Brandon Raub update

I’ve been getting a lot of hits over the last couple of days for Brandon Raub, so I made a quick post and put some links on here for you to find out more information. Let’s keep him on the radar and expose what’s going on!

Here is the link for the Facebook Group ‘Free Brandon Raub’:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/188319494633640/

The Brandon Raub Legal Defense Fund:

https://www.donation-net.net/donation/donation1.cfm?dn=1034&source=8&CFID=15298476&CFTOKEN=62079510

Video of Brandon Raub being arrested:

Kidnapped Marine Vet Brandon Raub Speaks out from psych ward:

It’s good to hear that he is OK!

Here is a group against the NDAA act and indefinite detention:

http://www.facebook.com/Billion.against.Indefinite.detention?ref=stream

I hope the links I provided help. It is important that we stand by those who speak out for our freedoms.

If we do not hold the government’s feet to the fire, our freedoms will continue to be diminished. We must wake up and expose the facts.

Stand up when you see injustice. Politicians and those in power do not like it when fingers are pointed at them.

So keep up the fight for everyone’s individual liberty and the right to express it!

UPDATE:

Here are a couple extra links I found:

This one talks about how most people are completely unaware of what happened last week, and how the media has not said a word about it:

http://thedailycrux.com/Article/41113/Government_Outrage

And this one has a petition to free the marine vet, and has a lot of extra details about the hero:

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/08/21/petition-president-free-marine-vet-brandon-raub-172811/

Hope this helps! Spread the links around and tell your friends!

Silencing Dissent and Tyranny in America

This morning I read two disturbing articles about clamping down on freedom of speech. These articles speak for themselves.

The first one is by Conservative Daily News, and talks about Brandon Ruab, who is a military veteran, and who has just been ‘detained’ indefinitely, for questioning the government on his Facebook page:

http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2012/08/brandon-raub-victim-of-tyranny-in-america/

The second one is by Activist Post, and is about silencing dissent. The article explores what is going on right now regarding protesters, and the government’s clamping down on freedom of speech and expression:

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/silencing-dissent-in-america.html

It is of vital importance that you become aware of what is going on. Even this conservative news site explains that the media has dropped the ball:

A double standard does exist and the lame stream media, including FOX News Network and much of conservative talk radio, is complicit. Not only do the lame streams ignore the violations of the Constitution going on every day, they actually cheer lead for those committing the violations. Our liberty, our Republic of the United States of America, is teetering on the edge of extinction and very few in any media seem to have the courage to really speak boldly about what is happening. Mark Levin and Michael Savage have been rather vocal but most of the”biggies” sidestep this issue of such bold tyranny in all branches of government.

Carrying the water on the most serious issues of liberty is left to those of us who have no national voice and lack the wealth many media darlings protect with their silence.

And the Activist Post explains just how far the government will go clamp down on us.

Freedom in America is endangered. Bipartisan complicity plans destroying it altogether.

America is on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin. Police state laws threaten everyone.

Increasingly, dissent is marginalized. It’s not tolerated. Resistance is called dangerous to National Security.

Federal authorities target activists. So do militarized local police. No-holds-barred tactics are employed.

We must learn what is going on, and we must tell others.

Do not give in to fear, stand up, speak out, click on these articles and share them with your friends, your co-workers, anyone who will listen. Even if it scares you to do so, you must make a stand, you must say ‘no’ to tyranny. If you do not stand up, the fear tactics currently being used will take an even stronger hold and the culprits will know that they have won.

This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but only so long as people stand up and protect that right. Bravery does not mean lack of fear, it means overcoming that fear and doing what is right anyway. Wake up, step up, and make your stand. Make your voice heard, and spread the message through this great torrent of information we call the internet. The mainstream media has let us down, but we the people are the mainstream, so lets get the word out and reclaim the freedom that is rightfully ours.

What the heck are you doing?

I decided to start this blog, in order to get things off my mind, and to help turn the switch on in others. I’ve spent the last 7 years living and thinking outside of the box, and it has led me to where I am today.

