By Barry Hess

The ideal in a social communist society is absolute uniformity in the law to suppress individual Rights.  The ideal in a free society is absolute uniformity in the law to protect individual Rights.

 

No society can have more than one of these ‘Prime Directives’, or fundamental guiding principles.  These two ideals are diametrically opposed.  That means there are fundamental contradictions on every single point, so there can be no ‘blending’ or, ugh, ‘compromise’ that would allow them to co-exist ‘peaceably’ at all.  None, nada, zilch…zippo.

 

A while ago there was a revolution.  It got pretty famous, but the short version is this: America.   Amazingly, very few of the beneficiaries of that revolution even know “what” it was.  The welfare schools taught them it was a revolution because a colony separated from its ‘Motherland’, by contest of war—but that wasn’t ‘The Revolution’ at all.  That kind of event happens every day.

 

All real revolutions are in the mind.  ‘The Revolution’ was in the thoughts of a group of like-minded folks who successfully sought to manifest their ideas.  ‘The Revolution’ was the very idea that individuals could and should govern themselves and ‘own’ their government.

 

The bedrock of this revolutionary thought, was simple and clear.  For this thing to work, and for it to exist in moral righteousness it had to recognize each and every individual as an equal to any other individual or even any group of individuals, under the law.  There could be no running afoul of this principle as long as government was held to a simple premise: ‘what government gives to one, it must give to all’, that’s pretty simple.   ‘No special favors for anybody’, that’s as ‘fair’ as anything gets.  ‘All manner of government business must be open to public inspection’, that’s honest.

 

As you may have guessed, the greatest system of governance ever devised is dependent on the integrity of individual men and women who are put into official office.  The professional politicians of the Republican/Democrat ilk were hog-tied by the simplicity and openness of government as it was laid out in the national charter.  They were just itchin’ to find a way where they could be ‘more equal’ than the common village folk.

 

The Republican/Democrat Party has a Prime Directive of its own:  Divide people up into groups, pit them against each other, and offer to referee.  The social mooches and parasites in their ranks seek only to create their own political/financial opportunities.  At your expense.

 

Now, better than 230 years later, let’s see what’s become of ‘America’…

 

Today, a very ‘special’ and very separate group of people write the laws inspired by their ‘special’ gifts of enlightenment, to make the lives of the common folk ‘better’.  These folks are so ‘special’ that they have to exempt themselves from the very laws they write.  Sometimes they even have to grant themselves ‘special’ privileges and immunities from the most basic of legal liabilities. They simply must be completely free to choose the very best path for everyone else to take.  Having to obey laws would only distract them from doing the ‘good’ work they do…‘for’ you, or ‘for’ the children, or ‘for’ something.

 

See, I know you’re thinking, “That doesn’t make any sense!” but there’s where you’re wrong.  Don’t feel bad, just because such a notion doesn’t sit square with your ‘common sense’—you aren’t ‘special’, so of course you can’t understand it.

 

As one politician confided in me, “Ya don’t ‘x-pect retards ta unnerstan ‘governmentology’ like ‘we’ do”.  (My response was, “What’s this ‘we’ sh@%?”)

Maybe a hypothetical question, and then an example from right here in Arizona would help: Somebody looks up home addresses for hookers on the Internet, and then calls, or goes to see if he can negotiate ‘off-the-clock’ or ‘under-the-table’ rates.  Would you advocate a law that makes it a ‘Class 5’ felony to publish the home addresses of hookers who want to leave their business at the office?  How’s about if the law keeps it ‘legal’ to publish the home addresses in books, newspapers and on TV and radio, but makes it a Class-5 felony to publish them on the Internet?

 

I’m hoping not.  In fact I’m hoping you’ll say that it doesn’t even make sense—why would we separate a class of Citizens to be ‘protected’?  So, how about if it weren’t hookers, but police officers, court officials, political appointees or judges?  Would it make any more sense to write such a law?  Remember, we’re ‘only’ talking about censoring the Internet, violating a very specific “equal protections” clause of both the National and Arizona Republic constitutions, as well as doing violence to the single fundamental principle of this supposedly ‘free’ Republic.  No big thing to a Republican/Democrat.

 

Evidently, Legislative Representatives, Weiers (Jerry, not brother Jim), Barnes, Gowen, Kavanagh and Stevens all decided these people were ‘special’, and that they should put together a ‘special people’ law to ‘protect’ our first-responders, et al, as a ‘special’ class of people, from the public they are supposed to be protecting.  Hummm.  Just thinking about the lack of logic makes my head spin, so you can imagine my confusion as to why Representatives, Crump, Reagan (ruining a good last name), Seel and Waters decided it was smart to clamor aboard the stupid train as co-conspirators, er ah, signers to House Bill 2380.

