Eternal Vigilance is the Price of RedTube

Titties for liberty.

This is the problem with writing, is I always need smoke breaks and they always get me remembering other things I wanted to write about.  But that’s to be expected of smoke breaks, cigarettes having significant diuretic effects and all.  The problem is I can’t type effectively with each individual hand, each working on separate things, while also recording voice notes on a third, and really I was getting out and about a lot more when I refused to let myself think about writing much less sit down to do it.

But since I’m probably not going to finish up the other couple of posts I’ve decided deserve editing before they go up at least until tomorrow and I don’t want to lose the recent momentum here, this:

The internet having obviated virtually every function of the government aside from the one or two legitimate functions it has (and doing a better job at several aspects of those, like intelligence gathering), and government being roughly as agile as that big-ass platform what hauls the space shuttle to the launch pad, I was profoundly not at all surprised to hear that the O Team wants to start regulating it.  I haven’t read about the proposals, but that really (I mean, really) does not matter: beginning the discussion here is to give up the battle.  It must be rejected out of hand and anyone talking about it should be punished (I mean politically, like disgraced and removed from office, not like fined or imprisoned) immediately.  [as a further aside, I wonder if this is what they're getting at in Lost at the moment: if smokey's evil its own self, then talking to Smokey Locke--and that makes me want to go to Denny's--is to decide to join him, as I think Said just said to Jack or somebody.  Evil not being an honest broker of the sort liable to adhere to any bargains struck except and temporarily in the "letter-of" sense, it must be cast aside.]  Why so brusque?  Well, name one instance of government actually simply retaining its level of authority over some area, let alone ceding any of it, and I’ll show you a revolution or a hated executive.

Here’s how that paragraph probably should look:

I.  The internet having . . .

1.  I was not surprised

2.  I haven’t read

a.  that does not matter

i.  to discuss is to surrender
ii.  analogy to Smokey Locke

aa.  Smokey Lockes sound tasty

iii.  inch given/mile taken, etc.

aa.  I mean, really, with some maple syrup and pancakes?  Shiiiit.

I say Jump!  You say I don’t have three hours at my disposal right now!

It was actually a little bit surprising in terms of the timing, since I’ve been kind of chewing on this idea for awhile and was on the verge of writing about it anyway, but I was thinking in terms of mass media and the generally politically disruptive effects of the nearest analogue to the internet, i.e. the printing press.  But also about what happened when mass media became available: authoritarian government headed straight into totalitarianism, which isn’t possible without the means to distribute propaganda and maintain extensive spying networks.  Given that the U.S. government does both on a massive scale, even domestially, already (and since Total Information Awareness never really died completely), this is sort of just copping to what’s really going on.  Actually, no: it’s taking that crucial step from something that must kept covert to something explicitly acknowledged, accepted and, in what will be steadily increasing steps, defended.  That’s a fine thing, taking that step, if you’re gay.  It’s no kind of good if you’re the government.  Why?  It further reduces the likelihood of opposition, which is really the only respectable attitude toward the government (not necessarily to the goals allegedly being pursued, which is one of those conflations I mentioned before and will get around to writing about some day).  By comparison, listen to how easy it is to get conservatives and “liberals” (the word deserves quotes in American usage, since nobody who cops to it actually, deep down, gives two shits about individual liberty and in fact fears it; conservatives do but for well-established and acknowledged reasons, making that label accurate enough) to assent to government actions that are unthinkable from any principled understanding of human liberty or common decency.  Handily enough, immigration gets both of them to do this at once.   One because they only have to see the word “illegal” to knee-jerk back to their law-and-order fixation (lotta wild folks there, to judge by their fear of lack of law-and-order, which might be why conservatives are generally a lot more fun to drink and argue with); the other because–the colors of the rainbow be damned–they have to establish their national defense/tough on crime bona fides for the other side and also because of their thoroughly nasty economic xenophobia (“American jobs”) and their religious fixation on social services that have been, manifestly, failures and are currently bankrupt and only going to get worse.

Uhhh, but okay.  So the internet.  Great thing about the internet, as another aside?  It brings computers ever closer to their essential mimicry of the architecture of the human brain–or at least, the architecture by which the human brain should operate–and so both get locked into a virtuous circle (the video circle jerks notwithstanding or maybe included) if they aren’t interrupted by all this hollow posturing about technology/authenticity/what-have-you.  That’s probably not even an aside–that’s probably one of the reasons (aside from its profound and essential goodness) it’s a natural enemy of government.  But anyway, I’ve been expected further government incursions into the internet for some time, particularly since reading a couple years back that the French and Chinese both back a plan to assign everyone on Earth a permanent IP address–the mechanisms necessary to enforce that, by the way, are bound to lead to evil and probably outright murder on a scale that would make Mao and Stalin look like Laurel & Hardy, and I expect the Americans to be at the forefront this time around.  So I think we’re here enjoying the waning days of a gloriously anarchic period of internet freedom, and since various political actors and the profoundly moronic people reading the news generally seem to agree that the internet is not to be given credit for the massive amount of wealth it’s created and the surprisingly encouraging trends in trade regulation it’s made into acknowledgments of the obvious, don’t expect much of a defense on the several manifestly demonstrable grounds.  At least, don’t expect it to make it into the mainstream without taking some prisoners (and executing a few more).  Instead, it’s likely that the debate, if there even is one, will be framed in terms specifically used to obscure actual fact while tickling the moral G-spots.  Think “level playing field,” “peaceful and productive environment for all,” “parents can rest easy knowing their children are safe,” “the terrorists must be defeated,” “American values/way of life” and so on.

