On 6/6/2011 11:29 PM, Jimmy Hess wrote: > On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 9:11 PM, <valdis.kletni...@vt.edu> wrote: > > Well, the operational concern is... various governments have lately > shown a trend of disconnecting their countries' networks. > UN action is unlikely to help; they are too delayed, and there is > a lack of enforcement power - symbolic actions don't stop > networks from being disconnected. > > A technical solution rather than a UN solution, would be more > beneficial; some sort of decentralized, high-speed, > unjammable wireless mesh with better performance than > government severable links would be ideal. > > However, the internet's existence is attributable to society, not a > characteristic of humans. It's odd to suggest there's a natural right > for the internet to exist - the UN seems mistaken -- maybe there's a > natural right whose exercise permits participation in the community > without government interference. > > Forced internet disconnections, as in, government imposed suppression > are the same concept as shutting down television networks, seizing printing > presses, restricting/closing broadcast stations, taking or breaking citizens' > TVs and telephones, banning possession of books/magazines. > > UN doesn't need to say those are bad, it's obvious; it's just politics, > and the UN trying to appear to stay relevant. Hopefully "human right > to internet" is not a precursor to taking up IPv4 Exhaustion and declaring > itself arbiter of addressing policy. > > >> Concise enough for you? You may also want to investigate the relative >> importance of communications and armaments in Ghandi's struggle for a free >> India, the US civil rights movement, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. >> That's 3 examples of change mediated by communications without rifles. Then >> there's Darfur - an example of rifles without communications infrastructure. > > Which has pretty much nil to do with the basic human right to secure arms. > Making social change by force is not an individual human right. > Social change is the right of societies.[*] > > The natural need for a rational person to keep and bear arms, is to defend > their person: their life, and things they need in order to continue > to be alive. > The threat could be anything from a dangerous animal, to an outlaw coming > to raid the last of your food and water, during a drought. > > The natural right is to keep items to defend yourself against threats, and to > bear arms in your defense against lawless assailants; where arms refers > to the prevalent weapons required.* > > > Individual natural right does not extend to bearing arms to coerce change in > government or others, whether politically viewed as despotic or not, > anymore than the right to free speech guarantees every person a bullhorn > to wake up their neighbors at 3am with their protest message against the > alleged despot. > > Any 'natural right' taken to extreme, without regard to others, > becomes insane/tyrannical, when taken to that extreme. > > *Not that anyone's rifle will do anything against the local state > sponsored military. >
I might also point out that at some point we may be required to protect this "basic human right" if someone tries to shut off our internets.
