Egypt

Hosni Mubarak May be a prick, but he is the best prick that the U. S. had in Egypt. He worked with the West on several fronts. Perhaps he was the one who recognized Israel. I can't remember. How funny is that to think about. One country basically say that another country does not exist because of the primary religion of that country.

I'm all for people standing up for their rights. I'm all about freedom. People should be aloud to have a chance at taking care of their own shit. They should have this right taken from them when their shit gets in the way of other people's shit. As long as people can keep their shit together and not hurt other people, they should be left alone and provided with support for the wrangling of said shit.

That said, the U. S. is headed down a road where our elected officials have taken advantage of their position to grease the groves for people to take care of themselves and they have decided that people should not be left to deal with their own devices. The mentality that says someone else should make your decisions for you is just wrong. When someone comes along and takes a position of power with the intent of making your decisions for you, that is abuse.

One tactic of taking your rights away is to change the definition of words. This is done to make things and thoughts and people who did not fit within the lines of a law, suddenly fit within the lines of a law that is already on the books.

Example. In some places in Europe, words are considered weapons. This means if you say something that someone else takes as an insult, it is similar to walking up and smacking them. Several people are on trial in Europe as I type over things they said about Islam. At the moment, if you read statistics about family abuse out loud, you can be charged with a crime.

Don't think this can't happen in the U. S.. It can and is on it's way.

Egypt cut the people off the internet. This was a huge mistake. This made the story larger than a bunch of people bitching about governmental rules. I wonder if it made the effort of toe people stronger because they had lost the ability to vent. What happens when you can't vent? Pressure builds up. What happens when you don't have intent? You get board and try to find something to do while in a pissed off mood. Eventually, the country is going to turn on the spigot back on.

Reasons not to cut your people off the internet

• People who were not really in to bitching about the government, are now in to bitching about the government, loudly, and have no outlet other than the streets.
• The rest of the world will sympathies with the people of your country because, hey, we all use the internet for everything and would be lost without. Now we sympathize with the big black hole in the internet.
• People will figure out ways to get around your block. People on the outside, as described above, will help, if only to eliminate the big black hole in the internet that makes their mouse hand itch.
• You are going to have to let the people back on at some point and the only thing on their minds will be bitching about the government and posting all the media they recorded during the outage.

The U. S. government would do well to consider these issues before obtaining an internet kill switch. I bet people in the U. S. would have the tech savvy and will to make the internet work in defiance of whatever the government said. How many companies and execs depend on the internet and constant access for everything. Yes, I've heard the excuse our government uses for wanting such a switch. I'm just not buying it.

An over all catastrophic kill switch will lead to the wont of a line item kill switch. First it will be things like child exploitation, then identity thieves. Next the gun will be leveled at spammers. First hard core porn then all pornography will be corralled to a place where viewer's fetishes can be tracked. From there, people who complain about the government or say that things have gone too far. Then, you will not be able to find some products online because lobby of one group have gotten another abolished from people's screens.

In the beginning of radio, a long time ago, any one could open up a station. Then, people said things that other people didn't like. Then the government stepped in. Now, one company controls the vast majority of all terrestrial radio. Everything sounds the same and the same opinion is spoken everywhere. Think you not that the exact same thing will not happen to the internet when the first domino falls.

Much better opinion than mine.