 

If you hear of this in the storybook papers of the Olde Media, they are going to proffer a quote something like this as their first rebuff:  “It just amends an old obscure law we want to re-vitalize like Joe and Andy coincidentally did when the Phoenix New Times was asking them for some information”.  What they’re not saying is that the ARS 13-2401 needs to be repealed in its entirety.

 

Ignoring the fact that such legislation flies in the face of all that is uniquely ‘American’, these supposed protectors of the Constitution(s) decided they should perpetuate a ‘special’ class of people, based on their employment (no matter how temporary).  The loopholes can be stretched to include virtually all other public officials into this ‘special’ class of protected people.  Now why do you suppose that is?

 

I’m sure they’ll only mention the police in their pleas to gain support, and they’ll say, “It’s dangerous to have police officers’ information “on the Internet” (but it CAN be listed anywhere else) because mythical ‘bad guys’ will come and do them harm”.  But that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

 

I would suggest that having ‘secret’ public officials harkens back to the Soviet Union where you couldn’t find out ‘who’ your master was, and that every Citizen protest this nonsensical bill. 

 

The simple and obvious fact is that there ARE bad cops…and crooked politicians.  These are people who wreck havoc on the common folks—of course they don’t want videos out there showing them murdering hand-cuffed Citizens seated on the subway floor, forcing sexual favors from their detainees or harassing Citizens in virtually every situation imaginable.

 

Could the police unions be behind this bill?  Is this the hangman asking for his hood?

 

Common sense would dictate that government just hire better cops, and teach them to respect the law they impose on others.  The only time anyone would wish them harm is when they don’t.  All of us respect the ‘good’ cop, and no one seeks to harm them for carrying out their duties.  So it would clearly be preferable to train the police to respect the Rights of those they were hired to serve.  Is that so much to ask of, Joe Arpaio or, Andy Thomas and ‘the gang’?

 

So far, the propaganda goes like this, " It protects undercover officers from imminent danger."

 

Obviously, it (such legislation) doesn’t protect them from anything; it just makes it illegal to put specific information into the public domain…but only on the Internet.  This is only a pre-curser.  If we let ‘them’ get away with this, we will have legitimized government censorship over the Internet, and allowed our ‘servants’ to cloak themselves in invisibility well away from any public scrutiny of their actions.

 

HB2380 is a ruse to give legitimacy to Arizona Revised Statute 13-2401. 

 

I would propose the sponsors’ time would have been better spent writing legislation to repeal ARS 13-2401 out of respect of the Arizona constitution, which states: “No law shall be enacted granting to any citizen, class of citizens, or corporation other than municipal, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens or corporations”.  

 

What sticks in my craw is that no one has mentioned that the effect of such a law is to grant a monopoly on relevant news to the newsprint lobby by prohibiting its being disseminated in the most effective, instantaneous and massive public way yet devised. 

 

I can’t imagine why anyone would so irresponsibly leave that door open even a crack.  And I can’t imagine how soon that same lobby will be demanding the repeal of HB2380 and ARS 13-2401. It only depends on how soon the NYT, the Washington Post, the LA Times and the San Fran Chronicle are forced to digitize, or die on Wall Street.  

 

Something else to consider is that one way or another, every new law requires a list.  In this case, the most obvious list created is of the thousands and millions of government workers no one but the storybook papers can identify.  Considering that government lists, or government-mandated lists being lost, stolen or sold are the source of all of the crimes of identity theft of private Citizens, shouldn’t our elected officials be looking for ways to eliminate all the lists?  

 

I just wanted to comment on this nonsense from an objective point of view to point out a few of the things Citizens should consider paying attention to.  Some might conclude through this writing, that I might advocate putting everyone’s private information up in the public view.  But such a conclusion would only prove the adage for the word, ‘assume’.  

 

My perspective and thoughts sadly, never crossed the minds of our enlightened public servants.  Because I am vitally aware that ‘freedom’ requires both sovereign property ownership and privacy, for all individuals, I would suggest that if the proponents of HB2380 actually adhered to their oaths of office, and actually believed such BS legislation could/would ‘protect’ anyone from anything, why wouldn’t they have simply ‘protected’ everyone’s private information, in all forms and mediums?   

 

I dunno either.   What do you think?  Shouldn’t you be calling on the folks behind this nonsense to explain it to you?