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from the you-can-never-have-too-many-offsite-backups-eh dept.
The Internet Archive plans to create a backup of its data in Canada in response to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States:
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit that saves copies of old web pages, is creating a backup of its database in Canada, in response to the election of Donald Trump. "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change," the organization wrote in a blogpost explaining the move. "It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change."
[...] The move will cost millions, according to the Internet Archive, which is soliciting donations. In their post, the Internet Archive justified its decision to backup its data in Canada, claiming that Trump could threaten an open internet. "For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions."
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jmorris on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:09PM
The jury is still out on that. Trump tweeted that he's in favor of revoking citizenship and jailing people who burn the flag.
The SCOTUS was wrong. Not the first time. Burning the flag is not free speech, it is an act of rebellion and possibly treason. One change in your thinking and it makes perfect sense.
If I were proposing changing the rules though, I'd suggest this:
If you aren't an American Citizen and you burn the flag on American soil, you are outta here. Apply again in ten years and express some contrition and maybe you can visit.
If you are a Citizen without a passport (i.e. have never left the U.S. before) you get issued one along with ten $100 bills and placed at random in a third world city. You may not reenter the U.S. for two years and it shall be a crime for a U.S. national to transfer funds to you during your banishment. We would need to make a deal with the target countries to allow this 'educational' enrichment. If you choose to reenter after two years the whole event will be expunged from the record, lesson learned.
If a Citizen with a valid passport does it, they should be forced to spin again, pick a new country to pledge allegiance to since they have obviously and publicly rejected this one. Same for anyone with dual-citizenship, burn our flag and you automatically forfeit the American one.
Many reading the above are outraged. Allow me to explain the why.
Most of the alt-right have accepted the notion of white-identity politics as the only answer to the self evident reality that every other group is practicing identity politics. Lots of disparagement of "magic dirt" theory and the "proposition nation" ideas. I accept that criticism but note that it really isn't fair to say the "proposition nation" doesn't and can't work since for a century now we haven't even been trying. The Proposition Nation as a basis for America requires we make a real effort to assimilate people to the Proposition and cast out those who refuse to accept it. I.e. it is NOT possible to be a patriotic Anti-American. So before you post a fiery reply inside [flame] tags, consider the options, chaos and anarchy followed by something worse, the fast approaching White Nationalism as a response to the identity politics of the Left that will also lead to chaos and fire, or a return to the American Proposition Nation of a hundred years ago.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:55PM
Um, wrong wrong wrong on so many levels. Just because you want it to be so doesn't mean you are correct, close or even on the right planet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:35PM
Twice in two days. I looks like "identity politics" is the phrase of the week dished out by the alt-right talking-point generator.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:35PM
In Canada, burning the flag is the proper disposal method. Though you are supposed to do it discretely.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 30 2016, @08:10PM
It is in the US as well. Trump and the people in this thread would know that if they'd been in the military, or even the scouts. Here, there's a ceremony involved.
Like Trump, I had a high draft number (365, the very highest) and served. Guess what, you don't have to be drafted, you can VOLUNTEER! Who woulda known? I was offered a medical discharge after two years and declined and finished my hitch. Trump is one of the least patriotic people I've ever heard of. He's a proven fraudster (he settled the fraud case) and a proven racist--he was found guilty of housing discrimination twice.
But we survived GW Bush (barely), we'll survive Trump.
The #1 domestic terrorist organization in the US is ICE
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:54AM
What is the most depressing part in Trump's (upcoming) presidency is the refusal of left to do some introspection. It is still all about finding fault with Trump, as if that wasn't done enough pre-election. People still voted and the best answer I get from reading leftist media is that people are *(basket of deplorable)ists. Trump is an outsider. He is also incompetent. He is definitely not smart enough for this job. Left should really think about itself when it lost to Trump, but is it? No.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:28AM
But the left has absolutely no reason to endure any mansplaining given the previous successes weren't from logical appeals but indoctrination. You'd need some type of framework in order to make re-evaluations instead of gaping hole.
