Here’s an idea. First we establish mechanisms to make sure that, without a search warrant, the government cannot intercept our e-mails and track our web browsing. After that’s done, we can think about the FTC’s proposed “Do Not Track” rules for web advertising.
WSJ article: The Internet Browsing Cops : The FTC considers ‘Do Not Track’ Rules for Web advertising.
A problem in academia: Free expression is unregulated:
“It’s free expression, but nobody is walking through, regulating it,” she said. “They’re just letting it happen, and it’s not just racism, but gender, sexuality and religious discrimination.”
URL here.
As James Taranto explains: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” (I learned about this from Taranto’s Best of the Web Today.)
So Michelle Obama and the NAACP want the tea parties to repudiate any racism in their midst. That would be fine, although they’d first have to identify some. If the tea parties and the NAACP worked together on it, I would be surprised if they couldn’t find any.
But what Ms Obama and the NAACP have failed to do, as far as I know, is praise the non-racist aspects of the tea parties. They wouldn’t have to agree with the political stands, but they should affirm the principle that we used to hear from liberals, e.g. back in John F Kennedy’s day: “We may disagree with what you say, but we will defend to the death your right to say it.”
That would allay any suspicions that it isn’t so much that the NAACP and Michelle Obama want to stop racism, but that they are trying to stifle dissent.
The ruling class worries that peaceful demonstrations might incite broader unrest? They want protestors to work without fanaticism?
No, this isn’t the American ruling class trying to maintain its hegemony against the rise of tea party activism. These are Russian rulers who are afraid of motorists who are protesting against special road privileges for VIPs.
Just the same, the Russian government could use the services of our Bill Clinton. He knows how to deal with these types of people, if you know what I mean.
His step to the national stage brought police surveillance and a mix of pressure and courtship by officials worried that his horn-honking activism might ignite broader unrest. He recalls the swift reaction when a participant on his group’s online forum suggested setting a car on fire in Red Square. Within minutes, Mr. Kanayev was summoned to Criminal Police headquarters. “It was just a joke,” he says he told his interrogators.
A Kremlin political operative approached, he says, and promised time on state-run television if he would stop the caravans. Another official, Sergey Shishkarev, who heads parliament’s transport committee, says he has offered to shape some of Mr. Kanayev’s ideas on tax and safety issues into legislation but warned the activist “to work without fanaticism.”
WSJ link here
L Gordon Crovitz wrote an article in the WSJ headlined: “Is Internet Civility an Oxymoron? Unmoderated, anonymous comments on Web sites create more noise than wisdom.”
My response:
A few days ago Bill Clinton waged a neo-McCarthyite smear campaign against dissidents and protesters, trying to link their activity to the Oklahoma City bombing. I don’t think you can blame the Internet or anonymity for that kind of uncivil rhetoric.
President Obama seems to be confused by the Supreme Court ruling.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Thursday strongly criticized a Supreme Court ruling removing limits on corporate donations for political campaigns, saying it was a major victory for banks and oil and health insurance companies.
Yes, it is a victory for those entities, but part of the President’s job is to look out for the legal rights of those entities. It’s a victory for those of us who aren’t banks and oil and health insurance companies, too. It’s a victory for all of us.
“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” Obama said in a statement.
Which is as it should be. There are many special interests in this country, and all of them should have a right to spend their money to speak out and influence the political process. What’s bad is when no interests except governmental interests get the right to speak out, as happened in the takeover of GM and Chrysler.
“We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.”
I presume we shouldn’t take the President to have meant the term “forceful” to be taken literally. Given the way he has dealt with banks and automakers, it’s hard to say. But if by forceful he means legal and constitutional, that could be a good thing.
Now about that term “public interest,” I hope he realizes that there are and should be many public interests, many of them at odds with each other. There is not just one public interest. That’s why this ruling that ensures a voice for the many of the special interests in our society is a good thing.
Google has to be feeling a lot of pressure from both sides of the issue of governmental censorship in China. Now would be an especially excellent time for Congress to pass the Global Online Freedom Act in order to support Google in its efforts not to be evil.
