Right responsibilities and the real deal

Rights, Responsibility and the Real Deal

The Right to Free Speech is Protected

Ideas are the backbone of democracy. However we see fit to express those ideas is a right provided in the Constitution of the United States. No matter the format of that expression someone will find them offensive and seek to stop that expression. The Communications Decency Act is just the latest incarnation of small minds raging against the tide.

The CDA stomps on the first amendment of the Constitution like a bunch of bikers in hobnailed boots. It must be relentlessly pursued until dead. Everyone participating in the 24 Hours of Democracy is part of the hunting party that will see to that. Thankfully we are not alone, the ACLU, EFF, VTW and others are on our side. And let's not forget our most powerful ally is the Constitution itself.

The framers of the Constitution fought a bloody Revolution based on freedom of speech and other rights of a truly free people. They included no qualifications on that free speech. That principle has been upheld with minimal exceptions (no shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater, please). The CDA is not the first (or last) legislation to attack free speech, and it won't survive in the cour

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We must create our own territory and defend it. Our forefathers included that in the Constitution too, almost as if they knew that government would be dominated by self serving, arrogant prostitutes who could only be controlled by pitting them against one another. We are the Thomas Paine's of our age with a printing press, a burning desire for freedom and the will to risk it all to print a political pamphlet. We have the tools, the desire is evident in 24 Hours of Democracy, and thanks to a functional democratic system the risks are relatively low (no gallows at least). The floodgates are open, the carriers can now build their pipes from any place to any place, everybody gets to create content for sale and the media giants are happy. If it is done by the government, you can be assured we will come full circle to this point again. I'm glad it's there, so we know when the storm troopers are coming (no pun intended), but it is not the reason the First Amendment is there. The Net has always been about openness, but at the same time it has always been self policing (ask any flamee).

Providing Content on the Net is the Real Deal.

But That's Just My Opinion, I May Be Wrong

. Right now anybody with the right equipment and the knowledge can be a Net/Web presence with the content of their choice and basically doesn't have to ask ANYBODY. To do less is to avoid our responsibility and hand control over to others.

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