Internet

If you build your house on sand….President Obama is getting some of his karma back. His unmitigated arrogance and self-aggrandizement is going to come at a terrible price to the country…to him and those around him. But they can’t see that yet. Now we even see the First Lady politicizing breast cancer, to advance what is very probably going to be a health care bill which is going to arrive DOA. From my lips to God’s ears. The House bill, should it pass, would cost this country ONE TRILLION DOLLARS and counting. Nothing the government EVER does comes in at anywhere close to the wild imaginings of the authors of these nutzoid  creations. As we speak, there appears to be an insurrection in the House which will stop “Nancy with the Smiling Eyes” bill dead in its tracks. A group of 40 pro-life Democrats has joined with Republicans to pledge to VOTE NO on any bill which has provision for funding for abortions… which it does. This would ensure that the bill in its present form would never leave the House floor. Nothing this President, or the Marxists he’s imported to his government have done, has been with the interest of the American people, the economy, or our military services who are engaged around the world fighting an implacable enemy who would see this country destroyed. It has been done to further an only slightly less onerous ideology, whose goal is control over every aspect of American life and values. The assault by the administration on the first amendment, as exemplified by the attack on Fox News, has been (at long last) met by a unified group of major network editorial chiefs who must have finally woken up and smelled the skunk cabbage that is the Obama White House. They saw, belatedly, but they saw that they would invariably be next. They have drawn a line in the sand. Now we get to see if they have the strength of their convictions. This fight has only just been joined. The White House’s FCC lapdogs are after the freedom of the internet also…resistance is mounting to that assault as we speak. A FREE PRESS IS A FREE SOCIETY… the internet is part of that press, free and unrestrained it is a priceless resource for instantaneous delivery of information. True it is incumbent upon the user to filter through the mists of sometimes wildly inaccurate and fanciful stories that are available out there, but this is freedom of expression and the press also. Keep your hands off our Net. Keep your hands off our radios, keep your hands of of our televisions. The communist leftists cannot compete in the arena of ideas, so they have to co-opt it through stacked courts and regulatory agencies which are not subject to the crucible of public scrutiny, whose examination they cannot withstand. Darkness and secrecy were ever their way. The Free Press and the Free Internet cast a light upon them which shows them for what they are. Enemies of America…and Enemies of the American people.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

Weren't the Dems the ones shocked and appalled by George W. Bush's Patriot Act?

This morning, I read an article about a bill currently proposed in the U.S. Senate that will grant "temporary" access to the president over private home internet usage during a so-called, "cyber security emergency."  

So, when the President wanted to grant warrantless wire taps to gain information on possible terrorists after an actual national terrorist attack occurred on American soil, it was a travesty to tap phones?  But a cyber-security emergency, now that requires spying on Americans?

Let's be real:  This is a sad attempt by the liberal movement to silence the opposition.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans are genuinely frightened by the slippery slope the current health-care reform will lead this country into, and Obama's minions are trying to pass it in any way possible. 

Change? I think not..

Read the whole article at CNET news. (news.cnet.com)

The annual Personal Democracy Forum was Monday and Tuesday in New York, and it was very good.  As always. You can read more about it at TechPresident.

Naturally, there was a great deal of conversation about the imbalance between the Left and Right online.  The general consensus is that Republicans are behind on the internet, though there is a great deal of debate over how and why.  The least convincing answer was offered by a PDF audience member, and it basically boiled down to "Republicans suck. Democrats are cool.  So we're better at the internet."

Yeah, well, those who forget history...

Democrats race to catch up to GOP online

The Democratic National Committee relaunched its Web site Friday and appointed its first technology adviser in an effort to match the Republican party's success in using the Internet to build its constituency. [...] "We realized that the Republicans were ironically peddling their Stone Age ideas with modern-day technology tools, and we were just not at their level in our dedication to technology," Buck said.Insiders say it's widely acknowledged that the Republican committee has done a better job than the Democrats' committee in creating an online strategy.  The Republican committee "is far and away ahead in securing a large constituent of online activists and does a better job of using the medium to move their message," said Pam Fielding of E-advocates, an Internet advocacy consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.

That was 2002.

What changed?  Again, that's the subject of a great deal of debate, but I would argue that it was two things:

1. Republicans got comfortable.
2. Democrats got entrepreneurial.

In 2016, there's no doubt that the online landscape will be very different.  The Right will be much more effective.  The only question is how they will do it.  The balance of power on the Right will depend, in large part, on who the new entrepreneurs are and how they build the infrastructure.

Today is Tax Day Tea Party Day. There are tax protests scheduled around the country, and as I noted in a previous article, they're even in Vermont. Boston and Atlanta are both expected to have huge numbers of protesters, and while there is no definitve count yet, it appears these Tea Parties will be large enough an numerous enough that even the main stream media won't be able to ignore them.

