 |
|
|
 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 353, February 5, 2006 Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.
Googlocracy
Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise I read the other day that the corporation that calls itself Google has recently lost something on the order of twelve and a half billion dollars ($12,500,000,000) of its value on the stock market, virtually overnight. Ordinarily, upon hearing news like that, if I felt anything at all, it would be sympathy for those suffering the loss—especially when it happens to be people I do business with, not merely every day, but usually several times every day—and considerable worry about what such a thing might mean for a nation and an economy that have been raped, looted, and burned merely to enhance the power, prestige, and wealth of certain individuals, whole families of politicians and mercantilists, who already possess and enjoy far too much of those commodities. This time, however, I felt nothing. No, that's not precisely accurate. What I felt was a surprising moment of almost liberaloid satisfaction (pardon me, progressivoid) that a corporation I have excellent reason to despise has run into a speed-bump. At the same time, I felt mild regret that it didn't happen to them because of the evil they've done, but only coincidentally with it. "What has Google done?" I pretend to hear you ask. Google has agreed—as a price of doing business in mainland China—to perform whatever cybernetic gymnastics are necessary to prevent the Chinese people from visiting web sites, or doing other things on the Internet, that the Red Chinese government disapproves of. In short, Google is taking the one and only thing today that could make the Chinese people free—indeed, the only thing these days that keeps America and the rest of the western world free—and gutting it to specifications provided by a demented conspiracy of mass-murdering butchers. (You have to wonder what kind of deal they'd be willing to do with the American government, or the Bush Administration, to stay in business.) Google sees nothing wrong with this, nor, apparently, do many of the people I correspond with on a regular basis. It's their business, my friends reply, and they can do anything with it that strikes their fancy. Besides, goes the cant, if they comply now, they may even be able to help the Chinese people to gradually become freer than they are today. Hey, isn't Google standing up the American government's insane demand that they turn over a list of everybody who ever used Google to hunt for pornography? Anyway, MicroSoft and all the others gave in to the Chinese government—and to the American government, as well—on these issues a long time ago, and nobody made much of a fuss about it. Okay, let's get this straight right now, so we don't have to come back to it. I don't give a damn what else Google may be doing, good or evil. Resisting Henry Gonzales' crazy neofascism is the bare, minimal performance you'd expect of anyone in Google's place. I don't care who else is doing good or evil, either. Bill Gates is not—and never has been—anybody's champion of individual liberty. All of us have known that for a long time, especially those to whom the Second Amendment is important. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed. Plain and simple. No way out of it. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed. In this, Google is exactly like the media and industry giants who propped up Adolf Hitler's evil regime, even if they didn't turn the Zyklon B valve themselves. Google's the Riefenstahl and Krupp of our times. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed. What can we do about it? Well, fortunately, America's corporate fascists tend to be cowardly skulkers—or they wouldn't have wound up in this mess to begin with—whose shameful behavior can usually be altered for the better, simply by talking about it often and loudly enough. In columns like this one, for example. As for gradualism, see how much good it's done the Libertarian Party. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed. It also aspires to make billions of bucks by playing pattyfingers with political monsters who lock down entire villages when the people of them struggle to express themselves or achieve redress. Monsters who have done their damdest to wipe off the map and out of the history books, entire cultures like that of Tibet, against whom they once attempted genocide by the expedient of sterilizing young women with blowtorches. Monsters who reportedly dismember convicts for spare parts. Those billions will mean little to Google if they lose it here at home. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed. Oh, yeah. What about the argument that Google is private property? Well no, it isn't. It's a corporation, which means that it's simply a bunch of guys who sought to achieve certain powers and immunities by applying for them to the State. As such, Google is a creature of the State—Google is the State itself—and it deserves zero special consideration. When Google expresses its willingness to give up limited liability—a legal arrangement under which owners of a corporation aren't held personally responsible for wrongs the corporation may commit—then we'll be talking about private property, and the rights associated with it. Not before. Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.
TLE AFFILIATE
Help Support TLE by patronizing our advertisers and affiliates.
|
|
|
|
