I certainly did not say it was you illiterate fucking retard.
Most people are not making that argument. The argument is that it will be much worse than 'the canary in the coal mine for free speech' much like the Patriot Act was much worse than 'people getting spied on by NSA agents'.
I wasn't accusing you directly, but fair enough.
You will not get any arguments defending the Patriot Act from me. That's a separate pile of shit than what we're discussing, which are upcoming pieces of legislation requiring ID verification before accessing pornographic websites. I get your point that "protecting the keeds" can be used to push nasty legislation that, buried within, has nothing to do with protecting the keeds. However, I have not yet seen anyone post any text from legislation in question which would accomplish that. All I'm seeing is huffing and puffing about an invasion of privacy and a slippery slope which, while concerning, are not yet present. ID verification can be done in such a fashion that no one retains your personal data. This legislation is not aiming to require ID verification for accessing all websites or using the Internet.
If the concern is that this legislation is a prelude to more legislation requiring ID to access the Internet, fine, that's a legitimate concern. Digital ID stuff is creepy and I don't want that, either. However, I do not think that will happen because the legislation we are actually talking about pertains to obscene material. As I've said already, US case law regarding obscenity has to do with sexual content. Websites like Kiwi Farms
are not pornographic websites. NSFW material here falls under Fair Use because it is being used for criticism, commentary, reporting, and - arguably - research. I feel confident that any attempt by overbearing legislators to demand Digital ID and so on will face far more legal and political hurdles than they will for obscene material.
Lumping everything together into "free speech" is tempting, but oversimplifies the topic completely. I'm not telling you to say "thank you, sir, may I have another" to Daddy Gubmint. I'm stating my actual, real, serious belief that legislating obscene material is very different from infringing upon the Fourth Amendment and Fair Use laws. If that's not enough for you, then so be it. As I already said: if this porn law is the beginning of the end for American liberty, I'll eat my left shoe.
But, there has been quite a bit of "discussion" about most of those points. Personally, I think the boot coming down on us all is absolutely inevitable, anyways, and no amount of REEEEEing here or anywhere else is going to do anything about it. But I don't have to like it. And I don't have to like gooners, either.
Fair enough, buddy. I do not think it is inevitable.
I have tried this front, many times. I've never gotten anything but form letters and phone platitudes. You've had far better luck than I, here.
You still have faith in the process. That is naive, at best. You have seen-and yourself posted and discussed plenty of examples of- the kind of shenanigans that get done in that process. You intellectually know better, but you still believe that fat fuck Santa is not going to shit in your stocking because we're all bad boys and girls, anyways. I kinda miss being this fresh faced and optimistic. We all still want to believe in Santa, at heart, I suppose. Youth is wasted on the young, and I'm starting to feel really fucking old.
I have faith in the process because, when you go turtles all the way down with this, that's all we have. It's not naive, it's practical. The alternative is to give up, which I refuse to do. If that makes me a baby-faced retard to you, then I wear that title proudly.
