us, claim the opposing voices (way too many places on the net to make citing any source of any value). Some go on to claim that SOPA will do so, and others talk about how it enables and equips government to do so.
If the bill would indeed do what the opponents say it would do, then I'm all for stopping it. I don't like equipping a government, even mine (shoot, especially mine, in this day and age), to do something such that only the good will and good intents of the government (or whoever makes the decision for the govvie that day) stand between me and the abridging of a right. It's a principle I try to follow, as best I can. So far, so good. Where this issue appears to affect the inalienable right of free speech, I opposed the same efforts regarding another inalienable right, all the way back to 1968. Specifically, the Gun Control Act of 1968.
I find it interesting that the overwhelming bulk of people I encounter who oppose SOPA because it enables the government to encroach on an unalienable right even though the government might not do it now are in the same philosophical camp as those who spend a fair amount of time deriding those who oppose gun control for making exactly the same argument about legislation that enables the government to encroach on another unalienable right.
Tends to make me think that such a philosophical camp cares little about rights, and much about swimming in Lake Me.
Al
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A place for people who think for themselves, and refuse to be bound by what they "should" think.
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I have opened the comments for the blog for two reasons, (1) it appears that Blogger's spam catching is good enough, and (2)it appears that no one is commenting, anyway. If it ever becomes popular enough to be a concern, I'll revisit this.