A fascinating element of today's protests is how Tea Party organizers harnessed the power of the internet to generate a truly grass roots movement.

I'm usually pretty dismissive of conspiracy theorists, not being one of the those "black helicopter" Republicans thinking every meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations is a dangerous cabal.

But, sometimes people simply start getting out of hand. You know, the ol "slippery slope" idea.

Which is why I was a little unnerved by this article in Time magazine

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation's leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: "A Record Turnout Is Expected." ..

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed,......

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country.

Stop me for a second. Does the name "George Orwell" spring to mind?

Read the whole article. I want you to reflect then on the utter arrogance that pervades the concept that the American public are in need of what amount to behavior modification, not appeals to rational self-interest or national self-interest.  And that the answers to what is best for Americans are already known to the Obama administration.  Therefore, we must be conditioned to accept the pre-ordained answers.

Democracy. Who needs it. The voters might make mistakes. We'll deprogram them

  But Obama is no therapist changing individuals one at a time. He's an organizer trying to build community and inspire collective action through house parties and Facebook as well as rhetoric about shared values. In other words, he's trying to create social norms — behavioral change's killer app....

The research proves change can come about when it's easy and popular, but making it lucrative — or even mandatory — can make sure it happens.

Hmm, wasn't that why we got rid of King George III?

Now I acknowledge governments here and elesewhere have used pretty subtle and pervasive means to foster their agenda. But generally campaigns against drunk driving and for racial tolerance are means to promote already agreed upon social policies. Same with appeals to patriotism to bolster domestic support for a nation's foreign policy.

 What the Obama people here are seeking to do is a quantum leap forward and away from the concepts of individual liberty and representative government.  There's no political consensus on fixing entitlements or heath care or the energy system. And by seeking to impose social conformity on the "appropriate options", the Obama camp seeks to subvert the need to obtain the consent of the governed.   No wonder they've kept it all secret.

Time identifies this problem, and then adopts an "ends justify the means" defense.

  The idea of public officials, even well-meaning ones, trying to engineer our private behavior to produce change can seem a bit creepy.

But face it: Obama is right. Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary. Our health expenditures are bankrupting the Treasury, and most of our visits to the doctor can be traced to unhealthy behavior. We do need to change, and we know it.

  So much for debating what we ought to do.  Just follow what "The One" has decided is best.

I'm slightly familiar with the science of behavior modification, having a son who is on the autistic spectrum.  It's ironic that concepts like Applied Behavior Analysis are used to help children with an expressive disorder properly communicate their wants and needs.

The Obama Behavior Modification agenda is designed to prevent typical adults from communicating their needs and wants; since more and more choices will be taken away from us and replaced with a government approved "default option", and tremendous peer pressure brought to bear against those with undesirable nonconformist choices.

Now, if this didn't leave you a little queasy, I refer one to Hot Air, and Ed Morrissey's fear that the Internet will now be legally subject to appropriation by the administration. 

The bill addresses the need to protect vital networks from cyber attack, but it gives a lot of power to the executive branch — perhaps too much power.

 I don;t know if the  Cybersecurity Act of 2009, S.773 would provide unfettered power to the Obama Administration to shut down the Internet. Morrissey suggests the bigger problem is   "that the bill essentially repeals the Fourth Amendment." 

If the Obama Administration wanted to quell some ad hoc "tea party" national civil protest movement, certaintly screwing with the World Wide Web would be one way to do it. That is how it is done in China, isn't it.

Again, I'm not big on conspiracy theories. But putting these two things in juxtaposition also doesn't leave me with warm feelings about the good intentions of the current administration. This keeps up, this RINO may go libertarian yet.

===Update===

While I was thinking about this, I realized that there had been a behavioral scientist who had written extensively on topics related to human choice.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform,[1][2]and poet.[3] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[4] He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism,[5] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[6] He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[7] [8] In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[9] He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.[10] [11]

OK, so why does this matter that Skinner is the major influence on contemporary behavior sciences. Well, what did he have to say about permitting individuals make decisions?

This was his little dissertation of applying behaviorism to society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity is a book written by American psychologist B. F. Skinner and first published in 1971. The book argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy of the individual (which Skinner referred to as "dignity") hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better organized society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner's philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior, his conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls 'cultural engineering'.

"Almost all major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of human behavior. 

Skiiner wrote another book Walden Two, "an earlier novel in which Skinner depicted a utopian community based on his ideas regarding behavior modification. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner extends his argument for explicit cultural engineering of which Walden Two may be seen as an example."

