Muzzling
the Internet
It’s time for me to do my best Westclox imitation and
sound the alarm.
Contact your congressmen, senators and the White House.
Now.
Tell them to oppose the new Hague convention on the
Internet.
Most of the restrictive legislation intended to strip the
American people of our God-given liberties is now creeping out the back
doors of international conferences masked under the benign wrapping of human
rights treaties.
The Hague convention on the internet is just such an
infernal piece of legislation, created to muzzle the dissemination of
information and dissenting voices on the internet.
According to James Love in his News Viewz column, a law that
would "extend the reach of every country’s intellectual property laws
would impose "a bold set of rules that will profoundly change the
Internet."
Following the same sort of logic that makes gun
manufacturers responsible for the misuse of their products by purchasers,
Internet publishers could be responsible for the content posted not only at
their own websites but also for the information shared at all other websites
to which they provide online links.
Responsible for what…you ask? How about "hate
speech?"
Who defines what is hate speech? The powers that be, of
course.
If they don’t like what you have to say or what anyone
linking to your page has to say, you’re guilty. Case closed. You can be
held legally responsible under treaty terms put forth by these European
despots. Goodbye First Amendment.
A failsafe built into the law is intended to put the
American populace to sleep. If a local judge rules that enforcing the treaty
violates established norms of any country, he can refuse to do so. But all
these Anti-Christs need to do is find some sell-out, self-promoting,
ambitious jurist looking to curry favor with the boys in the back room at
the World Court, and we might find ourselves shackled in European chains.
It seems to me that back in 1776, our forefathers fought a
revolution to break free from the illegal constraints of similar unelected
tyrants from across the ocean.
Will we have courage enough to stand against King George in
2001?
We can start by fighting a war of words. Contact your
congressmen, senators and the president and tell them to send this treaty
from hell back to Europe, unopened, postage due, in Pandora’s hermetically
sealed box. Let them know we refuse to be muzzled by any New World Oligarchy
and its un-American Hague convention.
I hope it never happens, but the day may yet come when our
fervent opposition to this civilized tyranny is boldly expressed through
muzzles of an entirely different caliber.
To paraphrase the patriot of old, "Don’t fire until
you see the heights of their lies."