There are those who sneer at Google for waiting until now to act, after its business interests have been undermined by hackers. They say it’s profit more than heroism that’s motivating Google. But I argue that it’s good when the profit motive is aligned with the desire to do the right thing. We ought to have more of that.
There are those who say we should mind our own business and let China handle its affairs in its own way. Companies doing business in other countries need to obey the laws of those countries. But some laws are beyond the pale.
And it’s not a matter that concerns China alone. It creates some very bad corporate habits when American companies participate in oppression in other countries. When agents of our own government approach Google to spy on our own dissidents or to censor content, whether such approaches are made in underhanded ways or openly, it would be good for Google and all of us to recoil in horror. But if Google is already are in the bad habit of acceding to such requests in China, a lot of the moral energy to resist here in the U.S. will have been dissipated.
Pass the Global Online Freedom Act.
H/T to Kathryn Lopez
I figure it’s the sound of somebody’s ox being gored.
But one commenter says that anytime he sees someone telling us to be civil, he grabs his copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
There’s no reason both couldn’t apply when the founder of Wikipedia starts lecturing on the topic in the WSJ: Keep a Civil Cybertongue: Rude and abusive online behavior should not be met with silence.
It figures. Wikipedia has become increasingly authoritarian and less democratic of late, but not necessarily more accurate.
And you’d be right if you’re guessing that the authors of the above article don’t say a word about the rude and abusive behavior that Wikipedia is accused of engaging in by James Delingpole in his article, Climategate: the corruption of Wikipedia.
Today is coffee day! Today the mail brought a freshly roasted supply from Great Northern Roasting Company in Traverse City. Usually I like single origin coffees, which I sometimes mix together on my own. But this time I tried Jack’s Breakfast Blend again. I tried it back in January, but it was not my favorite that time around. It’s a lighter roast than I usually prefer. But this time I noticed some good, brownish flavors that I had never before tasted. Excellent! I’ll try it again tomorrow morning.
That’s one of the good things about coffee. It’s an adventure. It’ll be a sad day when quality control reaches the point where it’s exactly the same each time. The beans may vary, the roast may vary, the brewing may vary, and the setting in which one drinks it may vary. All those factors contribute to making it a different experience each time. (This time we were watching a production of Doestoevsky’s Idiot on YouTube. I was almost concentrating too hard on the movie to notice what I was drinking, but the coffee was good enough to interrupt my concentration.)
By the way, I am not going to say whether or not Jack paid me to say nice things about his coffee. I dare the FTC to try to get that information out of me. The FTC move is just an opening to regulate speech — a plan to follow in the distant footsteps of Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez.
I once was offered a free product after having said something good about it in a blog. I ignored the offer on account of not wanting to compromise my independence. But if it happens again, I may just accept and not say anything about it, as a form of resistance to the FTC.
Besides, regulated reviews would make life too boring, whether or not I’m the one being regulated. We like to read the motel reviews when we travel on my Spokesrider outings. We’re always looking for cheap places to stay, which means we’re undertaking a little risk right from the start. It’s challenging to read through the reviews and sniff out the fluff pieces from paid shills, as well as those that whine about things that don’t matter, and separating them from the useful reviews. It’s a good survival technique to be able to read between the lines to know who to believe. I’d hate to have that taken from me.
Usually when politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths, they don’t do both sides at the same time. But here’s what one of our country’s political leaders said in a campaign speech last Thursday, as reported by the AP. This must be what he meant when he said, “I have a gift, Harry.”
Appealing across party lines, Obama told the Democratic audience that leaders must listen to their opponents and disagree with civility. He pointed to Virginia’s two most recent governors, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, the former now a senator and the latter Obama’s hand-picked Democratic National Committee chairman.
“We want to make sure that we listen to other people’s ideas. We’re going to bring labor and business together,” he said….
He pointed to massive financial challenges and an exploding deficit he said he inherited from Republican President George W. Bush.
“That was gift-wrapped and waiting for me,” Obama said. “I don’t want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”
Last I heard, there was a bit of disagreement on just who created the mess and how. But it’s not clear whether that part of that disagreement is one where we want to listen to other peoples’ ideas or where we want them to shut up and not do a lot of talking.
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