Accordingly to Wikipedia, Noah Chomsky took a big swipe at Skinner's efforts to apply behavioral psychology to societal reform.  I'm not sure I'm accustomed to having him as an ally, but when a hard lefty like him and a RINO like me are going libertarian, well, hmmmm

I'm usually pretty dismissive of conspiracy theorsts, not being one of the those "black helicopter" Republicans thinking every meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations is a dangerous cabal.

But, sometimes people simply start getting out of hand. You know, the ol "slippery slope" idea.

Which is why I was a little unnerved by this article in Time magazine

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation's leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: "A Record Turnout Is Expected." ..

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed,......

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country.

Stop me for a second. Does the name "George Orwell" spring to mind?

Read the whole article. I want you to reflect then on the utter arrogance that pervades the concept that the American public are in need of what amount to behavior modification, not appeals to rational self-interest or national self-interest.  And that the answers to what is best for Americans are already known to the Obama administration.  Therefore, we must be conditioned to accept the pre-ordained answers.

Democracy. Who needs it. The voters might make mistakes. We'll deprogram them

  But Obama is no therapist changing individuals one at a time. He's an organizer trying to build community and inspire collective action through house parties and Facebook as well as rhetoric about shared values. In other words, he's trying to create social norms — behavioral change's killer app....

The research proves change can come about when it's easy and popular, but making it lucrative — or even mandatory — can make sure it happens.

Hmm, wasn't that why we got rid of King George III?

Now I acknowledge governments here and elesewhere have used pretty subtle and pervasive means to foster their agenda. But generally campaigns against drunk driving and for racial tolerance are means to promote already agreed upon social policies. Same with appeals to patriotism to bolster domestic support for a nation's foreign policy.

 What the Obama people here are seeking to do is a quantum leap forward and away from the concepts of individual liberty and representative government.  There's no political consensus on fixing entitlements or heath care or the energy system. And by seeking to impose social conformity on the "appropriate options", the Obama camp seeks to subvert the need to obtain the consent of the governed.   No wonder they've kept it all secret.

Time identifies this problem, and then adopts an "ends justify the means" defense.

  The idea of public officials, even well-meaning ones, trying to engineer our private behavior to produce change can seem a bit creepy.

But face it: Obama is right. Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary. Our health expenditures are bankrupting the Treasury, and most of our visits to the doctor can be traced to unhealthy behavior. We do need to change, and we know it.

  So much for debating what we ought to do.  Just follow what "The One" has decided is best.

I'm slightly familiar with the science of behavior modification, having a son who is on the autistic spectrum.  It's ironic that concepts like Applied Behavior Analysis are used to help children with an expressive disorder properly communicate their wants and needs.

The Obama Behavior Modification agenda is designed to prevent typical adults from communicating their needs and wants; since more and more choices will be taken away from us and replaced with a government approved "default option", and tremendous peer pressure brought to bear against those with undesirable nonconformist choices.

Now, if this didn;t leave you a little queasy, I refer one to Hot Air, and Ed Morrissey's fear that the Internet will now be legally subject to appropriation by the administration. 

The bill addresses the need to protect vital networks from cyber attack, but it gives a lot of power to the executive branch — perhaps too much power.

According to CNN, Republican Congressman are looking to force ISP's into keeping records for two years for all users.

This bill is horribly designed, on more than just one level.

First, it requires copious amounts of data storage. I don't think that Congressmen recognize how much data even a small network can generate. Data storage is becoming cheaper nowadays, but it's still a huge hurdle. What data should be saved? All packets? Login information? Website caches?

Two, storage equals money. You're going to add to the operating costs of not only big companies like AT&T, Verizon et all, but you're also going to reduce the ability (as if it wasn't non-existent now anyways) of a startup company.

Three, there's a great many people who use Wi-Fi who do not have it locked down with security. Will they be held liable to keep this data as well, or will it just be for those who use it commercially? The article is unclear, and it's very likely that the average person or small company will know how to store data correctly.

Fourth, the idea that I should have to give up my identity on the net is a poor one. The Internet grants anonymity, and with that, freedom. Will some people use that freedom to try to get around laws? Most certainly. But all this bill will do is force those who wish to break the law to do a slight amount of reading on how to mask your IP, how to steal Wi-Fi addresses from unsuspecting people, or find some other workaround.

If this bill goes into place, how long until the names and data get used for reasons other than their true purpose? A week or a month?

There are some good arguments for data retention by bigger companies (and they're already doing it, to some extent) but there is no need for the majority of people to store records for two years.

Everyone knows the term “social networking” or “social networks” by now. Most people are a member of a social site weather it be myspace, friendster, or some other site. There are literally 1000’s of different social sites. Some are more social than others and some probably shouldn’t even call themselves “social. but since that’s the big thing now days, everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Basically it’s come to the point where everyone and every different group has their own little online club. They are generally broken down in the following ways.

