And your right to free speech is not infringed on, just your ability to reach people so they would listen is removed.

And people ask me why I consider it immoral to vote...

The Constitution starts to become a little like the Bible: Once a pretty good idea, born out of its time and back then a great set of rules to live by to ensure that everyone can survive and thrive.

It's just that times change, stuff gets invented and certain things ain't as simple as they used to be, while others got way simpler. Plus in both cases people who kept reading the stuff over and over trying hard to find loopholes and, of course, finding them to subvert the original idea.

In other words, rules and regulations have to keep up with time. Else they become a relic and a tool for mocking them.

Farm Karma so you can ... post vitriol anonymously?

Yeah, swell plan!

Considering we're currently pretty much constantly at war, it should be trivial to get around that amendment.

Whether it's the ISPs or the big content providers: The bottom line is that eliminating net neutrality would cement the power structure and disallow smaller competitors to rise. It would essentially undermine the concept of free trade and equal footing for everyone to compete in a free market.

In the end, what would happen without net neutrality is that big content providers would have to pay ISPs. Either in form of protection money ("shame if anything happened to your fast pipe...") or in form of a bribe ("Ensure that this little upstart there gets 64kbit at best").

We learned that it's pointless to protest peacefully.

If we can somehow throw in Facebook I bet that should piss off the NSA enough to label Aussieland some axis of evil candidate.

Just wait 'til the P2P index page gets public. Then it doubles as a "where to go for content" list.

So... then you'll need pirated AV from abroad to defend against the governmental spying?

It's worse than in the US, actually...

I guess with the right sauce and wine he might be bearable...

I can only agree. Swindling idiots out of their money is easy work with little stress and guaranteed to not result in burn out.

What he tried to explain, and allow me to drive it home bluntly so it gets through some thick skulls: A right is pointless if you neither exercise it nor defend it. A right is never self serving. And whether you have it or not is not even being tested until you try to exercise it.

Essentially you can have any right, as long as you don't test it, you don't even know whether you'll really have it or not. Take the 3rd. Yes, the 3rd amendment. You know, the one where you needn't house soldiers. It's a bit silly today, ain't it? I mean, let's be reasonable here, if the country can't house its soldiers anymore... but let's take it as an example since it's one of the amendment nobody really gives a shit about anymore. As much as the Quartering Act (where the Brits forced the colonies to house soldiers whenever they pleased) was one of the reasons for the rebellion, there really is not any use for that particular amendment anymore.

But do you know whether it really applies? Or are there just no soldiers kicking you out of their bed and proclaiming it theirs 'cause the state currently has enough barracks? Sure, it's not the best example considering how easily the state could avoid infringing in this constitutional law, all it takes is build some kind of shelter for its soldiers.

But let's take a step back and look at the second. Do you have it? Or do you have it as long as you're not really a nuisance, much akin to the first where you're allowed to practice your free speech today mostly where you cannot be heard? The funny (or not so funny) thing is that the first WAS tested. And now we have "free speech zones".

I guess should anyone ever test the second, we'll get "free shooting zones".

Now why would that matter? Seriously. Why would it?

If you planned to overthrow government with armed forces, I somehow don't think "gee, I'm not allowed to have a gun, let's forget about it" is the train of thought you'd follow...

From the point of a non-native speaker there's really little difference. But thanks for pointing it out.

Then again, I have no idea whether a LART persuades or convinces, but I do like the outcome!