Divemedic

Intrusive

My sister just got a letter in the mail from the US Census Bureau, claiming that she had to take the “American Community Survey.” The letter gives her 48 hours to take the survey by mail, online, or by calling some woman for a phone interview. The claimed penalty for refusing to answer is $5,000. There is an even larger penalty for lying.

The questionnaire is 28 pages long, and asks questions like how much you make, what your rent payment is, and what time you leave the house to go to work.

The Census bureau claims that they will keep your answers confidential. Uh, the CIA couldn’t even keep the identity of their spies confidential.

Fuck that. No one has been prosecuted for refusing to answer since 1970. Look, I will answer to tell you how many people live in my house, as the Constitution requires, but that is it. If there is a penalty for lying, that must mean that you are comparing my answers to some database somewhere. That tells me two things:

  • You already have the answers.
  • You plan on using the answers to incriminate me, which is a violation of one of those Amendments you keep ignoring.

So, no. I will take my chances with you ignoring me. Or maybe I can get an attorney. I don’t know if you can rely on the courts any longer, and I am sure that the ACLU isn’t interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Dictatorial powers

Fail to follow the orders of a minor politician in a Communist run state, and get summarily punished without trial. That is what one man in California discovered when he held a party in violation of the mayor’s orders. The mayor responded by having his electric and water services turned off.

There are some who say that this isn’t punishment, so a trial isn’t required. What next? Have a goon show up and break his kneecaps?

By Divemedic, ago

Home of the free no more

This is going to be commonplace for many of us over the next several years as we are forced to come to grips with the fact that this is no longer the “home of the free and the land of the brave.” We can stomp our feet and deny it, we can try to act as though we don’t accept it, but it is not going to change the reality that the great American experiment that was launched just over 230 years ago is finally producing empirical results. The conclusion: People are capable of sustaining individual liberty only for as long as they can be constrained by a system of law that suppresses and contains their true nature.

Hobbes was right.

By Divemedic, ago

More censorship coming

Time to remind people about censorship and the ability to blog. If you have seen this offer before, or if you aren’t interested in blogging, don’t bother reading this.

Congress is still threatening more censorship. The left not just going after blogs and social media- they are going after podcasts as well. The powers that be intend to shut down all media that is not state approved. See this report here.

I was trying to listen to conservative talk radio on Sirius and on Blaze TV, but the hosts are refusing to admit that the election was bogus, but saying “we will get them next time.” Conservative talk has been brought to heel and has been told what they can and cannot say. Alternative media like bloggers are all that is left of the free press.

There is still room to share this server. The cost to host a blog on this server is $25 per month, billed quarterly. My IT support team charges a small fee to import the contents of your blog to this server. I have domains that are included in the price, or we can get you a custom domain. The only rule that I have is: no porn sites. I am not interested in having porn on my site for two reasons: they are resource hogs (both storage space and bandwidth) and I don’t feel like having to expend my own time and energy defending porn distributors.

Even if you don’t contact me, find an alternative server now, or your blogs and podcasts may be gone forever. An XML backup is no longer sufficient, as Blogger and WordPress no longer support migration by XML. If your blog is cancelled, there may be no way to recover it.

If interested in having your blog hosted here, the email is Divemedic@sectorocho.com.

By Divemedic, ago