Being left-leaning moderate myself (or in the parlance of the left, a crypto Klan supporter) I get either to look over either inept nihilist or pink shirts to make an appeal.
And honestly it's looking like the nihilist as the left is just too far gone to even be worth expending the energy. The absolute best outcome is minimizing how much damage they can inflict as they cannibalize each other.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:50AM
You should have posted non-AC, I would have befriended you. The lack of framework is very much a reality. Instead, left has embraced propaganda and censorship. I said this here a long time ago, but left is the new conservative. In gutting the actual dissenters of establishment, it has allowed right to rise again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:41PM
(1) Burning a flag is actually appropriate disposal for one. I know you're not really addressing that here, but it's important to note that merely burning a flag shouldn't constitute an "act of rebellion and possibly treason." You'd need to determine intent.
(2) I'm not going to post some "flaming" response, just to note that the flag is JUST a symbol. I show great respect for it personally. I know the rules for display and if I do display one, I'd always do it properly. BUT, it is a symbol, and the defacement of a SYMBOL is nowhere near "treason."
(3) I think any citizen should be outraged at the suggestion that other citizens should be stripped of citizenship or unilaterally deported, regardless of their actions. At times, we may justify removing rights (e.g., putting people in prison, taking away certain rights from felons, etc.), and I'll grant that we have the right to choose when to deport non-citizens. But the suggestion that we start deporting people who merely disagree enough to destroy a SYMBOL... I just don't even know what to say.
Whether or not it is possible to be a "patriotic anti-American," as you put it, it IS possible to be an American (period) who does not defer to some symbol of America. I can even understand -- though I don't agree with -- those who might argue for punishing "unpatriotic" Americans who don't respect that symbol, e.g., with fines or even jail time. But deporting them?? Again, I don't even know what to say.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 30 2016, @08:03PM
Burning the flag is not free speech, it is an act of rebellion and possibly treason.
If that's true, then flying the battle flag of the confederacy is even worse, since that was the flag that says "I am at war with America and her ideals." I consider the Confederate flag akin to the ISIS flag.
"First they came for the flag burners, and I said nothing because I love the flag. Then they came for the confederate flag flyers...
Face it, it is NOT a crime to hate the US, nor should it be. Burning the flag is a hell of a lot more "speech" than having a lot of money to bribe politicians legally with.
The #1 domestic terrorist organization in the US is ICE
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:16PM
Burning or doing anything at all to the flag or any other symbol is the highest form of free speech, and deserves the most intense protection. Saying, "babies are cute" or somesuch is not why we have freedom of speech in the United States of America. Burning the flag or telling the President of the United States (past, current, or future) to go fuck himself to his face, are.
As far as your "proposition nation" goes, you're deluded. America is a work in progress and always has been. The "proposition" has always been a point of contention as to what exactly that is. I personally don't care for many of the zigs in the path that proposition has taken over time, but that's why I have the freedom of speech, and ultimately the strength of arms, to contest the position of that proposition with vigor.
If it were otherwise, jmorris, then I'd be perfectly right and empowered to tell the rest of you to fuck off and get out of my country, since my people were here long before there was said country.
But I'm not.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:37PM
You're a fucking moron, and I'll burn a flag this week just to celebrate the fact that I can.
It's NOT FUCKING TREASON, but a political statement, and we get to protest. Protesting is a sacrosanct right in our country, or just how the fuck did we create it in the first place? Did we change our status from within the English monarchy? Did we operate within the rules and procedures, gain votes, and had the fucking King of England *grant* us our freedom? Or did we fucking take it by force?
Burning the flag IS FREE SPEECH. It's an expressive act to illuminate the abject and absolute failures of our government and the people that working within it.
Rebellion? That's a nice easy word to throw around when you don't like what we're saying. It's not rebellion you stupid fuck, but again, a PROTEST. It's absolutely utterly and immutably and act of Free Speech. Forever.
