Modest proposal
Jan. 19th, 2006 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberThe government is attempting to force Google by subpoena to hand over "1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period" among other things. Not for any crime do they need the info; no, they want it for their court case to reinstate the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which "would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online".
Now maybe I'm wrong, here, but since when is it ok for the government to come along and steal research you've put your own time and money into doing? If they want to know what people are searching for, let them goddamn well pay for it.
It reminds me of one of my outre thoughts on abortion, which is more on my mind lately due to the upcoming protests Saturday in San Francisco. The relevant thought being, what section of the Constitution gives the government the power to force a woman to work for no pay? Gestating a baby is work: it takes energy, and in many cases it's the only job a person can do for the few months at the end. On the open market carrying a baby to term is currently going for $13-18,000. Sure, many people volunteer and do it for free... Many people garden for free, too, but that doesn't give the government the right to enslave people to landscape the White House lawn.
And, of course, in a free market everyone has the right to set their own price for a service they decide to offer. See, this is a place where I could see government and faith-based organizations working together to ensure that every baby entering the world was a demonstrably wanted baby.
The only way I know of for the government to force someone to do a job is to draft them into the armed forces, and even then they still pay their drafted soldiers and offer them health care and housing and meals. And you know, if we're going to lose the right to be secure in our persons, I suppose that 9 months in the army would at least be a sop to our lack of freedom.
Now maybe I'm wrong, here, but since when is it ok for the government to come along and steal research you've put your own time and money into doing? If they want to know what people are searching for, let them goddamn well pay for it.
It reminds me of one of my outre thoughts on abortion, which is more on my mind lately due to the upcoming protests Saturday in San Francisco. The relevant thought being, what section of the Constitution gives the government the power to force a woman to work for no pay? Gestating a baby is work: it takes energy, and in many cases it's the only job a person can do for the few months at the end. On the open market carrying a baby to term is currently going for $13-18,000. Sure, many people volunteer and do it for free... Many people garden for free, too, but that doesn't give the government the right to enslave people to landscape the White House lawn.
And, of course, in a free market everyone has the right to set their own price for a service they decide to offer. See, this is a place where I could see government and faith-based organizations working together to ensure that every baby entering the world was a demonstrably wanted baby.
The only way I know of for the government to force someone to do a job is to draft them into the armed forces, and even then they still pay their drafted soldiers and offer them health care and housing and meals. And you know, if we're going to lose the right to be secure in our persons, I suppose that 9 months in the army would at least be a sop to our lack of freedom.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 03:10 am (UTC)I believe the tautological but correct answer is: When they have a court order for it. Not that I think this is just, right, or effective.
Also, we do not have a truly free market. It's useful to look at modern US party politics in terms of what actions the various parties think can't be handled by markets and choice. (To a zeroth order approximation, Republicans don't trust me with my body and Democrats don't trust me with my wallet. And they wonder why I won't join either.)