Online anonymity battle continues

This is another one of those issues I haven’t made up my mind about. Last week I mentioned an effort to create an IP-masking technology for use in Iran (and presumably other countries that don’t allow their citizens free speech). In a country where blasphemy is a crime and people are imprisoned for political opposition, there is a need to protect people who have unpopular ideas from state punishment. However, on the other side of the argument, I’m a firm believer in people standing behind their ideas rather than making anonymous assaults on others and then retreating into cyberspace. Imagine how quickly hate speech would disappear if people knew who was making it.

That appears to be the same problem that Blizzard is grappling with:

But despite the large population, MMORPG players, more so than members of almost any online community, expect their identities to remain hidden, largely due to the social stigma attached to playing such games — but also for fear of real-world retribution for World of Warcraft -realm actions.

The actions the article refers to concern the fate of one Micah Whipple, a moderator on an online forum who, in support of company policy, dropped his anonymity online. Immediately personal details about him, including his home address and phone number, were mined from social networking sites and other open-source documents and posted online. This is illustrative of the vehemence with which the online community wishes to preserve its members’ individual freedoms.

While I can appreciate the intent of the company to reduce forum trolling:

I think my inclination tends to fall on the side of anonymity. While we do have free speech protections in this part of the world, that protects us from legal action and reprisal only. What it doesn’t protect is the identity of a teen who is reaching out to the LGBT community for guidance on how to come out to his parents. It doesn’t protect an atheist living in a Christian-dominated city, for whom an admission of non-belief would affect her job and community standing. It certainly doesn’t protect someone whose political opinions run contrary to those of their neighbours.

It may still be necessary to protect online anonymity, at least for now. Some technoprophets are predicting that anonymity will become a quaint affectation of yesteryear, like a woman identifying herself as Mrs. (Husband’s full name). What the Blizzard experiment has revealed is that while that time may in fact come, it’s not here yet.

Shitcock.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Censorship: the first step toward tyranny

I said recently that there isn’t much point in having any rights if you don’t have free speech. Free speech is the one that allows you to fight for all of the other ones. What good is the right to free association, or the right not to be arbitrarily detained, if the government can punish you for speaking up when those rights are violated? I am born incredibly lucky to live in a country that, more or less, understands that censorship of unpopular ideas is not only impractical, but deleterious to the welfare of society as a whole. We take it for granted in this country that I can call Stephen Harper a helmet-headed pig-fucker on the steps of Parliament, and the only recourse he has is to call me an awkward, pudgy ignoramus (or better yet to simply ignore the crazy person).

People in Sri Lanka are rapidly losing that privilege:

Sri Lanka has impounded the latest edition of the Economist, which has an opinion piece critical of constitutional changes in the country. The magazine said last week’s charter revision granting the president sweeping powers and potentially unlimited terms was dangerous. Sri Lankan authorities now regularly confiscate or delay distribution of the news and business magazine.

You’ll remember from last week that Sri Lanka has just granted extraordinary constitutional powers to its president, contrary to any extant example of good governance.

What baffles me is the fact that anyone thinks that censorship works. Especially now in the days of the internet, where the barrier of censorship better resembles a sieve than a drumskin. Just in this last century we’ve seen the French underground using print media to undermine the rule of Nazi occupiers, counter-propaganda campaigns tear down both the tight fist of United States and British imperialism and the iron rule of Soviet communism, and Iranian government corruption being exposed by a bunch of kids with iPhones. Even the fabled Great Firewall of China is subject to periodic massive information leaks that the overwhelming power of the party cannot seem to plug. Scientology is coming apart at the seams thanks to a handful of bored internet users exposing their ridiculous doctrines. Julian Assange is baffling the largest intelligence network ever conceived.

Censorship doesn’t work.

The drive for free expression will always outpace the ability of power to suppress it. It’s like a dandelion that grows up through a crack in the concrete. I am seriously baffled why I, as a (relatively) young and (relatively) ignorant student of a handful of history seems to understand that better than political leaders all over the world. Especially when there are groups of intelligent, driven people all over the world working tirelessly to baffle the forces of censorship:

Software created to help Iranians escape government control of the web has been withdrawn over security fears. Haystack was designed to help people in the country communicate via the web without revealing their identity. However, independent tests showed that Haystack’s creators had little control over who was using the program.

