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The Courts

Journal Raindance's Journal: Second Ammendment: Support for FreeNet, fatal to DMCA?

At this juncture I'm not sure if this is plausible or not, but here goes:

Premise 1: The constitution deals with timeless ideals- which are then realized in various and diverse ways in different stages of our society.

Clarification: Much as biblical interpretation necessitates that we look beyond particular historical context-dependent words and phrases to see the spirit of the bible, so must we look beyond the particular way an ideal is expressed in the constitution to find the ideal itself- and then examine our current society to find a good current application of that ideal.

Premise 2: The second ammendment, 'The Right to Bear Arms', is an application in late 18th century America of the timeless ideal of giving the populance significant and real power to act positively in a society *outside of the rules of that society*, potentially in a manner contrary to how those in political power would like.

Premise 3: The most meaningful application of this ideal to our current society is not 'The Right to Own Guns'; with the power and organization of the police and the stigma raised against fringe militants such as Ted Kazinski, the right to own guns is a pointless right in that one cannot effect meaningful positive change using guns nor successfully defend oneself against the authorities with guns, rightfully or not.

Premise 4: The most meaningful application of this ideal from Premise 2 is found in the so-called digital realm, in projects such as FreeNet, Gnutella, DeCSS, and so forth.

In Summary,
Battles are not waged with guns anymore, and oppression no longer takes the form of the enemy marching through our towns and taking our womenfolk. FreeNet, Gnutella, and DeCSS are the 'arms' of the 21st century, and the Second Ammendment gives us the right to bear them.

Work In Progress-
Feedback in commands would be *very* appreciated!

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Second Ammendment: Support for FreeNet, fatal to DMCA?

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"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs

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