The Propagation of Freedom in the Age of the Internet

THE AWESOME POWER OF THE INTERNET AND HOW IT CAN KEEP US FREE

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” — President George Washington

by Ron Ewart

(Sept. 28, 2010) — During the Revolutionary War it took almost a month for any news of the war to reach Europe by sailing vessel.  Local news was delivered by courier, on foot or on horse back and was distributed by the newspapers of the day.  In the rural areas of the colonies, war news took days or even weeks to reach the inhabitants.

During the Civil War, news reached newspaper outlets in the urban centers by the telegraph, or a little less rapidly by train.

In the 20th century, with the new technology of radio and eventually TV, the news reached the people virtually instantly.  But never have the people of the planet been able to obtain so much news and information and communicate, discuss and debate that information amongst themselves, individually, until the Internet and e-mail was born.  The World Wide Web has brought the citizens of the world together like no other time in history.  Never before have the roots of freedom been able to reach almost anyone in the world with a computer and internet access.  Radio Free Europe was a flea on the behind of an elephant, in comparison to the millions who are now wired into the Internet.

Internet technology has allowed a discourse between all the peoples of the Earth, of every single issue that confronts mankind.  It is government’s worst nightmare and some rogue governments have shut down Internet access to the citizens of their country for this very reason.  Beware the government that would limit, manipulate or exploit the free flow of information and individual communications on the Internet, including the American government.

Writers, authors and journalists of today reach tens of thousands of people (sometimes millions) around the world in seconds.  But now the readers can respond to the author with their comments on the content of the writer’s article, essay, or report.  The author gets virtually instant feedback on what they write ….. feedback that can expand the author’s knowledge and allow him or her to elaborate on issues he or she may have not considered while in the process of writing down his or her thoughts.  Or the readers can respond with their own comments on websites and blogs that feature the articles.  The opportunities for civil or even heated debate over the issues presented in the article, are almost unlimited.  The world is beginning to think ….. finally!

People are thinking and educating themselves today like never before and the current political upheaval in America is spreading around the world like a virus with no vaccine.  Freedom and liberty are being propagated around the planet on the Internet at the speed of light because of what is happening in America today.  Peoples of different countries are thinking about “freedom”, or the lack there of, in their own country.  The freedom virus is infecting citizens of the world at an encouraging rate.  Governments and individual politicians are shaking in their boots.  They have discovered that because of the Internet and e-mail, the people they represent (or dictate to) are becoming more educated and enlightened by the minute.  The Internet essentially gave rise to the Tea Party Movement in America … a movement that may be unprecedented in the history of this great country.

We receive many responses to our frequent articles, from all around the world.  Some of the responses we receive on the subjects about which we write, are so negative and laced with invectives that they can’t be repeated in polite company.  Some responses are poignant and well thought out.  Some are detailed and reflect much more than just a single word, or a single sentence comment.  They expose deep introspection and deliberation on the part of the respondee.

Just recently we received a response from a California attorney that essentially called our articles (and us) psychotic.  (What can you expect from legal (and law school) blinded attorneys these days, who never saw a constitutional provision they wouldn’t break).

But much more important, we received a response from a citizen of Russia who responded to our most recent article entitled:  “Do You Think Your Vote in November Will Restore Freedom?”. We would like to share some of his comments with our readers because they demonstrate the point that freedom truly is propagating around the world ….. in the age of the Internet.

Our respondee from Russia writes:

I must confess, that after the last Presidential elections (in America) I’ve suddenly understood that my Russian knowledge of your country is absolutely, but absolutely insufficient and – well, – idiotically superficial. And I don’t like to feel myself an idiot, especially about the country I love. So I began to study it anew, often experiencing purely Christopher-Columbian feelings: I’ve met the entirely unknown to me land!  And, just as Columbus was thanking God for his ships, I was thanking God for the Internet, which was so generous to me, giving instant weapons to fight my deep ignorance – all kinds of statistics, biographies, executive orders, CFP and NYT articles, Jan Brewer’s border positives and fiscal negatives, Pelosi and Reid quotes, Texas budget commentaries, New Black Panthers threats, pictures of activist judges (faces say so much!), IRS income tax codes, budget experts’ opinions, TV interviews, candidates’ ads, Obamacare endless pages etc, etc.

It is obvious that this gentleman is thinking deeply about America and how what America does impacts what happens in Russia.  He goes on to say:

By this autumn my American “position within” is finally crystal-clear to me: I’m a conservative. Or, to be more correct, ultra-conservative (a bit to the right from senators McCarthy and Goldwater). Not because I’m some crazy nut, but because while those two honest politicians were only guessing the true nature of progressive “hopes and changes”, I was experiencing these very changes on my own skin one dreadful year after another – and was witnessing it on skins (and corpses) of many of my family members, friends and compatriots, on ever-lame Soviet economy, on drab and dreary sub-existence outside the state bureaucracy closed realm. I have not a slightest doubt about the name of the end station, to which all these so familiar hopes and fundamental changes of your fateful year 2008 lead. Be it Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, Korea or USA, this end station’s name is one and the same: GULAG. And it was so painful for me to discover how easily, without any principal resistance, the great US train was (long before 2008!) diverted full steam from your shiny Constitutional line of freedom to the rusted rails of the “progressive” sideway. In political culture, media, labor activities, education (education especially!) your country now reminds me of the USSR so much, that sometimes I can hardly believe my own eyes and ears, subconsciously wishing to say “comrade Gibbs”, “comrade Clinton”, “comrade Axelrod”, “comrade Obama”, “comrade Soros” etc. Maybe they would be only pleased, but for me it’s utterly loathsome.

Our Russian friend wraps up with:

And you are right – even with my usual optimism I am not at all sure that the November elections would bring the resolute return to the ideals of your Founding Fathers. I would be the happiest man in Russia to witness such a grand reversal, but reading lots of US blogs and commentaries, I still see an excessive amount of naivety about the noble aims of your locomotive’s far-left machinists. It would be a failure if November would bring just the change of party majority in Congress: the same “good old boys”, always eager to take the engine’s levers back with a Niagara of pleasant words – along the same accursed rails. At least such is my impression after the most attentive reading of the GOP’s  “Pledge To America”. So all my November hopes are mainly with your truly American Tea-Party movement – God bless them in transforming your present sick situation of peoples for Government (like here in Russia) into a healthy government for the Peoples and by the Peoples – not by party machines any more!

We ask each reader to think on these words that represent a perspective of America from a far-off land… a perspective from a man that represents a comparison between his own country and the one he believes that in the end, will affect the direction of his country and the inhabitants thereof.  He loves his country but he is also deeply aware of its faults and shortcomings.  He dreads the possibility of America heading in the same direction.

Voices from all over the world are echoing, or at least thinking about America and what happens to the peoples of the world if America goes the way of all other failed socialist countries.  Or what happens if the planet slides into one-world-government under the thumb of a few money changers, industrialists, union bosses and the power brokers (politicians).  These voices would be silenced if there were not the Internet and e-mail.

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution to this article by our Russian friend and thank him for sharing his thoughts and comments about issues that could determine the fate of not only America, but every country on Earth.  We encourage all those of like mind to share their thoughts as he did, through the miracle of the World Wide Web.  The more we talk amongst ourselves about the important issues that confront all of us, in every country, the less power government will have over us.

Perhaps one day, the world will be united in We The People under the principles of freedom and unalienable rights, as endowed by our Creator, instead of being divided by the draconian rule of the one world order, under the dictates of the moneyed and politically influential elite.