On the face of it, the above seems like bad news I suppose. The important thing to remember is that there is a community of people who are committed to advancing the cause of free speech, who won’t stop until it is realized. The other thing to remember is that there’s an entire internet community that is also devoted to shutting down government filters just “for teh lulz”. If you want to stay in power, govern well.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Interesting experiment in China

I’ve spent a decent number of words decrying the state of free speech in China. Any criticism of the government may be met with complete indifference or being imprisoned, beaten and executed by agents of the state. Anyone who has studied the psychological concept of operant conditioning knows that intermittent reward or punishment leads to the longest term adherence to conditioned behaviour. George Orwell knew it too – in 1984 the vid-screens are only sometimes switched on, but if the thought police happen to catch you, you’re effed.

However, in my occasional habit of (in the interest of appearing much more fair and balanced than I actually am) giving credit where credit is due, there is something interesting happening for free speech in China:

Thousands of Chinese people have posted comments on an internet forum that promised to send their messages direct to the government. Four days after the site was launched by the state-run People’s Daily, more than 27,000 messages had been posted.

Basically, the Chinese government has put up a giant “How Am I Driving?” billboard, and encouraged citizens to air their grievances. It’s hard for me to view this without deep suspicion of an ulterior motive, but it appears to be a genuine attempt to illicit feedback from the populace. In the field of program evaluation (somewhat tangentially related to my own field) there is a concept called ‘Needs Assessment’. The process is fairly self-explanatory, the goal of which is to, by various means, determine what the priority areas are for the population your program intends to serve. A group of fellow students and I went to a small community in Bolivia in the summer of 2007 to, among other things, conduct such an assessment. We learned a couple of important things during the process: 1) that it is much easier to ask questions than it is to address them, and 2) that even the process of explicitly listing priorities can spur the populace to take action.

There’s no larger point to be made from this story, except that a society in which the populace has access to its leaders is much healthier than one in which the voice of the populace is suppressed. I am holding out no great hope that the government will take any dramatic action to address the problems (point 1), but perhaps private enterprise can spur some development toward addressing the problems now that priorities have been made explicit (point 2).

It is interesting to see how the internet is changing the way that governments operate, even in oppressive regimes:

The popular Islam Today website, run by the Saudi cleric Salman al-Awdah, has closed a section that contains thousands of Islamic religious rulings, or fatwas. Several websites offering fatwas have recently been blocked, following a decree by King Abdullah. The decree was seen as an attempt to reduce controversial fatwas issued by minor or ultra-conservative clerics.

Much the way that the advent of the printing press, coupled with increased literacy, changed the way that governments related to the people following the Renaissance in Europe and the Middle East, the internet has become a force to contend with. As governments, citizens and corporations struggle to find out a way to adapt to the flood of access to information, it’s nice to see a couple of positive things come out of it, as opposed to regimes’ tendency to crack down on the means of access.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Sowing the seeds of tyranny

We take for granted that we live in a free society. The phrase “it’s a free country” has been repeated so often that it’s become a bottled phrase – a combination of words that are always put together in the same order without being examined on their own. Many could argue, validly, that our society could be a lot more free than it is – we are compelled by government to do a lot of things we don’t agree with, and many actions that do not harm others are still restricted by law. We can make our society much freer.

But, grading on a curve, we live in a free society; a society whose freedom far outstrips several other places. It is important that we safeguard our freedoms (God, I sound like a friggin’ Tea Partier), because it’s really easy to lose them.

Swaziland protesters arrested

Police in Swaziland have arrested about 50 people ahead of protests against sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy, activists say. Most of those detained were later freed and hundreds of people marched through Manzini, Swaziland’s commercial centre. Several South Africans trade unionists were prevented from taking part in the march and deported.

I am not going to pretend that I am knowledgeable about the internal struggles of Swaziland (a small country on the northeast border of South Africa, if Google Maps is to be believed). However, I don’t have to be an expert in, or even generally aware of the political situation in any country to recognize tyranny. King Mswati III is clearly a corrupt leader who would rather rule by locking up his opposition than by leading effectively, with the welfare of his people in mind.