To say that I have the moral high ground in burning a flag is a massive fucking understatement. It's people like you that need to drop fucking dead in this country, because YOU WILL FOMENT AND ENGENDER CIVIL FUCKING WAR WHEN YOU DECIDE TO TAKE AWAY MY FUCKING RIGHTS.
You want to deport mother fucker, then come and do it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:06PM
Protesting is a sacrosanct right in our country, or just how the fuck did we create it in the first place? Did we change our status from within the English monarchy? Did we operate within the rules and procedures, gain votes, and had the fucking King of England *grant* us our freedom? Or did we fucking take it by force?
America was founded by violent revolutionaries who committed high treason against the crown. That was the whole point of the exercise, it was why we had the Revolutionary War. What do you think the words "We pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" mean? They understood they were going all on on a cause they thought right and praying God deliver them the victory because they sure as heck weren't counting on purely strength of arms; remember that they were going up against the most powerful nation the world had yet seen. They understood all too well that had they lost they would have been hanged, their names forever blackened by history as traitors and their children left penniless if they were allowed to live at all. And this is all right and proper, Revolution should be difficult and dangerous so as to discourage it. See the Declaration of Independence itself for why; our Founders were after all, pretty wise.
So by all means, declare your rebellion against America, burn the flag, whatever. Just be prepared to pay the price when you are wrong and lose your rebellion / war of independence. Look at the Confederate States of America for how that losing bit works. Otherwise you are limited to changing the system from within it, by the rules established for that purpose. And declaring your explicit disloyalty to the country should have negative consequences.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:20PM
Go fuck yourself again.
We get to burn the flag as an act of Free Speech, protected by the U.S Constitution. The moment you think you can take that away because you don't like the speech, YOU BECAME THE ENEMY, not us.
So go fucking die in a fire.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 02 2016, @10:40PM
Read the entire Declaration, not just the last paragraph. Because it also directly declares that, should any government become oppressive, it is just and proper for the citizens to rebel against it. That's part of why the Constitution has a very specific and narrow definition of treason -- they were trying to AVOID repeating the oppression of the government they were escaping, not permanently embed it into the new nation.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
No, they say it should not be taken lightly, but also that all experience has shown that nothing needs to be done specifically to discourage it. It says that people are naturally resistant to change and will therefore willingly suffer for quite some time before being pushed far enough to take action. What they are saying is that they do not themselves take this decision lightly, and they were declaring that this fact should be self-evident because NOBODY would willingly start that war unless the problems were truly insufferable:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:38PM
Burning the flag is not free speech, it is an act of rebellion and possibly treason.
So is your position that the first amendment only protects written word and actual speech? If not, then how can you possibly justify this? You can perform an action in order to convey a message, and that is rightly recognized as being protected by the first amendment. Just because you don't like someone's speech doesn't mean it's treason or not protected by the first amendment. At any rate, read the first amendment.
Burning a flag does not meet the Constitution's definition of treason, once again putting you at odds with the highest law of the land. Furthermore, you seem to automatically assume that someone burning a US flag indicates that they don't like the US; that is not necessarily the case at all. You could burn a US flag to celebrate the fact that you have the freedom to do things such as burn the US flag, for instance. It's also possible that someone is protesting the US government because it doesn't respect the freedoms and principles this country is supposed to stand for. You have arbitrarily decided that burning a US flag can mean one thing and one thing only. When you fail to take into account someone's intent, you look just like the SJWs you often complain about.
Stripping people of their citizenship also isn't constitutional.
Many reading the above are outraged. Allow me to explain the why.
I don't know about outraged, but I vehemently disagree because it's a blatant violation of the Constitution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @12:19AM
We should be burning Confederate and Nazi flags at every opportunity! They are as anti-American as you can get.
Burning the American Flag is an acceptable form of protest. So is flying it upside-down, because the country is in distress.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 02 2016, @10:07PM
Rebellion and indeed even treason against government injustice are as American as apple pie. If you're so offended by the ideals upon which this nation was founded, then maybe YOU should get the fuck out.