It really doesn’t seem right to bring this up just before Christmas. Peace on earth and all that. But when Wendy McElroy linked to this article the other day, I knew I’d been remiss.
When somebody has to write from Europe asking Americans if its time to resort to the infamous “fourth box” of freedom, I weird keeping my mouth shut or only mildly opinionating about the latest horror-news.
When even Obama’s once-dedicated supporters are this angry over the tyrannical perfidy of peace-prize pols … it’s time.
No, I’m not saying, “It’s time” in the sense of that phrase that will follow me to my grave, “Claire Wolfe time.” I’m not ever likely to say that here on Dave Duffy’s nice, peaceful blog.
But if we’ve been on a steady continuum of police-state developments, we really have just crossed a totalitarian line with the National Defense Authorization Act. And it doesn’t matter from here on out who tries to make wussy corrections to it or who tries to make excuses for it. It doesn’t matter how many people talk about what the NDAA “authorizes” or doesn’t without ever making reference to the Bill of Rights.
You know how, in a breakup of a really terrible relationship, you sometimes go back? And back? You consider maybe it wasn’t so bad … maybe you can patch things up … it’s lonely and scary on your own. So you go back — and it really was just as impossible as you remembered. So you leave again. But then, maybe later you give it yet another try. After all, there must have been some reason you loved that person once. And you’ve put so much effort into the relationship already. And maybe some of the perceived mistreatment was your fault, after all. “If I just work a little harder, things’ll get better …”
But after some undefinable amount of back-and-forthing, you reach a moment — and you really know that moment, you always do — where It Is Over. And no matter how scary the big, bad world might be, you will never feel even the flicker of another temptation to reconcile or believe the old lies. Never again in your entire life.
Well, baby, for all decent people and the abusive government they once might have had fond, hopeful feelings for — It Is Over.
—–
I still don’t want to dwell on this over the holidays. I’ll have more to say about that fourth box after the first of the year.
But, but, Claire! if we just go to the polls and vote for the right people everything will be OK……! right?? /sarc
At the moment, that article is “Website Offline, No Cached Version Available”
As Pat notes, Falkvinge’s website is currently offline. Coincidence? I went to find a Google cache of it, and learned two things:
1) The link provided includes an extraneous bit that makes a Google search not work. Hint: When sending or posting URLs, any extensions beginning with “?” can usually be deleted without making the URL unusable. (Same generally goes for “&”.) In this case, I don’t know what the “?mid=555” at the end of the URL refers to, since I can’t get the page directly (looks like it might go to something in the middle of the article?); but when I removed it and did a Google search on the basic URL:
http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-the-fourth-box
I got results.
And 2) the link for a cache of a page in a Google search list has been moved from the entry that appears in the search list. You have to open the “Instant Preview” by clicking on the “»” that appears if you mouse over to the right side of the listing. Thus I found the Google Cache of this page, for any who might like to read it (until the website is up again…?):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TAe2PHsVlE0J:falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-the-fourth-box/+http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-the-fourth-box/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
The currrent NADA is a logical extension of the USA PATRIOT act, which, nobody in congress has put any effort into repealing. Not one of the old guard, not one of the Tea Party endorsed candidates have made the efffort to repeal that act. Same with Obamacare, lots of talk, lots of grandstanding, no action.
P.S.: Further experimentation finds that the URL above for the cached page can be shortened to:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TAe2PHsVlE0J:falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-the-fourth-box
Also, just in case Herr Falkvinge’s website continues to experience “technical difficulties”, in the Safari browser the page can be saved as a “web archive” for later offline viewing; I expect other browsers have similar capabilities.
P.P.S.: The website is back up now. Maybe it was simply swamped.
Philalethes — I’m sorry for your trouble and thank you for your investigations. I’ve removed everything in the URL from the ? onward. It works on my browser (Firefox on Linux). But then, it always did. So I can only hope it works better for Safari users and others now.
Claire — My “trouble” was not your fault; after all, you got the link from Wendy McElroy, who ought to know better (?). The original URL with the “?mid=555” works okay in Safari (or any browser, I assume) to get to the actual page (when it was online), but somehow confused Google so it couldn’t find the page in a search, and thus prevented finding the Google cache when needed. I don’t know what the extra string does; apparently it’s some notation internal to the website (like “#” extensions), but it’s not needed to get to the page.
And I enjoy these sorts of “investigations”. Being a tidiness freak, I like to experiment with URLs to get them down to the minimum size, especially if people are going to pass them around. For instance, this link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Claire%20Wolfe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
works as well like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Claire_Wolfe
and this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Outlaws-Handbook-Things-Revolution/dp/1581605781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324309652&sr=8-1
can be shortened to:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581605781
I think you can just add your tag:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581605781?tag=livifree07-20
though I’m not certain how this works as I don’t do Amazon revenue-sharing myself; it appears there are several different ways it can be done.