I’m happy to criticize Stephen Harper, particularly his attitude toward the media. He runs a government that was elected partially on a platform of accountability and transparency, and yet has been less forthcoming and more obscurantist than his predecessors. However, Mr. Harper does not lock up dissidents or legally punish those who disagree with him (although he certainly tries to punish them, but anyone would). The advantage to the legal system we have here in Canada is that it accurately recognizes and predicts that those who have power will do whatever they can to keep and increase it. Legal clauses are put into place to limit the amount of power an individual politician has, precisely because it is for the benefit of the entire society that corrupt leaders can be removed.

Sri Lanka grants additional powers to President Rajapaksa

Sri Lankan MPs have approved proposals to let President Mahinda Rajapaksa seek an unlimited number of terms, in a move critics say could lead to dictatorship. The constitutional amendment also hugely boosts the president’s powers… The amendment also empowers him to appoint all the top judges and commissioners for elections, human rights and other affairs, unfettered by any legal veto.

Clearly the kind of foresight the framers of Canadian law had is not enjoyed by the members of Parliament in Sri Lanka. This move is so backward and nonsensical it’s tempting to think it’s a big joke being played on the rest of the world. While countries like Kenya are making positive steps to decentralize power from potentially (and historically) corrupt governments, Sri Lanka has made the decision to run screaming back into the past.

I now have more sympathy for the Tamils who are fleeing the country to come to Canada. If the Canadian parliament passed such a measure with such overwhelming support from even the opposition, I’d be on the first fishing trawler out of here. Apparently Europe is going to be overrun by niggers anyway, what’s one more?

Iran imprisons opposition lawyer

A prominent human rights lawyer in Iran, Nasrin Sotoudeh, has been detained by the authorities. She is accused of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security, her lawyer has said. Ms Sotoudeh has represented Iranian opposition activists and politicians, and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18.

Pointing out the corruption and complete lack of human decency present in the Iranian regime is so easy as to almost not be worth the time it takes to write it down, but I thought it was relevant to point this story out, considering the topic of this post.

Tyranny is not the drunken, half-cocked fantasy of overzealous libertarians. It still exists in many places in the world, and when it begins to encroach on our rights (does anyone remember the G8/G20?), we have to speak up. I have a great deal more confidence in our system than these other places though – our laws were designed to protect us from this exact thing from happening.

It may also be worthwhile noting that despite all the abuse I heap on the religious, none of the three above stories have anything to do with religion. These are the kinds of threats that could still happen in our post-religion secular socialist utopia. Sometimes we have to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Hate speech laws – THIS is why I oppose them

I recognize that many people don’t share my stance on free speech, particularly as it relates to hate speech laws. I think that free speech should be free, regardless of its content (making an exception for incitement to violence, which really isn’t speech so much as being an accomplice to assault). I say this because labeling unpopular speech as illegal creates, virtually by necessity, the ability to criminalize any unpopular ideas.

And it’s happening:

Rwanda’s government should review two laws banning the promotion of genocide ideology and sectarianism, Amnesty International says. The campaign groups says the vague wording has enabled their misuse to criminalise dissent. The government was widely criticised for using them to smother opposition in the run-up the elections won by President Paul Kagame this month.

I am not insensitive to the fact that Rwanda is still reeling from the horrific genocide of less than 20 years ago. It is perfectly natural to have a heightened level of concern for hate speech, particularly considering the particular way in which the radio was used to fan the flames of genocidal hatred and to direct death squads. But just as it was wrong to abolish civil liberties in the United States under the Patriot Act following the terrorist attacks of 9 years ago, it is wrong to clamp down on free speech for particularly this reason. Once free speech is criminalized, it opens the gateway to abusing hate speech laws to outlaw legitimate speech.

Rwanda isn’t the only place it’s happening:

South African journalists are finding themselves increasingly at odds with their own government over two proposals that have the potential to limit press freedom. The ruling African National Congress has proposed a Media Appeals Tribunal with power to discipline journalists who engage in what the party calls unethical behaviour. Parliament also is debating a “protection of information” bill that would impose restrictions on access to government information and punishment of up to 25 years in prison for those who violate the law.

The ANC says it is trying to protect the public good.

It’s statements like that that make me understand why conservatives have such a negative reaction when people appeal to what is good for society. Who decides what is good and what is bad? In this particular case, the government is making a choice to imprison people based on its conception that ‘the public good’ is to keep the ANC in power, despite the legitimacy of scandal. By stacking the deck with political appointees, there’s no question that their concept of ‘the public good’ is ‘saving the party’s ass’.

