American values in retrograde motion

       In the wake of 2012, both the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) and Stop Online Piracy Acts (SOPA) set the stage for whats to come in the ominous year. The NDAA is merely an extension to the works of the Bush Administration after Sept. 11.

        The Protect IP Act (PIPA) extended indefinite quarantine without trial or charge to American citizens who are advocates of terrorism against the United States. SOPA proposed more government involvement in internet censorship due to pirating and copyright issues by threatening to block foreign sites and hosting sites such as Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook and Youtube. SOPA is still in debate due to its impeding nature on the World Wide Web and the ambiguous ownership of the Internet and will be brought up again before the Senate after winter recess on Jan. 24 as Protect IP Act.

      The Obama administration quietly created both bills towards the end of 2011 as we were all distracted by what was in our wallets and the feeling of change in 2012. We are blindly voting ourselves into a government that is slowly silencing its people and people abroad for imperialistic motivations. Since Sept. 11 we have gradually signed off our rights, one-by-one, in fear that outside forces of evil will bring terror on America and, thus, we must protect our homeland. Americans are easily impressionable, so it's no surprise when Obama ran in 2008 that we were too caught up in the hype of having a black president that we cast our vote towards empty rhetorics of change within government.

      What we stand for, "freedom," is slowly becoming an oxymoron because the implications of the NDAA contradicts our Fourth Admendment, and SOPA endorses government involvement with the extraneous. With that being said, I believe modern American politics is somewhere on the line of being a scam for the people by the "one percent." Our government is no longer by the people. I would like to think that someday societies all over the world will become substantial, no longer parasitic in every aspect, whether culturally or environmentally.