So, a list of reasons rather than more of this, since I gotta get back to writing about times I peed in cups at the command of Koreans:

1).  The internet, whatever else it is, is a fantastically effective and endlessly customizable means of communictation and connection between people.  That is, it’s freedom its own self.  Government is naturally opposed to that, on an ontological level.  Okay, just kidding; I don’t understand the word “ontological” well enough to use it that way.  But I’d bet I’m not far off.  Go collar a philosophy student and ask him.
2).  The power alone is irresistible.  People who already have power tend to believe that they deserve it, that the fact of its possession reflects their particular suitedness to it, and whatever the reasoning, nobody ever possesses power of this sort without exercising it–the way humans have never yet come up with a weapon we haven’t eventually figured out reasons for using.  People with political power, then, have the motive and means and it’s a simple matter of PR to latch on to the opportunity.
3).  As mentioned before, the internet has obviated nearly everything governments actually spend their time and our money doing.  The remainder is stuff they should by no means be doing, particularly not with a monopoly on force and extorted funds (that being, by the way, the only kind of funds governments ever possess) at their disposal.
4).  Nobody likes a threat to their status and power.  They are likely to use whatever means they have at their disposal to defend them, or to mitigate the damage done by said threats.  In the case of those weilding political power, the exercise of force is the entire raison d’etre of the power and status they possess, so they are bound to exercise it.
5). It being unfortunately now more or less a given that people think of politics in collectivist and millennialist terms (“We as a society” “where we are headed as a society” “our future and that of our children”), and any vision thereof bound to be persuasive only to a part of any given population, to varying degrees over time, coercion is necessary in direct proportion to the scope of said vision; the more it operates on or is presented in terms of profoundly effective elements of human psychology (fear, retribution, hunger, spiritual what-have-you, moral instincts, xenophobia), the easier it is to be given particularly powerful means of instituting that coercion (always conflated with the means to the ultimate ends of which coercion is just another step).  That is to say: this power will be obtained using mechanisms regarded as particularly legitimate, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.  That is, Hitler is going to be elected again, just like he was before.  And the blame lies as fully on everyone who supported or acquiesced to his operations as it does on him and his inner circle.
6).  China is an exciting story right now, and didn’t suffer much, according to aggregate statistical tables, in the Great Clusterfuck of 2007-present, and this has already led to “well, maybe centralization, authoritarianism and overt hostility to human rights actually can lead to prosperity” becoming an accepted current in mainstream political thought (read The Economist to see what I mean).  Given that none of the Rich White World’s several cheerleaders and apologists for, well, every single bloodthirsty murderer who paid lip-service to non-fascist forms of authoritarianism ever really met with any costs for abetting in so many outright murders, stunted lives and lifelong miseries, there’s a lot of latent desire to see this proved–precisely as one would test new cosmetics on bunnies–on the backs of as many people as possible.  That will both lend authority to whatever positions China chooses to take as/if it becomes more assertive globally and plausibility to the appeals from people with influence in ostensibly non-authoritarian regimes for greater extensions of government power.  If that doesn’t work, then patriotism and “what about the children?”-type thinking (that is, lazy and twisted parenting) should do the trick.
7)  The big O’s coronation speech, with that shifty and fundamentally dishonest bit about “pragmatism” has helped accustom a new generation of educated people to pursuing what appears to be pragmatism by, first, granting some legitimacy to whatever area government actors are currently using to fuck with people, and to the legal means by which they got into that area in the first place (“Granted, taxes are legitimate . . .” Well, no.  I’ll play along with “resolved,” but that needs to remain on the table if this is going to be anything more than a pussified arm-wrestling contest).  His administration has mostly kept up all of the worst of Bush’s habits, in many cases actually extending and intensifying them–he supports the Patriot Act and that alone vitiates any claim to the moral high ground–and the hordes of nondisillusioned dupes (I’m one of the disillusioned ones, by the way; I did vote for him and dance in the streets when he was elected; that’s another subject) have responded to all criticisms with charges of “racism,” so he can count on tremendous grassroots support if he pushes ahead with this.  The next guy in charge, or girl, will have learned a lot of lessons from O and likely will be able to count on a much more developed version of the same.
8) Look at the Soviet Union in the 1920s, when Lenin & Co. were too weak to impose their will as fully as they’d have liked and so allowed a modicum of freedom: painting, literature, architecture, mathematics, physics, you name it all flourished, helping provide the State with what it’s always aftter: the means of slapping the shackles back on.

I hope I’m wrong about all this.  There’s a good chance I am, that none of this will come to pass.  But keep in mind I’m not making many predictions and certainly not recommending new government policies: the point is the stakes are terrifically high and I think they’re likely to be surrendered entirely to blithely.  Fundamentally, for the same reason as always: everybody has their own priorities, but maximizing individual liberty is the one thing with a reasonable claim to the universal #1.  That it rarely cracks the top ten with anyone makes me shudder.

And makes me think again that the only protection I’m ever going to have from the rest of you is a fortress of money and my own island.

I’m just kidding.  I can also get a machine gun.

Titties for liberty.