Free speech is a difficult beast to wrangle, particularly since once you allow people to speak freely, you give license to every bigoted asshole under the sun to say whatever he/she wants. It’s not an easy issue to resolve, but I’m firm in my stance that because of both its immense power and potential for abuse, regulating what speech is ‘free’ is a bad way to run a society. Free speech is neither a liberal nor a conservative issue – it’s the most important and fundamental freedom we have. Without it, the rest of them are pretty useless.

Madness? THIS… IS… well yes, this is madness

Sometimes something happens in the news that is so painfully stupid that it’s hard to hold out any kind of hope for the future of mankind. It’s like watching a slap-fight between two legless drunks – it would be funny if it weren’t so macabre.

Such is this “International Burn a Koran Day” bullshit. For those of you who haven’t been following the news, there is a tiny church group in Florida that decided it would have a book bonfire, in which they torch several copies of the Qu’ran. Thirty people down in Florida decide to burn a book they haven’t read, to protest a religion they don’t know anything about.

Big hairy deal, right?

Ah, but because it’s a religious thing, of course the whole world goes indiscriminately insane.

Muslims all over the world began protesting, burning effigies, American flags, and chanting “death to Christians.”

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Afghanistan over plans, now on hold, by a small Florida church to burn copies of the Koran. Three people were shot when a protest near a Nato base in the north-east of the country turned violent. President Hamid Karzai said the stunt had been an insult to Islam, while Indonesia’s president said it threatened world peace.

It’s absolutely shocking the complete lack of a sense of irony or proportion that religious groups have. “30 people burned the book of the religion of peace? Well then we will call for the indiscriminate murder of all Christians, and the President of the United States. Also we will burn objects sacred to you, because your actions threaten world peace!”

So the Islamic world did pretty much exactly what everyone thought it would do – go batshit nuts and renew the chant of “Death to America” or whatever. Ho hum, nothing to see here, move along folks. That should be the end of it, right?

No, let’s turn up the stupid, shall we? General Petraeus, what would you like to sing for us this evening?

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen Petraeus said in a statement to US media. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community,” added Gen Petraeus, who heads a 150,000-strong Nato force against a Taliban-led insurgency.

Thirty people in Florida are about to do something stupid. What’s a proportional response? Let’s get the commander of NATO allied forces to comment directly on it, elevating it to an international incident! Well now it will absolutely cause danger to the troops, because it’s received national attention!

Hold the line, I believe we have a comment from Darth Helmet:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper added his voice to the global outcry against a U.S. church’s plan to burn 200 copies of the Qur’an on Saturday — the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. “I don’t speak very often about my own religion but let me be very clear: My God and my Christ is a tolerant God, and that’s what we want to see in this world,” he said. “I unequivocally condemn it,” he said. “We all enjoy freedom of religion and that freedom of religion comes from a tolerant spirit.”

Nothing like international attention to blow any sense of proportion far over the horizon. We now have international leaders lining up to condemn the actions of 30 morons in Florida. Are we going to make an international crisis out of every act of Islamophobia? Boy howdy!

Amazingly, the only voices of reason seem to be coming (from all places) Iran and Gaza:

Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Mr Jones’ threat was an “expression of hatred of Islam” but called for restraint. “This disgraceful act contradicts the very duties of religious and spiritual leadership to enhance the value of peaceful coexistence and safeguard the rights and mutual respect among religions,” he said.

In Gaza, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Mr Jones was a “crazy priest who reflects a crazy Western attitude toward Islam and the Muslim nation”.

When Iranian Ayatollahs and the head of Hamas are the islands of perspective in a sea of complete insanity, you know that the world has gone completely topsy-turvey.

There are two points to be made out of this absolute lack of cognitive processes. The first has to do with the power of religion. It’s almost completely incredible that the actions of 30 people in a backwater part of the Southern United States can set off an international crisis. We have roughly 30 regular volunteers here in Vancouver’s branch of CFI. If we stated burning copies of the Charter or The God Delusion or the Canadian flag (or all three at the same time), we’d get arrested for mischief without a news camera in sight. Why? Because atheists are boring! But put an equal number of Christian extremists around a pile of burning copies of a Muslim book, and watch as the entire world goes nuts. It’s 30 idiots in Florida. Take a deep breath.

