I am a longtime fan and supporter of Ron Paul. I voted for him back in 2008 when he was a long shot. During the 2008 election campaign cycle, friends tried to dissuade me from throwing away my vote on someone who had no chance of winning.

One friend in particular told me that he liked Ron Paul and his platform but he wasn’t going to vote for him. Like others, he was convinced that if I voted for Paul it was the same as voting for Obama. Ron Paul couldn’t possibly win and I should instead give my vote to someone who had a better chance of beating Obama.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I preserve my vote by casting it in favor of candidates that uphold the constitution. I keep my power to defend liberty by voting my conscience. The ones who are really throwing away their vote are those who will give it to the horse in the lead. You would do as well to vote for whoever spends the most in their campaign.

It isn’t merely idealism that drives me in this direction. Change takes time. The wheels of government grind slowly. If I expect to see my government improve tomorrow I need to vote for what I want today.

Voting for Ron Paul in 2008 was the right thing to do. Look how much support he has garnered in the past four years. He actually has a chance of winning the Republican nomination this year. That said, there is still a big chance he won’t win the Republican nomination. Does that mean I should throw my vote away on someone I don’t fully believe to be the right person for the job? No! I will vote my conscience. In another four years I’ll be able to say I helped lead the way to a better tomorrow.

As Ron Paul says, “Liberty is popular.” I’m for liberty. He knows how to secure it for us and our children. The next generation of voters thinks he has the right idea. Ron Paul may never be elected president. But I will always vote for liberty and the candidate that is most willing and able to defend it.

When Wikipedia blacks out their site for 24 hours, you know it is serious. Google is also participating, although not as directly. They’ve only blacked out their logo. But they do provide this statement to congress. Reddit is making this issue front and center on their site.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Jane Wells of WordPress writes a moving and convincing invitation to fight the good fight. Here’s why you and I should join:

• The internet is a strong industry in this otherwise dismal economy. These bills undermine the very fiber of the internet and threaten to make it unstable and insecure by nature.
• This bill changes the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused — a change that would be disastrous to the free world. Businesses would need the mere impression of piracy to shut sites and, therefore, businesses down.
• Laws, though written with good intentions, can be easily manipulated to evil purposes if not written carefully. These laws are not written to carefully secure liberties.

The internet is more than a group of interconnected computers and networks. It is a group of interconnected people. We are the internet. If we defend the internet, we are defending ourselves. Join our cause to preserve our life, liberty and LOL cats (if that’s your thing).

WordPress › Help Stop SOPA/PIPA.

School Superintendent Gives Up $800,000 in Pay.

Cyber Weapons: The New Arms Race – BusinessWeek.

Another case where the people are more powerful and important than the government. London wants to control Facebook, Twitter and everything to only let message through that please those in control. But the people show that social networks are not the problem but part of the solution.

These kinds of facts are persistent for Americans. When the going gets tough, we don’t just think about ourselves (unless you’re an investment banker). When the government provides ‘aid’ during economic difficulties, it goes to help the selfish. All the while, those who are in real need, working-class Americans, don’t ask for a handout—they give a hand up to others. If our government stopped giving so much ‘aid’, the working class would be saddled with less debt and be able to better care for their needs as well as the needs of their neighbors.

Design View / Andy Rutledge – Profit, Lies, Theft, and Idiocy.