This:
Taking political correctness to new extremes, the New York City Department of Education has banned the following words from tests (this is a non-exhaustive list):
birthday – could be offensive to Jehovah’s Witnesses
Halloween – references Paganism
dinosaur – reference to evolution
dancing – offensive to students whose religion bans dancing (references to ballet dance won’t be affected)
home computers – reference to economic disparity amongst students
Reminds me of this:
Both SOPA and PIPA, the recent bills meant to censor the internet, have flopped tremendously – thanks largely to massive protest from all over the internet itself. However, Washington lawmakers don’t seem to be giving up so easily as a new bill meant to censor the internet, which has yet to be released to the public, is now in the works. According to RT news:
However some leaks suggest that the bill will grant the authority to crack down on the Internet to the executive branch of power, namely the White House. It looks highly possible taking into consideration that the legislation has to come out of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, chaired by Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman.
The same Lieberman who earlier co-sponsored the so called Kill Switch bill that could allow the president of the United States to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” and practically shut down the Internet.
While all this remains speculation at this early stage of development it remains a disturbing turn of events. I can’t know Lieberman’s mind, but if this truly is SOPA/Kill Switch under a new name then it would seem that the congressman has abandoned any intent of actually representing his constituency. The American people have been clear in their opposition to SOPA and internet censoring; however, despite SOPA’s failure in the face of popular opposition Lieberman seems intent on making every attempt to pass legislation that the populace at large does not want. Every public servant who would press on with this kind of legislation betrays the American people – whether the price of their treachery be to win the favor of special-interest groups or their own arrogant ideology who can say.
This isn’t Right versus Left; Democrats and Republicans have no qualms when it comes to bipartisanship on a multitude of issues but when it comes to working with the American people? Well, politicians like Lieberman seem intent on fighting the populace to the very grave. Our ruling class at large has made it quite clear that they consider the common man their greatest opposition – which is sad since we’re the very ones that they’re historically meant to represent and fight for, not against.
Today, when websites across the internet are undergoing voluntary “blackout” in protest of SOPA and PIPA, I urge you to contact your federal legislators and tell them that you want them to oppose these bills. SOPA and PIPA, in an attempt to address piracy issues on the internet, takes a sledgehammer to the first amendment – threatening to censor thousands of pages of information should a website post or even merely link to a single page that infringes upon copyrights. While piracy is wrong, to throw out the first amendment to fight it is absurd. Read about the bills yourself here.
Wikipedia, who has blackout’d their English pages, had the following to say about SOPA: “Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they would fatally damage the free and open Internet.”
Ron Paul is one of the few political leaders taking an active stand against SOPA stating,”they want to take over the internet, can you imagine how much we’re going to be curtailed in the spreading of our information if we lose the internet?”
The Virtuous House 