The second point has to do with free speech (my favourite ^_^ <3 ). A number of countries have been demanding that the President directly intervene to stop 30 idiots in Florida from burning some books. Ignoring for a second the 8 or 9 levels of the chain of command that would skip (not to mention the fact that the President doesn’t have the authority to order private citizens to do anything), and also ignoring that it’s just 30 idiots in Florida, the United States constitution strictly forbids any kind of legal response to this – an act of free expression. The whole point of free speech is that you are free to say what you want. It’s hate speech, absolutely. I think it’s bigoted, I think it’s stupid, and I think it sends absolutely no worthwhile message other than “we are idiots, and we don’t understand anything about either Islam or our own religion.” But as I’ve said before, laws against hate speech are a really bad idea.

At the end of the whole debacle, the pastor decided to back down, an appropriately anti-climactic conclusion to a blisteringly-meaningless non-issue.

Of course the tragedy here (besides all of the people that will be killed and injured as a result of people being idiots) is that this pushes American Muslims further into the fringes, and closer into the arms of extremist groups that are the real problem. It’s not quite cutting off your nose to spite your face, it’s like cutting off your own hand and giving it to someone trying to choke you with it.

The correct response to this would for the governor of Florida to say “apparently some fundamentalist extremists have decided to do something stupid. I hope they vote for someone else in the next election. Floridians and Americans have more important things to do than worry about some backwash church led by a nutcase” and let that be the last word on it.

TL/DR:The response to the burning of Qu’rans is completely out of proportion to the act. Thirty idiots in Florida shouldn’t have the power to derail the entire world, and it’s only possible because of religion. Also, free speech ought to be absolute, even when it’s stupid.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

It’s a good day for Kenya

More good news!

Kenya has adopted a new constitution, more than three weeks after it was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum… The document provides for greater checks on presidential powers and more regional devolution. It also recognises the UN human rights charter and creates a second parliamentary chamber – the senate.

It may seem a little unusual for me to provide commentary on a purely political story on this blog, which is purportedly about race, free speech, and religion (although somehow gay shit keeps creeping in… paging Dr. Freud). I’ve been following this story for a number of months now without commenting on it, but I can tell you that it’s highly appropriate.

First, there is a fundamental (and racist) misunderstanding we have in North America about Africa. The first thing to consider is the fact that Africa is not a country. You didn’t have to look much farther than the promotion of the World Cup to see that Europe and North America seem to consider Africa to be a homogeneous entity, but it is peopled by vastly different cultures and histories. There are modern democracies like Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria; there are corrupt dictatorships like Zimbabwe and the Congo; and there are dictatorial theocracies like Sudan and Somalia (the latter without a central government of any kind). Much of the strife plaguing the continent can be traced back to exploitation by colonial powers who used (and continue to use) the countries of Africa as a source of material wealth without building up the infrastructure needed to make the countries self-sufficient. Without the ability to harness their own natural wealth, the people of Africa are at the mercy of warlord-like governments who are largely controlled by foreign corporate regimes.

By ratifying a constitution, one that decentralizes the powers of the presidency and creates both a bill of rights and a second branch of government (ah, checks and balances), Kenya has taken a step towards true independence and freedom for its people. Such protections allow Kenya to (eventually) become a player on the international stage, much as Uganda and Ethiopia once were, and challenge the prevailing winds of prejudice against the continent.

Second, the ratification of this document was plagued by violent opposition, hate speech accusations, and (of course) religious conflict:

Church leaders who organised Sunday’s rally have also accused the government of being behind the grenade attack which led to a stampede. At least 20 people were injured in Sunday’s blast. Many Kenyans doubt the Church leaders’ claim that the government could be behind the blasts, especially as it seems most people are already backing the “Yes” campaign, says the BBC’s Will Ross in Nairobi… Sunday’s rally was organised by Christian groups opposed to a draft constitution because it retains recognition of existing Islamic courts and includes a clause on abortion.

But despite the obstacles, and despite Kenya’s entrenched religiousness (see? more gay shit!), the measure passed with a healthy 2/3 majority. This is the right step for Kenya, the right step for Africa, and the right step for the rest of the world.

“Doctor Laura” at the Michael Richards/Mel Gibson school of etiquette

The really frustrating thing about blogging is that sometimes a week will go by where a million bloggable things happen, and I’m left with the choice of either commenting on them 2 weeks late, or flooding you with Facebook/Twitter updates every 5 minutes. As a result, I am writing about this story right after it happens, but you’re not going to read this until today:

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk show host who recently apologized for saying the N-word 11 times to a caller on the air, said Tuesday she plans to give up her radio show when her contract is up the end of this year.

