Despite the comfort of that statement, where I could easily rationalize to myself on what little I do is somehow changing things, when I have no real way of being certain, I have to disagree.
If words are action, then by now, all the blogs in the world should be leading us straight to freedom.
Online is a great arena FOR NOW, but it will cease to be in the future, if anyone will bother listening to Lawarence Lessig’s important work & his warning of The State (not by that name, but more or less he refers to The State)'s possible (& ever more likely) trump card of an “online” version of 9/11.
The increasing sabre-rattling of cyberspace becoming more of a territory rather than an abstract environment should send shivers down everyone’s spine, most of all us, but even more disheartening is the somewhat valid claims this is derived from: where is the infrastructure required for the existence of the Internet located?
It is not all in one territory, and even if it were somehow designated in a neutral territory somewhere on earth or in space, the required defense necessary to fend off Statist conquering might not be there.
The bastardized claims of territorial monopoly are being applied ever second to an abstract environment of information (such as an The Internet), & by proxy, this conquest will eventually result in an exponential amount of bureaucracy & regulation.
Forget about the traditional argument of “too much regulation into our daily lives”; it will eventually become (if not already), an argument of too much regulation into our daily thoughts & information.
The Internet is an excellent resource, but libertarians & anti-statist’s should stop being complacent in it’s existence. The first step towards providing the bridge of online action & words into tangible offline actions & options would be to make privatized infrastructure for separate Internets.
The internet has already proven to be the most (so far…) anarcho-capitalist (I hate to use that term, but most here know what I mean by it’s use in context) friendly method of providing the vital means of organizing not only a space for us, but the very basis for groups of people to be able to branch off & create, essentially, their own social worlds, cultures, & possibly eventually, states, based on the ease of use the Internet both as a concept, & possibly more importantly, as a means of mediation, calculation, & market action.
If the Gadsen Flag once represented a symbol for the movement (& still does for many) than The Internet can thought of both the digital & physical culmination of technology as a symbol for freedom.
Money bombs, infiltrating blogspot with material until whenever google decides to censor stuff on their servers, submitting stuff to reddit, & other forms of online promotion are all good & well, but what would be more impressive is a Gadesen Online, or a Gadesen / FSP Internet.
Even better would be the fact that initially, such services would cost too much for ideological outsiders to bother with, but overtime, the growth of both infrastructure to maintain such net’s would reduce costs, & allow fully competent oversight to ensure that there is no easy hanging fruit for The statist’s to come in & shut it down (i.e. oversight concerning possible things the state would leverage to raid, such as child pornography, etc.).
I’m sure the anti-hierarchy types might bitch about it, but they can try to do their own thing too, possibly via some sort of Tor like network on their own servers (this is tangential, but a realistic concern nonetheless). This goes without saying regarding competition in the markets, anyways.
Such under-taking would have those involved having an intuitive understanding of the connection between micro & macro scale growth. For example, service plans ranging from the most primative (but most built in saftey wise, possibly) uses of sub-par 56k for just information & minimal media, to the most exhubrent (T1, etc., possibly even from paid pipe from comcast etc.) for libertarian and/or an-cap buisnesses.
The earlier would be easier to provide intinally, but would eventually fall in line with exponential growth. The latter would attract those cannot stand slower internet (which might be the majority of the those who do not agree with the aims of a libertarian or privatized internet), especially if it was priced competitivley with other services, or at least as competitivley as possible. I could go more into the nuance of it all, but it’s too big of a tangent.
Back on point, I would argue that the Internet finally provided us with an infrastructure that is the most amoral, unbiased reflection of individual trade & actions (again, thus far), & hence, a better reflection of free-market action between individuals.
To be fair, it could also become a better reflection of totalitarian control, which is why I see privatized internet, privatized informational services, storage, & creation, to be more important than ever as we head off into the Brave New World, albiet, with the half-assed slant that comes with reality & bureaucrats.
I suppose it figures that this useful finally tool comes along , & most seem more interested in exploiting it as a commons (at times, myself included, lol…) while they can (even as a liberty minded individual, it wouldn’t be uncalled for to call this a mild form of parasitism, or at least laziness), rather than further evolving it beyond “one Internet to rule them all”, or doing something more tangential besides either reformism via regulation (Lessig is probably the most successful example of this, but it includes the EFF & others as well), or reactionary outrage that eventually devolves into passive acceptance (it would be hard pressed to find anyone immune to such, even the most noble & tireless ideaological fighter).
Granted, Internet2 is being developed, & will be far more controlling & regulated, but it would be unforgivably arrogant to think that the 1st Internet would be left behind by The Statist’s, to let us lowly masses take advantage of it & challenge oligarchy, in favor of another internet, simply because it is more shiny than the last.
I apologize for the rambling, but as much as I like looking at my own blog & desperately trying to find time to post up words on the Internet for people to read, I don’t make it a priority primarily because when it comes down to it, my blog probably matters little outside the peanut gallery, even if I promoted it, etc.
If the FSP or any other libertarians start getting smart about arming themselves to protect their own servers that allow privatized cyberspace with minimal next to no immediate interference from The Statist’s, I would say then we are making good progress.
At this point, I’m beginning to see that the creation, liberation, & defending of agnostic (i.e. non regulated) information is far more important than the creation of arguments & the growth of, yet still somewhat closed, circles of interested people.
While many would argue that our words may eventually help grow a majority at some point to tip the arguments into our favor, & to some extent I can see that occurring, it would take far too much time to do this.
I find it further interesting that while the arguments for spreading the word are widespread, the possibility of a possible biological strategy, such as breeding with libertarians or anti-statists in an effort to ensure future generational resistance (voluntary eugenics, I suppose you could call it, or counter-economical eugenics) is rarley heard of.
Although, I see the secession movement of the FSP being a possible pre-cursor to such, however, despite that obviously not being a primary nor spoken of goal of the FSP, but would probably occur to some extent in the more liberty minded population interacting, living & breeding with one another.
In that sense, it makes me further confident that libertarianism as both a genetical & memetical culture, may be one of the best long-term strategies we can utilize the eventually arrive at one, if not the, primary goal(s): to show that the concept of coercion is not valid.
The fight continues, I’m afraid.