The first, and biggest social groups are general sites like myspace where anyone and everyone signs up. There is no deciding factor on who should signup. If you’re looking to meet people in your area, Myspace is usually your best bet because of its HUGE userbase. I don’t know the exact number of members, but they have millions. Each town you can find 1000’s of your peers with an account, even tiny towns have a good presence on the site.

Second, you have social sites that target by race or religion, or even sexual preference and even, like this site, political preferences. These are definitely smaller than normal social sites but the members also seem to have a much tighter bond. Sort of like a small town feel where everyone knows everyone.

Third you have geo-location social sites. For example we have one in my town called Fort Myers Business Networking. I’m not a member myself because they charge money and I’m definitely not going to pay for something that should be free. But most decent sized towns do have social sites, just search Google for something like “[your town] social” and things will pop up.

Weather you like it or not social sites are going to remain popular. Just like social groups in real life have always been around, we will always have social sites on the web too.

 As shown by this past election and President-Elect Obama's victory, the internet and especially the social networks

have become an important part of the political process. This was shown before by grassroots movements such as MoveOn.org, however our defeat in this year's election will brought that point home. So what does this mean for the GOP/conservative movement, and the future? Personally I think that starting now,we will see the GOP,conservative movements and organizations use and pay more attention to the internet world. But what internet world?what part of the internet should be used to promote conservative values/ideas and conservative candidates? Here are the locations,which in my opinion, will play the most important role for the many years to come:

1.Facebook= as some of you may have seen during this past election,most of the presidential candidates had a page on Facebook,however none as well organized,staffed and active as the Barack Obama and the pages supporting him.

2.MySpace=similar to Facebook. Both of the above social networks should be used to the max by the GOP,conservative candidates and movements. There are many options on how to use those networks.However my suggestion would be for us to learn from the success of Obama, and then improve on it,bringing our own vision to online networking.

3.SecondLife=Second Life is a PC virtual world. The website is located at secondlife.com I am sure many of you may wonder why SecondLife.Well the answer is quite simple. SecondLife boosts a large population from all over the world and the US population is heavy. In addition,SecondLife allows to connect to voters on a more personal(gaming) level.It also allows to promote candidates, issues and such 24/7

4.Home=Home is a PS3(playstation 3) virtual world. You can learn more about home at http://www.ps3home.com/ Although designate as a gamer virtual world and although just released in open beta, in playing Home,one can see the potential for all types of activities,including political activities.

As Bob Dylan wrote the times they are a-changin'. The campaign model that work for republicans in the past will not be as effective in the future. The internet has had a larger impact on this than most of us would have predicted. If the Barack Obama campaign in 2008 is not evidence enough of this, with his rumored 13 million email adresses, consider that the largest online fundraising day was set by a little known congressman from Texas who managed a marginal showing in the majority of Republican primaries.

When I undertook the challenge of launching a new club for young republicans in the Bronx I opened up my MacBook and did a little research on young republican clubs. I looked at not only on the existing local New York City area clubs but other clubs and federations around country. I wasn't just researching ideas for our website but also ideas on how to make a well rounded and active club. Unfortunately what I saw was not only disappointing but appallingly bad efforts by local clubs and state federations alike. Not that the national federation was any better. How bad is it out there? 17 state federations have no website. Alaska's YR Federation website still has Frank Murkowski listed as governor of the state even though Sarah Palin has been the governor for over two years. The Texas YR Federation website has links that have been dead for over a year. California's federation isn't even listed has having a website by the Young Republican National Federation. If that isn't bad enough consider that Ohio, a swing state in the three previous presidential elections, is a federation without a website. What does it say about republicans if our federations and auxiliaries can't manage to put up websites or keep even the most basic information up to date? Is it that we don't understand the value of the internet or is just laziness? Over the past four years the functions of websites have moved beyond just providing information towards hubs of social and business networking where people engage one another individually. It is time for us to take it to the next step. Political networking. It is unlikely that more than a handful of local young republican auxiliaries would have the means to create the sort of websites we saw from the Paul or Obama campaigns. However this is exactly what we should expect from the state federations. None of the state federations offer websites that have a networking component. Most don't even use a content management system. Few offer regular updates such a blog or calender. I'm not sure what the future holds for the Republican Party but I do know if we don't bridge this gap that has emerged in the last election we will continue to struggle in state and national elections. We have to make a better effort to present our message online because younger people are trending towards the internet to gather their information on politics. This divide won't be closed solely by a better online presence but it will continue to broaden if they can't find us, and we can't keep them engaged, when they do come looking for our message, candidates, and auxiliaries. The times they are a changin' and so must we.