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The NRA went down to Georgia

I live in North Carolina, the state legislature for which has been basically bought by Art Pope, a smaller-scale Koch brother (the Koch brothers themselves, meanwhile, have been successfully buying the federal government).  The NC legislature has done some truly staggering things, so I’m pretty jaded on the topic of what state legislatures can do.  But the sheer cynicism of the Georgia GOP is worth noting.  When Delta Airlines decided to end its discount program for NRA members, Georgia’s lieutenant governor Casey Cagle immediately took to Twitter to announce that he would scuttle a tax break the airline was about to receive. Cagle, of course, has an A+ rating with the NRA and has received the organization’s endorsement.

In any sane universe, this would inspire a talk about whether Cagle’s behavior broke laws against corruption.  Therefore, it’s legal in this universe and no doubt the NRA is just exercising it’s Free Speech money-words in manner that just happened to be persuasive.  Just like the Charles Koch and his wife weren’t in any way involved in corruption when they sent a $500,000 check to Paul Ryan’s campaign almost immediately after the GOP passed its handout to billionaire donors tax reform package.

Good riddance to yet another corporate giveaway. The problem here is the process, not the unexpectedly happy result (some Georgia conservatives even learned the term "crony capitalism" once their brothers in the NRA had been made to suffer so greatly), but in the meantime, Mr. Cagle, I don’t know what bet you lost, but the NRA got your soul.

John Perry Barlow (1947-2018)

John Perry Barlow, Grateful Dead lyricist and one of the early advocates for a libertarian cyberspace free of governmental regulation, as well as founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), died yesterday.  The EFF notice is here.  Barlow is perhaps best known for his "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace."  As we look at  a world where authoritarian  governments use Twitter to arrest and imprison protesters, and where  the NSA is apparently intercepting and recording pretty much everything online, Barlow's vision can seem too optimistic, or even naive.  But viewed as critique, it also reminds us that the Internet is a human creation, and its regulation can be changed by human laws and human interventions.  The EFF is a lasting contribution to that critical vision, and is a frequent litigant defending privacy and other rights online.

I had the chance to bring Barlow in for a talk many years ago when I was  at Colorado College.  He was thoughtful, engaged, and a genuine pleasure to host.  He will be missed.