Appalling Hypocrisy

What’s appalling is that either our elected officials are so stupid and ill-informed that they don’t know what is happening to freedom in America, or they have the hubris to think that we, The People, are so stupid that we won’t see and remark on the hypocrisy of criticizing American internet companies for helping the Chinese censor their citizens while daily our American freedoms are being taken from us by the zealots in the Bush administration.

Along with the hubris inherent in chastising Google and others for helping China censor information available on the internet while these same American officials and their ilk support increasing inroads into American freedoms, there’s the hypocrisy of these elected officials in their actions to appear to be in favor of furthering freedoms for the Chinese while allowing the Bush zealots to tamper with American freedoms under the guise of “national security”, or “child pornography”, while shilling for lobbyists and private interests.

It would seem that the attacks against our most popular search engines are really a mask for attempts to destroy those same companies which are perhaps becoming too large, powerful, and popular with the American people. This attack on our search engines and the companies who maintain them is not the first attack on these companies, and consequently on Americans’ access to unlimited information by way of the internet.

As recently as last week, our so-called “government” was going after Google and attempting to sway public opinion against Google, and other search engines by forcing subpoenas down the throats of the same search engines this government is now chastising for knuckling under to Chinese censorship.

It seems that any possible reason to attack our search engines is fair game these days. The question is, “Why?”.

What could possibly motivate such a sustained and concerted effort to bring dishonor to Google?

If one looks back to the recent news articles, perhaps there is some sort of clue as to why our government in the guise of looking after our best interests is trying to destroy one of the finest companies to ever come out of American ingenuity.

For one thing, Verizon recently accused Google of getting a “free lunch” at the expense of Verizon. No mention was made in the allegations that we, the consumers, pay for the internet services we enjoy and thus, there is no ‘free lunch’ for Google to enjoy.

For another, our government, under the guise of “cracking down on internet pornography”
recently demanded that Google turn over millions of our search records that ultimately have no real value in any search for child pornographers, but only serve to destroy confidence in Google, and allow the beginnings of censorship in America such as our government rails against today as regards China’s censorship of her citizens.

As the grandmother to seven, this writer’s opinion is that parents bear the ultimate duty to protect and monitor their children’s use of the internet. That there are countless applications available to limit children’s access to inappropriate sites online seems to carry no weight with our lawmakers. Creating laws that would affect negligent parents makes far more sense than creating laws that limit the internet.

What does appear to carry weight with these so-called ‘elected officials’ is that Verizon and other companies want to horn in on the internet and thereby make the services we now enjoy for free something that we would have to pay these parties to use.

What does appear to motivate our government is more politics in the name of greed.

Hopefully, Google will prevail. Hopefully, the American people will come to their senses in time to see that any and all laws currently issuing forth from our government are solely based on personal advantage and the hunger for wealth at the expense of the poor.

The articles mentioned here are just a few examples of what is going on as regards our precious internet access and freedom and they are not the only events currently working against the ideal of free and uncensored internet access.

Better writers and journalists than this writer might consider adding two to two and seeing if four is the result in any matters relative to Congress, our elected representatives and the Bush administration. A modicum of investigation produces the exact same conclusion no matter what issue is involved.

Nothing is being accomplished in Washington, D.C. for altruistic reasons. Greed and payoff masquerading as concern for the American public are the current fashionable motivations.