For those of you who don’t follow talk radio (and Science bless you for that), Laura Schlessinger is a PhD in physiology who hosts a radio show in which she verbally abuses people who call in for help. Why anyone would care what a physiologist has to say about religion (she is, big surprise, a fundamentalist Christian) or relationships, or anything besides physiology, is beyond my understanding. But they do, for whatever reason, and she hands out bad advice.

On the show in question, a woman called in to ask Dr. Laura what she should do about her husband’s friends. It seems that the husband and his friends think that they have license, by virtue of the woman’s race, to make racist comments. It’s the whole “I married a black woman, and therefore I am not racist, and therefore I can say racist things and you’re not allowed to be offended” argument. The caller was looking for the proper way to broach the subject with her spouse.

In a fit of… I really don’t know what, Dr. Laura decided instead to accuse the woman of being “too sensitive”.

“Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger. I don’t get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it’s affectionate. It’s very confusing.”

I’d laugh, but I’ve heard this same stupid argument from my own friends. It’s either that, or saying that it’s okay to say it because it’s in a song lyric, or that somehow “nigg-a” is different from “nigg-er“. These are all profoundly stupid arguments, and all I hear when someone says them is “I want the license to say things that I know to be racist and hurtful, and it’s your fault if you’re offended.” Congratulations, you are making the same argument as those brave freedom-fighters from Courtenay, and also rapists.

I’ve talked about the meaning and history of this word before. In essence, the word has no proper context that makes it not unbelievably offensive. It is rooted in the idea that Africans are not human, and that the sub-human treatment they received at the hands of their slave owners was justifiable. In my opinion, nobody should get to say it outside a discussion of its historical and/or sociological significance. Dr. Laura pretends as though there’s never been a good reason offered for why it’s ‘okay’ for black people to use the word, and that it’s a mystery why white people (and especially white people) aren’t allowed to say it.

I read a bunch of coverage about this issue, which I’m not going to link to because they mostly said the same thing. There was one commentary that I thought was interesting and worth sharing. A blogger mentioned the similarity between black people and the dynamic of a family. I have issues with my family, as we all do, particularly with my father. Because I was raised in a single-parent household, my dad and I frequently quarreled over pretty much everything. This, I gather, is normal parent/child stuff (incidentally, for those curious, things between my father and I are now better than they’ve been since I was a small child – growing up will do that). I used to fantasize about telling him off in front of a large crowd of his friends, perhaps at his funeral. Let’s stop this here, and simply conclude that I am not a daddy’s boy. That being said, I will not tolerate anyone speaking ill of him, even my other family members.

There are things we can say to and about our family members that sound (and may be) incredibly hurtful. But let someone from outside the family come in and try saying the same things, and sparks fly. Someone who is not in full possession of all of the facts, and who is not part of the dynamic, has no license to say things they may have heard just because someone else says them. In the same way, it’s highly inappropriate for any non-black person to use the word nigger, even if many black people think it’s appropriate to use with each other. Those who pretend that they don’t understand why this is so, and belligerently go out of their way to say it anyway, have suspect motives for doing so.

So am I saying Dr. Laura is racist? Let me answer that in this way…

DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER IS A RACIST HARPY BITCH, AND THE WORLD WOULD BE A MEASURABLY BETTER PLACE IF SHE HAD DIED AT BIRTH.

I hope that clears up any ambiguity you may have at what I think of Dr. Laura.

Interestingly, she stumbled into another wheelhouse of mine when she said that she was quitting to restore her First Amendment rights:

“I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart, and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry — some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent, and attack affiliates and sponsors,” she said.

Here’s the text of the First Amendent:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Also, you can spread racist speech, and private citizens are not allowed to be upset, or protest against your stupidity in legal ways.”

Can you figure out what part I added?

Google discusses net neutrality

Those of you who have been clamoring for more information about the current net neutrality fight (who am I kidding… a total of 4 people read that post :P) will be happy to know that I’m not the only one talking about it. Our old friends at Google, after discussing the issue with Verizon, have tabled a proposal for net neutrality rules:

The two companies on Monday announced seven principles for U.S. regulators to use when crafting so-called net neutrality rules. The suggestions include the prohibition of wired broadband providers from discriminating between different kinds of internet traffic, a rule that would also prevent charging content providers extra fees for prioritized traffic.

