We Must Protect Net Neutrality and Bitcoin … Here’s Why

While people seldom are aware of the archetypes on which they construct their belief systems, those basic patterns – i.e. archetypes -- affect public policy. King George did not grasp the significance of archetypes which dispense with control from the top. 

The Historic Opposition to Individual Rights 

By far, the stronger force throughout history was summed up by Lord Acton in 1887: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Benjamin Franklin and most members of the Continental Congress recognized this reality which is why they devised a government of checks and balances where power could not rest within one branch. Power is the natural enemy of liberty.  Throughout American history the desire for a centralized power has been at odds with the archetype that the individual’s rights are paramount. 

The Davos Set, however, has no use for checks and balances on its power. To this group the entire world is akin to a gigantic Ponzi scam; they are so besotted with power that, like James I of England, they believe it is their divine right to own and control everything. Thus, the Davos Set realizes that the archetypes which support individual liberty threaten their hegemony.  

• Individual Inalienable Rights 

The Davos Set is an implacable foe to the notion of individual inalienable rights. Because the thought is the father of the deed, individuals who believe that they have rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are a lethal threat to their control. Such rebels throw tea into the harbor and throw off the yoke of central authority and steal data from national security agencies. 

No matter the passion of the modern rebels, without the tools to implement their individual desires, the notion of inalienable rights poses no actual threat to the 1%ers’ control. Net Neutrality and Bitcoin, however, are two technologies available for individuals to use to destroy the power of the Davos Set. 

• The Threat of Net Neutrality. 

Net Neutrality allows each individual to make his/her own decisions. When anyone Googles a term, no one controls which sites will be rendered in response. In fact, Net Neutrality has forbidden interference in the natural flow of information. Thus, individuals have been free to communicate without authoritarian interference. The cultural archetype which people incorporate into their Being with Net Neutrality is what Henely set forth in Invictus, “I am the master my fate, I am captain of my soul.” 

Ending Net Neutrality imposes censorship on everyone. The Davos Set’s propaganda will get the faster speed and be the most responsive to inquiries even when it is disliked and rejected by the vast majority of people. Like the Medieval Church, the Davos Set will send down to us peons which thoughts are acceptable. Alfred Lord Tennyson explained the role which the Davos Set has for the rest of us, “Ours is not to reason why, but to do or die.” 

• Bitcoin like the Declaration and like Net Neutrality threatens the Davos Set. 

Bitcoin transfers wealth without their control. The feudal order collapsed when the merchant class gained power through commerce. This social class gave rise to philosophers like John Locke who in turn helped promulgate the ideas of individual liberty and power arising from the consent of the governed. No longer did power flow from God to the monarch to the landed aristocracy where the flow stopped. 

Bitcoin establishes a means for individuals immediate edge to exchange wealth without the need for the Davos Set’s control. All power mongers seek total control, but Net Neutrality and Bitcoin free us from that control. 

The Perils of Inalienable Rights 

Sometimes, children who are free to play with matches burn down the house. The inalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are only potentials, and in the hands of foolish people, they can result in misfortune. Using Net Neutrality for porn is not the harm here; rather harm comes from following Alex Jones’ Infowars. Sure, the regular media is filled with fake news, which is akin to soft porn, but Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, and Breitbart peddle a type of fake news that is worse than hard core pornography.  

Americans face a choice: (1) Return to the comfort of accepting whatever myths the Davos Set pushes on us, (2) Deteriorate into a tangled mess of poverty, racism, and violence, (3) Learn to use freedom to improve our lives. Those of us who select option three must combat both the Davos Set and the Sean Hannitys. 

Three Practical Steps 

• The nation needs to reject the racism of the Democrats’ Identity Politics which energizes the resurgence of White racism. Equality does not lead to freedom, but rather people who thirst for Equality will accept slavery (as de Tocqueville explained in Democracy in America - 1832). Whether the Davos Set wears its Dem mask or its GOP mask, it agrees with itself that its interests are best served when the nation has been sliced and diced into multiple warring groups, each obsessed with measuring its equality. 

• We need Net Neutrality so that communication ultimately rests in the hands of the individual users. 

• We need a private currency like Bitcoin so the government cannot seize our assets as it already can under the Civil Assets Forfeiture Act.  Whether Bitcoin is sufficiently protected from the government remains to be seen. 

The Right of Privacy 

Who knows whether the archetype that individuals should control their own lives will prevail? The GOP fights against this archetype each day with its never-ending assault on the Right of Privacy. In 2017, 65% of Republicans oppose the Right to Privacy, but back in 1995, only 48% opposed the Right of Privacy. The GOP trend towards authoritarianism does not bode well for individual freedom.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw