McCain shows his true colors, and it's (surprise!) the color of money. Beholden to big business, John McCain will gladly sell you down the river for a few happy endorsements from the RIAA and other "pay me or else" business models. What a schmuck. I swear, I'd vote for a "Hitler/Satan 2008" ticket before I'd vote for John McCain.
[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]
John McCain, the Old White Geezer, has finally [a href="vny!://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm"]released a technology platform[/a]. Most of it is the same old stuff; lower corporate taxes (and higher personal taxes), protect children from porn (whatever that means), and avoid Internet regulation unless 'necessary.' (unless he can get away with it, that is)
Ars Technica has a [a href="vny!://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080815-mccain-plans-to-crack-down-on-global-epidemic-of-piracy.html"]review of McCain's "platform[/a]."
Alas, in his view, helping the RIAA's War on Sharing is necessary to stop the 'global epidemic' of piracy, while Net Neutrality is something he 'does not believe in.' (Yeah, because fairness is Un-American, don't ya know?)
In 2006, John McCain gave the commencement address at [a href="vny!://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/515/60/" title="thecherrycreeknews.com"]Jerry Falwell's Liberty University[/a] [thecherrycreeknews.com], and took the opportunity to mock individual expression:[/p][blockquote]"When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights. I had opinions on everything, and I was always right. I loved to argue, and I could become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with me. With my superior qualities so obvious, it was an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So I rarely did. All their resistance to my brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proved was that they possessed an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God had blessed me with, and I felt it was my clear duty to so inform them. It's a pity that there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium."[/p][/blockquote]
His contempt for citizens expressing their views is, presumably, why he introduced legislation that would basically have shut down comments on blogs and on sites like Slashdot (and this site as well!). Under John McCain, if you are an individual blogger and you allow user comments or user profiles, you'd have to follow the same reporting rules as an ISP, but you'd be subject to even harsher penalties. The EFF called McCain's bill a "[a href="vny!://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/" title="thinkprogress.org"]constitutionally dubious proposal[nobr] [wbr][/nobr]... made apparently mostly based on fear or political considerations[/a] [thinkprogress.org]."
[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]
Remember, John McCain is the guy who said he "didn't know how to use a computer". So that makes him an expert on teknowlogee issues!
