About the Mcdonald Philosophy and Politics Website

Click on the topics in the menu across the top of this screen. Do you see the seven sections or “pages”? Scroll up, or Look up!

About this Website

   “Likes” have been disabled by the author, so that only WordPress users are allowed to “like” anything (as explained below). Information was being collected in order to allow anyone to like or comment on any writing, and I do not wish to allow the prostitution of my visitors. It may be that comments are allowed without data collection, The sale and use of such information in the turning of the recent (2016) elections demonstrates that the practice conflicts even with voting rights, and ought never have been allowed from the beginning.

   McDonald Philosophy and Politics is a website for the publication of e-books, essays, articles and thoughts on philosophy and politics. It is hosted by Mark A. McDonald, Ph. D, the author of the book On Shakespeare’s King Lear with the Tempest, and the article On Hamlet and the Reformation. The book The Revelation: A reading of the Vision and Letter of John to the Churches is available on the Revelation page for free.

   You may print single paper copies of anything here for reading and study purposes. Thoughts and comments are most welcome. A blog is also posted at mmcdonald777.wordpress.com. A blank website appeared when constructing this one, so I have used it to write about cats, at mmcdonald77/Cats. Advertisements are involuntary, not selected for content, and will be deleted when we can “upgrade.” If these cross the line into involuntary shopping, please report this to the author.

   A Note: Comments, followers  and “likes” are being inhibited by the powers, apparently because we do not do Facebook, give our information to Google, nor pay extortion to WordPress. In order to “like” anything, one must sign up for WordPress, which I cannot yet advise one to do. Is information being collected and brokered in order for us to communicate? This control of speech and access is contrary to the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and the courts will uphold that understanding of the free speech and liberty clauses. A private business cannot, for example, prevent one from constitutionally protected free speech, and if they do, they can be sued, in the courts of the government whose purpose is “to secure these rights.” Does WordPress too inhibit access to the internet, while keeping our writing to circulate only among WordPress accounts, making their own little internet at everyone else’s expense, their own little Facebook company, but with writing instead of social media for content?  Are they not liable, for example, if knowing about road salt or rainwater might have kept some lead out of the people in Flint? When we complained about access, we were offered help gaining access to the internet for a sliding scale of up to 1000$, complete with foreign voices and the sounds of a busy office in the background. We pay 60$ per month to Charter for physical access to the internet, which the search engines and website building companies do not own. One might pave driveways for a living and then block access to the road without payola. An analogy might be if one were to hire a driveway paving company, even for a traded favor, and then come home to find a concrete toll booth blocking ones access to the street complete with a guard demanding extortion fees. The company does not own the internet, just as a driveway paver does not own either the highway or the opening or even the driveway. A search engine, we say, must be just that, and not a fee for access system. We, the people need to put a stop to this, beginning with a petition to WordPress and to Congress.

   The fact of their control of internet access can be established by a mathematical comparison of search engine and word of mouth traffic. We get token or zero traffic on some 7 sections and hundreds of pages with so many words on them that if one tenth of searches listed these examples tenth, we would have more readers and comments, sold a few books by now, and started some other books and projects that require investment. Did our Kickstarter campaigns fail because of lack of basic search engine traffic, or because we are not really “on” the internet at all, but only on WordPress? If WordPress takes confidence in our not being able to sue them because it is a “free” website, we will remind them that it is illegal to enslave people, even on the internet, even if they have not paid you and you provide them a mutually beneficial service. In exchange for our content, on which they may advertise, they have provided a website, and the assumption is that the website is on the internet, rather than in its own little bubble. Perhaps the driveway paver would shift the opening of ones driveway to go into an underground cave, or a whole different highway system.

   And will they say their service agreement that we signed or agreed to gives them the power to legally control our access to the internet and to limit likes and comments to those who give them information? They have given themselves these powers, and even gone with their money into congress to make these things law and legal. while congress sleeps, and profits. Can they give themselves the power to enslave us, in exchange for essential communications, as the phone lines once were? Can they give themselves a racket, set up extortion systems and call this legal because they have paid off Congress? Perhaps we will see.