In the news recently comes a story about the latest technological revolution in the service of individual liberty. A cryptographic dream...or nightmare...depending on your perspective.
Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app
to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now,
the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking
encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files
securelyfrom a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button.
(For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android
versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos,
spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a
matter of seconds.
...
If governments don’t come round, though, Silent Circle’s solution is
simple: The team will close up shop and move to a jurisdiction that
won’t try to force them to comply with surveillance.
“We feel that every citizen has a right to communicate,” Janke says,
“the right to send data without the fear of it being grabbed out of the
air and used by criminals, stored by governments, and aggregated by
companies that sell it.”
How cool is that? Very cool! Anything that limits the intrusion of government in our private lives should be considered a step forward for everyone.
Recent news suggests that while terrorist jihadis are a problem, they are not the only problem. Perhaps they are not the biggest problem.
While China remains a communist nation, that government does not practice the brutal form of communism used by Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, and similarly "enlightened intellectuals". Yet those government apparatchiks still cling to the notion that individual belief is a suitable subject for government interference and direction.
Muslims living in China's western provinces have long been brutalized by China's government despite being overwhelmingly peaceful. While they cling to the idea of an independent state, they do not act on this belief in any meaningful way.
But Beijing insists that there can be but one thought on this subject; subservience and acceptance of China's rule. Their way of dealing with peaceful Muslims?
They burn the Muslim's mosque to the ground. As with the Buddhists of Tibet, the Muslims of the western reaches of China have an absolute right of conscience; to believe in their religion without interference from the state. The reaction of those Muslims was predictable and justified.
While an American government indebted to the Chinese government may find it tough to criticize such savagery, I do not. Communism....a slightly less brutal form of communism....is still alive in the world and a threat to any who profess a love of individual liberty.
The U.S. Military Academy's Cadet Chapel at West Point hosted its first same-sex marriage Saturday
Penelope
Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in
the regal church in a ceremony conducted by a senior Army chaplain.
The
ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended
the military policy banning openly gay people from serving.
The
two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment
ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed to
formally tie the knot.
The couple live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage.
His basic point is one I try to make frequently; that whatever authority you grant one party to do things for you, the other party will eventually be in power and use that same power to do things against you. One of my greatest fears in the War on Terror is that successive exchanges of majority positions will expand government authority, diminish individual liberty, and leave us less safe. That has been the cycle with respect to the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty.
I see little reason to expect to be disappointed this time around.
Take a look at Robb's post. It's worth the five minutes it will take.
Today in Afghanistan, young women can learn to box.
Have their photo taken. Sadly, reflections of Afghan women appear to be the dominant photographic mode. This is an improvement of sorts, I suppose.
Be rescued from life threatening living conditions...caused by husbands and their families, sadly enough.
Learn to play music!
And here is the price we pay for their liberation.
There is a price for freedom. When we free others from bondage, we ensure freedom for ourselves.
Let us be grateful for their service and for the freedom they bring the world.
The Taliban created the conditions where a woman could not be photographed without her husband or father's consent. Where no woman would have learned boxing....or reading or writing or mathematics. Where women were considered property on par with livestock and often treated with less consideration than livestock with the approval of the former government. Where music was banned.
Let us not abandon those who teeter on the edge of being the victims
of oppression before their oppressors have accepted liberty as the legitimate
objective of humanity.
All the photos may be viewed here.
“The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in
the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every
day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your
meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.”
Dakota Meyer readily identifies the worst day of his life. It is the day four of his friend died. And regardless of what he did, Dakota couldn't stop them from dying.
I am willing to bet that he can identify the second worst day of his life. The day they hung a medal on him for what he did while those friends were dying.
Hours before receiving the nation's highest award for military valor, a humble Marine from Kentucky wonders, why he's being honored for "the worst day of my life." 23-year old Sergeant Dakota Meyer told CBS Radio News, "it's going to be a hard time" when President Obama presents the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.
...
"If I was a hero I would have brought them out alive that day. That's a hero. I was just doing my job," he told CBS News.
...
Asked about a message to future Marines, Meyer said, "You got to do what's right." His voice choking with emotion, he added, "Leave no marine behind."
Reading the coverage (scroll down for the links), Sgt. Meyer sounds like the prototypical U.S. Marine. Decent, focused, hardworking. The best friend a person could ever hope to have.
A class act, he agreed to accept the Medal of Honor as a memorial to his friends that died that day. He asked that members of his unit be present so that they too could be honored.
Seeing all of the past Medal of Honor recipients in attendance, I hope that they offer him the support and advice he needs the most. They are the voice of the nearly singular experience that they have in common.
While he would gladly trade that bit of gold and ribbon to have his four friends back with him, he should never forget the thirty-six lives that he did save. And he should never forget the thirty-seventh life he saved that day; his own. For Sgt. Dakota Meyer is loved, respected, and honored for being who he is. He is the quintessential American hero. And we should be humbled to have him walk among us.
Kudos to President Obama for his presentation speech.
