Thursday, February 21, 2008

Dear Larry Lessig, Lady Liberty is Raped.

Run for Congress, and then look to the Senate.

If the last years have taught us anything, anything at all, it is that there is always an excuse by those who have possession of power, to act as if they own power. But we should all know that the people who are entrusted with the powers of government do not own them, but hold them in trust for the people who elect them and appoint them. We have seen the growth of a surveillance society, both public and private. We have seen the growth of secret courts, torture, and the erosion of the information commons into fiefdoms. Some long years ago, before I was in this world, an American politician cried out "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" Today, his intellectual heirs might say the same thing about copyright.

The delicate balance between power and property on one hand, and rights on the other, has been torn and shredded. Lady Liberty is raped and bleeding on the pavement. The hysteria of the war on drugs, has become the paranoid delusional madness of the war on terrorism.

There's no question that the ideas of an analog age are outdated, and the reflexive granting of power to those who have power, political or economic, has gone from being a twitch in the body politic, to leaving the body politic twitching from a seizure.

In this digital age, we need a digital liberality: the realization that what was once scarce is now abundant, and that there will be more for all, if there is less for the few.

Run Larry, and they be prepared to step higher.



PS

If you agree with me on this You can do something now about it. And you can join with others.

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