As much as I disagree with many of the real issues at hand, I’m not going to inconvenience myself over it because there is nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to. Instead I voted with my feet and left, where they can still find me if they wanted to but there is no reason they would want me, as I stopped hanging out with my Hezbollah buddies a years ago. 😉

Think that’s far fetched? That’s ALREADY happened to an American citizen (see the Padilla case). After the case got up to the Supreme Court for the SECOND time, the government said–“Okay, fine, we’ll let him go.” Thus mooting the case and avoiding review. Then he was criminally prosecuted for things that had NO resemblance at all to that for which he was supposedly designated an enemy combatant in the first place.

There is no reason to suspend the Constitution for these ends. Even Justice Scalia agrees with that. Just have a trial. If you have enough evidence that an American has committed TREASON, then give him a TRIAL and prosecute the fucker. You can interrogate him all you want, fake-promise him a lighter sentence all you want, after the fact. But lets not do EXACTLY what we criticize other countries for–making people disappear and depriving them of those very same rights supposedly guaranteed to them by the paramount law of the land.

Regarding SOPA, there is no doubt that it’s unconstitutional–it’s the same stupid thing, there’s a problem, so lets just give the government the unreviewable power to suspend the Constitution and shut down websites BEFORE any judicial proceeding is had. However, we need to do SOMETHING like SOPA in order to better protect copyright laws. Simple as that.

I just continue to cling to the belief that we can achieve both of these ends–protect the nation and protect copyrights–without treating the Constitution like it was optional.

Dittohead, indeed!

Seriously, the Patriot Act and NDAA both are played with the same bend to them: Get the terrorists. Those that discuss the implications outside of terrorism are often written off as quacks, or as “terrorist simps”. To question those laws is to be somewhat or even completely unpatriotic. It’s a no win situation for those who would consider the implications.

However, I don’t buy the scare mongering side of things too much. Your rights are not usurped, the constitution didn’t disappear. At best, these acts put up a small fence around your rights, and make it slightly harder to get to them. More importantly, it makes it very hard for those who should not have those rights to claim them. It’s not a great situation, but there are few other choices that can work to counter terrorism, without significantly impacting the American way of life.

Can you imagine having to apply for a Visa for air or train travel inside or outside of the US? That is the alternative. Can you imagine having every visitor to the US be forced to apply for a visa, to be given a electronic tracking ankle device, and being forced to call in and contact authorities every 12 hours to report their location? All of those things could be done without breaking the constitution. Can you imagine where being in a car from out of town is “probable cause” for a police stop? It’s not outside the realm of the constitution.

You have to play one against the other. Doing nothing is unacceptable.

For SOPA (and similar attempts to deal with piracy) the same situation applies: The government realizes that they cannot continue to do nothing. The internet is lawless, out of control, and so far out of their reach in any timely manner. So much crime against Americans is committed online now, mostly centered on fraud from fake sales to identity theft. They understand that they need to take steps to regulate, before it becomes too late.

The internet blackouts are a straight response from those who make their living off of taking or using other people’s content without permission, those who “grift” content for their sites. They feel the pressure. The public joins and supports them, because the public (morons that they can be) wants the same free lunch. Nobody is thinking past the ends of their noses, nobody is seeing the whole mess swirling around the bowl heading down the drain. They are there for the free lunch now.

Do you remember the great phrase used by many in the internet business? “Greed is good”. It’s also short term, which is what the blackouts are all about.

Yesterday, the internet changed forever. Those who blacked out and those that support them just haven’t realized yet that they signed their own death warrants.