Ron Paul's visit to ISU

I had the opportunity to listen to presidential hopeful Ron Paul tonight in the South Ballroom of the Memorial Union. His message was pretty straight forward (paraphrased from his website):

- Debt and Taxes

- Eliminate spending in the red, reduce taxes and make government smaller and more efficient

- War

- Require congress to declare war under all circumstances, a requirement of the constitution.

- Immigration

- Illegal immigration is bad, no amnesty is right, and securing the borders is a must

- Liberty

- We have individual rights in this country, not collective rights. You and you alone can make the decision of what to put in your body, whether to wear a seatbelt, whether you want to smoke, etc. Eminent Domain is unconstitutional because it infringes on property rights.

- Sovereignty

- No international organization should usurp our sovereignty, and using our troops for UN missions is unconstitutional unless congress declares war.

Mostly, he talked about how we've shifted away from the constitution. Gun laws, No Child Left Behind, the Federal Reserve, the Iraq War authorization (but not declaration), Welfare, and many other laws passed through congress, are completely unconstitutional. And he's right. Congress today views, as he puts it, the constitution as nothing but a pesky document that gets in the way of getting laws passed. He's constantly asked by other congressmen to compromise on "this one little thing" in the name of increased power for the government.
And it's got to stop.
The problem is, Ron Paul has very little chance of success in the primaries. He's overshadowed by the big names in the media who've just raised as much as $25 million in campaign contributions.
It's funny how Barack Obama gets an entire package of articles — before and after he comes to Iowa State — but I saw no mention of him in the Daily and — I could be wrong — no reporter at the event tonight. A quick google search, after Paul has been in Iowa for two days, reveals hardly anything in Iowa Newspapers.
Regardless of his unviability as a major player, I think I'm going to toss my vote his way. With any luck, other sensible citizens with regard for the constitution will do the same.

Update: There was a reporter there, apparently. My point still stands, Obama gets an unfair amount of attention.

Erotica extrapolation

For me, the .xxx domain debate is not so cut and dry. In fact, when I first heard of the .xxx domain I asked opinion editor Aaron Gott if it wouldn't make sense for such a domain to be adopted so adult-entertainment sites could be labeled easier and thus blocked easier by those uninterested in them. But our surface views of the matter are often glossy like a freshly cleaned laminated kitchen floor, and when traversing over them we begin to slip and slide.

As I researched the matter more and more, it became apparent that the adult-entertainment industry's interests were considered far below others, which I thought was incredulous since it was this industry who would be affected the most. When more research cropped up, I found unwarranted involvement by the U.S. government, readable in pdf here and here. Unwarranted because 1) ICANN is supposed to be an independent body and 2) the U.S. government is acting as the mothership for all of the Internet and is essentially stifling free expression just because it disagrees with the content.

The other primary concern, that of children, in this debate can be read about in .pdf format here and here, as the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICM Registry, Inc. (the body pushing .xxx) exchange blows over whether or not the .xxx regulations adequately protected children. The problems here are 1) people who aren't parents assuming parental roles for children that aren't theirs and 2) the thought that irresponsible adult-entertainment websites would suddenly become responsible just because there's a .xxx domain.

If someone is running a child porn web ring, then creating a voluntary .xxx domain requiring that practice to be stopped isn't going to encourage that web ring to acknowledge their illegal practice and come clean. Only if all responsible adult-entertainment websites changed to .xxx would it be possible to easily ferret out the dirty kiddy porn providers left on the .com sites. And as the adult-entertainment industry has shown so far, they're not so quick to make that switch at an extra cost and possible outside regulation.

A debate must start within the adult-entertainment industry for adopting responsible business practices. The industry can do what it likes for its own interests, but that doesn't mean it can't be responsible. Of course, one problem is that successful businesses may be reluctant to adopt new operating practices unless their consumer base demands it. And if the cliché consumer base for that industry is the dirty, horny guy who just wants to get his kicks seeing some skin rubbing against skin, then there's little doubt he's going to be too concerned about encouraging different responsibility practices from the industry.