They propose fines (which are too small, in my opinion, but it’s the right direction) for anyone violating the rules, and guidelines for transparency rules.

Sounds good, what’s the catch?

The new rules would not initially apply to the wireless internet in order to preserve the incentives for service providers to continue investing in what is a relatively new technology, the companies said. The companies also suggested the rules should not apply to specialized services that use the internet but are not actually a part of it, such as a specific gaming channel or a more secure banking service.

Now maybe I’m missing some relevant information here, but that seems completely reasonable. Wireless infrastructure has not had as long as wired internet to turn a profit for the companies who invested the capital to develop it. Allowing them to monetize wireless services will provide incentive for them to develop and market newer types of services; penalizing them for innovating will do the opposite. These are corporations, not charities – they are in it to make money, and in a capitalist framework that’s a good thing.

And yet, the critics are losing their shit:

[The above] two suggestions in particular, however, drew heavy criticism from consumer groups, technology bloggers and other internet companies.

I can understand if there is a risk of a Trojan Horse ploy, by which consumer internet access is re-classified as “specialized services”, but that’s an issue that can readily be settled in the courts. What I can’t understand is why providing different levels of service to internet banking and gambling websites will in any way infringe upon the individual’s ability to speak freely.

You who who else doesn’t understand it? Google Vice-President and long term net neutrality advocate Vint Serf:

I viewed the discussions with Verizon as an experiment or an exploration of how two rather polarized views of net neutrality could ultimately end up reaching some sort of compromise that both parties would be equally unhappy with. In some ways this represents not a stake in the ground, but rather the exploration of common ground and what that common ground might look like. I see it as a kind of homework assignment that Verizon and Google have attempted to complete just to show what happens when you try to come to some kind of common perspective.”

I hope that I have established my credibility as someone who cares passionately about free speech. Net neutrality is vital to the grassroots development of ideas and entrepreneurial innovation – look how the internet has changed the way we look at the world and conduct our daily lives since it became widely available in the 1990s. Imagine what will happen in the next 20 years.

That being said, I don’t see these rules as being unreasonable. As Serf points out, there needs to be a compromise between doing the ideal thing and what is practical in business terms. Verizon (and Google) exist to make money. They do so by providing us with the means to access the internet. In order for this dynamic to be able to continue, we have to embrace the reality that everything changes. We must be willing to adapt to the political and business realities. Standing resolute on the spot and objecting over issues that harm nobody and are completely reasonable compromises doesn’t do anything to protect the consumers that these critics claim to represent.

Disagree? I want to hear why.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Movie Friday: Anotherآجر in the دیوار

I don’t often talk about my musical side (I actually had to create a new “music” tag for this post). I’ve been playing since I was a little kid, and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t banging pots and pans, or singing, or doing something else musical. Music is, quite literally, an integral part of my entire life. I guess I’m lucky I don’t live in Iran, where rock music is banned (and for about a gojillion other reasons). Music isn’t just music. Anyone who knows about Dmitri Shostakovich, or Bob Dylan, or Chuck D knows that music can be, in addition to social commentary, fuel for a revolution. Hip-hop is being picked up by Inuit youth in Northern Canada as protest music against social injustices. Reggae, as many people forget, was equal parts smooth grooves and calls for uprising (think of Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up or Desmond Dekker’s Israelites). As hip-hop is to disenfranchised North American youth, and reggae is to oppressed Caribbeans and Africans, rock and roll is to a generation of Middle-Eastern youth, growing up in a war zone they had no part in building.

Enter Blurred Vision, a Toronto band fronted by two Iranian brothers, who use rock to comment on what is happening in their homeland of Iran. Right now, a single of theirs (a re-imagining of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (pt. II), is reaching an international audience. Because this is right up my alley, I thought I’d share it with you.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it – it’s not Mozart. The thing that struck me about this song is that 30 years after The Wall was released, this song can be perfectly applied, almost unedited, to a country that didn’t exist (in its present, oppressive, theocratic form) at the time. There are themes in music that are timeless, and good music can reach out through the veil of history and resonate within our psyche. So to anyone who brands any type of music as “just noise” or “not really music”, remember that Philistines said the same thing about Pink Floyd back in 1979.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!