BT, I note your blog’s comment processor is very clever, converting ASCII elements like double-hyphens into em-dashes, and typewriter-style quotes and apostrophes into their typographical (curly) equivalents. Here, however, it’s outsmarted itself with the quotes around “?mid=555”: the opening quote is the correct curly typographical style, but the closing quote, since it appears after a number, has been turned into a double-prime (inch mark).
Won’t it be great when computers run everything?
I see lots of people saying the NDAA was “crossing the Rubicon, but I don’t see it that way. The Rubicon is so far behind us we don’t even remember what it was like to cross it anymore. Of course the NDAA was worse than all that came before it. Every new enabling act will be. Each one is worse and (some) people will wonder how “we” ever let it get this bad. Well, when George Washington was allowed to live after crushing the Whiskey Rebellion it was over. If it wasn’t already over as soon as the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation. Or even before that. But, it is never really over. This will lead to something else. Maybe a lot worse before it all collapses and leads to something better. Just do what you can to hang on to see what comes next. It might be really good.
“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
Everyone that just commented on this should be very careful. Under this atrocious piece of garbage bill that finishes off our liberties once and for all and moves us into a police state we can all be held under that portion of the bill called “Associated Groups”. What in the world is an “Associated Group” anyway? My guess is that definition will change as needed by the tyrants in government. I never thought I would see the definite end of freedom in my lifetime. I guess I was wrong.
I think “It’s time” has been negated by the use of drones on US citizens overseas. Will eventually happen here, most likely.
Gubmint is saying:
“Have all the rifles you want. Won’t make a whit of difference when we fire a hellfire missile down your chimney.”
I still like your statement, and there are worse things to follow one to one’s grave. If I were you, I’d leave instructions to have your tombstone simply have your name, your dates, and “It’s Time.” lol….
MWD
Better yet: “It’s past time… get on with it.”
“Associated Groups” means an anarchist, a libertarian or a Republican if the president is a Democrat.
“Associated Groups” means an anarchist, a libertarian or a Democrat if the president is a Republican.
Kent said, “When George Washington was allowed to live after crushing the Whiskey Rebellion, it was over.”
Yup.
When people ask me if I’m an “American Patriot”, or call me one (which happens often lately for some reason), I say “Only for 1775 to 1794.”
Kent’s right. As he often is.
To the oligarchs who actually run the US we’re cattle. That simple. They allow the first three “boxes” to have minor effects from to persuade us we really do have power and the system works.
Yes, it does. The system works as it’s designed to: to keep the herd docile and compliant.
The owners fear armed insurrection. They also fear mass noncompliance. Even though the overall message from OWS seems to’ve devolved into, “giving more wealth and power to the rich and powerful will save us from the rich and powerful,” phenomena such as the associated mass-transfer of funds from big banks to local credit unions seem to have severely rattled their gilded thrones.
At least, their enforcers sure felt the reverberations. Some of them told me so.
That said, the real thing to do now is stay alert and agile so as not to be crushed by the flailing of the dying Leviathan. Its masters can no more halt that process than our votes and protests could bring those masters down. It is a thing that’s happening.
So enjoy this holiday season fully, everyone. Because if you let the bastards impair your enjoyment of life, they win.
And, longer term, try not to die.
I’d like to go stick my head in the sand. I want to be ignorant about this, it would better for my health.
Now we must cower from our government? Live, terrified, about the potential for a no-knock flash bang 3am raid taking you or your family away permanently for…. posting a comment like this?
You can’t even make a joke about this, cannot speak openly about your opinions and be free from retaliation, we now officially live in terror of our own government. The US government officials (and anyone else) who have supported this, are by definition, terrorists.
The terrorist movement has effectively grown from the 9/11 seed and fully co-opted the federal government. Not happy. Not that this is a particularly major portion of the problem, but its a very significant indicator of the problem.
I was wondering what the 4th box was….duh….my home made car window sticker did not have Soap. I never saw the phrase with 4 boxes listed. Need to update it.
Yeah, I’ve reached that point. We’re done for, and all that’s left is to see if we can fall apart gracefully or not. I swore I wasn’t going to vote for any more of these bureaucrat loving critters — but Ron Paul seems to have at least a glimmer of a chance, and he does such a great job of making both sides twist their panties into knots, that I’ll probably throw my vote in his direction just for the entertainment factor alone.
It’s time to face the fact that any sane person who can should say adios to the USA.
Those who can’t must face the fact that it will be better to die on your feet than to live grovelling on your knees.