I know that I am starting to talk more and more about politics, and the reason is no more than my need of government to step out of the way of the people.

My home country, the one I was born in, has slowly crept up and strangled the life out of its people. It went from the largest empire in history, off the back of lazier-fair capitalism, free thinking and inventions, to a socialist snake pit.

I want to live in a world where people are free to think and live in the way that they desire.

When I first came to America, I saw that in people, I saw that they could make their dreams a reality. I saw the big cars, the tall buildings, the wacky ice cream shops, the fully finished basements, the custom designed swimming pools, and everything in between. I thought I had landed in paradise. Thinking back on it, I had. But at my young age, I did not realize that this dream was slowly being strangled.

We are all created equal, but we do not start off in the same place. For some it is easier than others. But what is, or should always be equal, is the chance for the individual to struggle, and if his head and his heart are in the right place, eventually, with determination, that he succeed.

Laws are supposed to be put in place so that the playing field is leveled, so that those with less can struggle, learn, and prosper their way to the top. Those who are already at the top, can learn, and use their knowledge to maintain their status. If they do not act wisely, they should always be allowed to fail, no matter how big or how wealthy. Those in the middle should be allowed to struggle, make a decent living, invent and produce their way to the top. Or, if they do not educate themselves, they should be allowed to fail also. That is capitalism backed by fair laws, that level the playing field, not laws that redistribute wealth. This is the most fair system in history. It does not give way to demi gods.

If the United States government was not so corrupt to the point that it is strangling itself and its people, I would not be blogging right now, and doing my best to warn others to wake up.

I actually hate politics. I’d rather be sitting on a beach right now with my wife, or taking her out to the movies. Sure we still do all those things, but it would be far easier to work, come home, and play video games without a care in the world. Right now I cannot sit still, I cannot play video games for more than a few minutes without the urge to write, without the urge to research. I have to dig deeper, to fall further down the rabbit hole.

Any why? Why? I hear you ask. Because:

I want my children to grow up in a world of opportunities, not a life of servitude, I want them to be able to struggle toward prosperity, not strain under the hardships of totalitarian rules.

I want to be able to buy and operate a skycar I want to be able to live a long life, well beyond the years my ancestors lived. I want to grow knowledge in my mind, teach others and help this world become a better place.

I want to live my life to the fullest, not just now in this moment, but in my future as well. Life is not a race against the clock, it is a marathon, and I want to enjoy each mile. When you know there are pitfalls ahead, do you stamp the accelerator, or shift gears and prepare for the dissent? A controlled dissent and then a roaring charge back up the hill again, is better than flying out into the middle, crashing, buckling the wheels, and spending extra time fixing the damage.

So it is my responsibility to help restore this country, and provide the shining beacon of hope in the world. Sometimes you don’t choose your destiny, it chooses you. Sometimes you find yourself waiting for someone to do something, then you realize you’re the only one who will.

I’ll stand for freedom, because its the one thing that is always worth standing for.

If we are to prosper as a nation and as a world, we need to live in freedom, with fair laws that keep real criminals at bay. If we are to advance technology to enrich our lives, we must first see and realize the quality of our lives, not allow the government to steer us like cattle, and use our technology against us.

I’m not particularly interested in helping my fellow man, he can help himself. But what I will do is ensure that he is able to help himself, and not held back by bureaucracy. It is bureaucracy that led to the dark ages, and held people back for centuries, and it is bureaucracy that will again lead back to that, if we do not stand up and defend our individual liberties.

I am not on some holy mission to prove a point. I am simply standing up against would be tyrants. I am standing up because I know that if enough people stand up, make their voice heard, do enough research, learn the truth in the world, that we can prevent tyranny and oppression.

That might sound really spooky un-realistic, but just look at the world around us right now, and some of the rhetoric that is going on between presidential candidates.

So if you like reading this blog, good, I am glad, I will continue to write for as long as I can, while the thoughts flow through my mind, while I am still ‘allowed to’ and I will do my best to expose the truth, and help teach what I have learned, to help the world grow and prosper.

