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[Prev| Next| Index] 2/21/96,Home Page, vanmer@cris.com, Ann Arbor, MI USA
[Image]
24 Hours of Democracy
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Freedom of speech. The right to Assembly. Americans take these rights for
granted, because they are written in our constitution. Oh, what fools we
mortals be. Anything that is written can be erased, or written over by
something more to the liking of the writer. In this case, the writer is the
government, and the document being smeared over like a bad doodle on a
piece of scrap paper, is the Constitution. The First Amendment to this
basis of our government, to be exact. At one time, the people had the right
to free speech. The people had the right to say, or see whatever they
wanted, without the government stepping in. No longer. Since February 9th,
1996, the government can now trample our rights.
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Freedom of speech has always been important to me. I can remember in
Elementary School, 5th grade, when our class was studying government. I
decided to take the 1st amendment. We made posters, and talked about our
amendments. I remember sitting in class, and thinking "I can say, or write
anything I want. People don't have to listen to me, but I can do it, and no
one can stop me." Well, that was true. Until just a few short days ago.
Without acting soon, we will lose the freedom that we fought for way
back in the day. The internet has the potential to be one of the greatest
networks of intellectual conversation that has ever existed. This is
becoming less the case, however. In the past few years, the internet has
been becoming available to anyone. This has a few pluses, and a few
minuses. One may overbear the other, but I will leave that up to you to
decide.
decide.
[Image] A plus, in some peoples eyes, is more people on the internet.
With more people, it will get more press, more coverage, and have
more personalities to talk with. Also, more people represents more voices.
If more voices are represented, it goes along with the idea of democracy.
Unfortunately, most of the new users of the internet are middle or upper
class people. The lower class, the poor, do not have internet access. This
medium is being used almost exclusively for people with middle class
incomes. Without a full representation of the population of the United
States, we cannot fully know how people feel about issues.
States, we cannot fully know how people feel about issues.
Since more people are coming on to the internet, more people [Image]
are also new users. This adds to ignorant people, who have the
power to use the internet, but lack the knowledge to actually control it,
or their usage. These are the people who post questions in a newsgroup,
when the question has been answered in the FAQ. These are the people who go
against netiquette, and do things such as mail bomb, or flood on IRC. I am
not taking a holier than thou attitude with this thing. People do need to
learn. But people can do damage on the way to their education.
learn. But people can do damage on the way to their education.
[Image] With all these new users, the government steps in, and decides
that it needs to protect these people. It needs to protect it's
ignorant middle class from the horrors that abide on web pages and news
groups. Nevermind that it fails to protect it's lower class, or even try
and give them the same advantage as the middle class, on the internet. So
it passes a law. This law was wrapped in an act that would give the lower
class access to the internet. It would give the schools access to the
internet. The law was hidden in a bill that would do good for the country.
But this law will do only evil. This part of the bill was not serious
enough, in the eyes of Bill Clinton, to force him to veto. I do not blame
him for what he did. He is forced to compromise, so that in the eyes of the
not so straight in the head (i.e. conservatives). Had he chosen otherwise,
the veto probably would have been voted down. But I blame all of those who
voted for it in congress, and all of those who wrote the bill. I have read
many pieces of email, bashing Clinton, or blaming him for his signing. I
say it is not his fault. The bill the law is contained is does many good
things. It de-regulates TV and radio, making it easier to obtain stations
to voice our views. It promises internet access to high schools around the
nation. It does so many good things, compared to this one bad law. Some say
that he could have gotten the rest of these things passed without having to
compromise the rights of the citizens of his country. I do agree with this
compromise the rights of the citizens of his country. I do agree with this
statement, but he would have done nothing else than that. It would [Image]
have taken him his entire term left, and perhaps another to do
this. Sometimes life has to compromise, and I believe Clinton did the right
thing. He knew that the decency act would be challenged in court, and so he
signed the bill. He expected us to fight the decency act. Now we must do
what we can do live up to his expectations, so we do not let him down, and
with him the entire country.
For those of you who do not know what the bill says, I will
paraphrase. It basically states that it is a crime to make available to
minors "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other
communication which is obscene or indecent." This means that anything from
a page on the usage of codoms, to a page an renassaince art, will be
persectuted under law. The penalty for this is 2 years in prison, or a
heavy fine. Other parts of this law make it illegal to have profane
language, or other things that are indecent.
language, or other things that are indecent.
[Image] Anything written is always interpreted. This interpretation
can be loose, or it can be strict. It all depends on the
interpreter. It seems that our government as interpreted the freedom of
speech as freedom of speech, but only if you censor yourself. Well, I am
not going to have it. That is why I am participating in this, and other
protests. I was part of eff.org's black background campaigns, and I am
included in the 24 Hours Mailing List, which is graciously served off of
America Online site. Please. Everyone. Write an essay. Share with the world
your opinions on democracy. Look at the 24 hours in democracy site, and
post your essays there. If you don't know html, there are sites that can
help you write your page anyway. Please. We need all the voices and
opinions we can get. This project has been a good idea, on the part of Dave
Winer, and I would like to thank him for making this all happen. Good luck
to all of you, and may your voices go abroad and by heard by all.
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I am: Aaron van Meerten. I am a sophmore at Community High School.
You can write me mail. Here.. Also, I would like any comments you have on
this page, or my other pages.
-Me