Capitalism, liberty, free thinking, rule of law and inventions, these are amongst the greatest ideals of our time, and should always be upheld, it is how the world moves forward.

I hope enough people wake up and make a difference before it is too late.

Evil Bills by Evil Men

Tomorrow wikipedia will be blacked out, we will not be able to access their articles and we will not be able to use this great resource for unbias encyclopedia for everything from history to current events, and from science to mathematics.

To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate—that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.

This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst:

It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.

In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.

But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,

We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.

But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.

The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.

Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.

That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place—many do!—but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA—and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States—don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?

The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.

Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Similarly, I read warnings from Craigslist:

Corporate supporters of HR3261 (SOPA) and S968 (PIPA) demand the ability to take down any web site that affects their profits — without due process or judicial oversight — in the name of combating “online piracy.” Hoping you won’t notice or care, quite a few of our Public Servants want to give them that right.

Believe it or not, Monster Cable (remember “Monster Park”?) considers craigslist a “rogue site” for blacklisting and takedown under PIPA – apparently 2nd hand sales of stereo cables by CL users is reducing Monster’s sales of new cables. (reddit).

SOPA/PIPA authors and supporters insist they’re only after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose “Big Brother” control over our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results.

<RANT>What could be more anti-American than jack-booted thugs throttling our free speech, poisoning that greatest of American inventions, the Internet, while devastating perhaps our most successful and competitive industry? There’s got to be a better way to sell more stereo cables.</RANT>

★ ☆ ★ Tell Congress you OPPOSE H.R. 3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S. 968 “Protect IP Act” (PIPA) ★ ☆ ★

Supporters of SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)

Opponents of SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)

Where does your Member of Congress stand on SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)

SOPA and PIPA Are Too Dangerous To Revise, They Must Be Killed Entirely

Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass – they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet — recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora’s jar of “chilling effects” and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.

There is still time to be heard. Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised — they must be killed altogether.

Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like craigslist.

Tim O’Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy, asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.

Personally, I use wikipedia to research pretty much everything. It is the single best peice of online software out there. No other place in history has held so much information in one place, accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world.

As for Craigslist, it is another great site, engineered through internet freedom, where you can do anything from trading cars, to advertising for events.

Even this site; wordpress; would be under attack under these bills, this site which we all use to read from, or write to. We would not be able to express our freedom of speech.

Please click on the following links to find out more about SOPA & PIPA

From the BBC:

Sopa and Pipa anti-piracy bills controversy explained

From Digital Trends:

SOPA vs. PIPA: Anti-piracy bills, uproar explained

These bills are evil bills designed by evil men for special interests. One of the biggest problems, if not the biggest problem in this country right now is special interests. Because of a few companies that seek to get the advantage over others, they would threaten the freedoms of all 300 million people in this country. The freedom of speech and expression is as large and as widespread as it has even been before, because of the internet, and it is so, because there are no laws and no government infringing upon those freedoms.

The strike starts tomorrow, be prepared, it will affect many sites.

If this site goes down, I hope to see you all on Thursday.

Good night.

Update!

I woke up this morning to find that the internet is indeed on strike!

Here are a few of my favorite sites, all protesting, and one (wikipedia) not functioning at all. Their statement is a very important one; ‘Imagine a world without free knowledge’

For those who have not read atlas shrugged, I urge you to do so; it explains many of the problems we have in the world today.

What if none of our websites worked? What if all the top producers stopped showing up for work?

The looters of society, the special interest groups, the men who seek to make a quick buck by paralyzing their competition. These men do not understand that money is based upon value. Value is derived from producing. If we do not produce products of value, then money has no value. Eventually, there becomes no incentive to work anymore, and no incentive to produce, and so these quick buck lobbyists will loot their cash, and drain the blood of the hard workers and producers, until the workers die, or simply ‘shrug’.

Contact your local representative, and tell them to stop SOPA and PIPA.