You seem to be arguing against something I never asserted. Nothing in the philosophy of natural rights guarantees rights will be accepted or respected by others, and the entire concept exists because they can be, and often are, violated.
rudence in exercising rights is always necessary, and disagreements are inevitable because humans are not perfectly rational even when they strive for rationality and morality. There is never a guarantee rights will be respected.
The very history of philosophy is filled with disagreements, doubt, and dead end debates, but the pursuit of knowledge and virtue is worthwhile even if it means being accused of crime by the political class whose career is organized crime.
I argued mostly because of what you said in your posting
I doubt that it is difficult for those you have in mind to suppress subversive information in their eyes. Rather, I would say that a platform like Hive is either too unimportant or too small to expend energy on at the time. Those who aim to keep this or similar environments small or make it impossible to operate need only change the laws, as we have recently read here, and in one fell swoop they have undermined the attractiveness of posting here or the possibility of trading crypto. Natural rights don't help you there, because you don't get into the position to apply them in the first place. Because you lack the counterpart to whom you can address your disagreement. You would have to be able to prevent laws from being passed that impede the scope of free trade and interaction, for example.
If you can't do that, the question is what else can you do? While I share your annoyance that it seems that the dissemination of material that can lead to criminal acts is already considered a criminal act itself, it just makes it clear that political representatives seem to do whatever they want.
If the dealmakers networked with Hive do not want to make themselves liable to prosecution and seek to act within the framework of the law, not even your own disobedience will help you, because it would have to be the disobedience of those who pull the strings on Hive on which you depend.
As the two convicts from the case you described said, "laws only work if we follow them", the mass of lawbreakers must increase and people in large numbers must take the risk of disobeying and then being caught doing so in order to bring about a possible turnaround in the legal sense. For example, through clever lawyers. Since this is a high risk, it can be assumed that not many will follow this path.
So you can blog yourself and complain about this or that encroachment on your freedom, but I would then ask, what does that change? It may upset you that I say this because it implies that I might think that whether you publish this content of your posting or not makes no difference - it actually may even spread pessimism (so, valuable information would be for me, for instance, the opposite, where you can name a source where people legally won their cases). What you are achieving is agreement about these deplorable conditions and maybe that is what you are after.
How do you know if it's worth it, since I assume that you yourself have not been officially accused? In what way is it worth it for you personally?
Maybe, but then again, the resilience of an international decentralized blockchain where new frontends can be rolled out in no time at all, not to mention VPNs and TOR, exists specifically to challenge centralized censorship. And the point of crypto is the ability to circumvent regulators, not find ways to comply with government edicts and trade for government fiat. We don't win through permission.
Does anyone follow the law? No one even knows how many US laws, regulations, and policies exist in the first place, much less how to navigate life without breaking any of them. There's a book which estimates people could easily commit an average of three felonies a day. Never mind the fundamental principle of "no victim, no crime."
Which disproves the notions of representation and delegated authority which are the foundation of modern myths regarding democratic republics.
I can't prove it changes anything, but here I am talking with a stranger about the ideas of individual liberty, someone I would have never encountered otherwise. That's not nothing.
My own dealings with the State are another matter entirely, and irrelevant to the topic at hand. Value is always subjective, but the pursuit of virtue is the way we grow as individuals, and the individual is the foundation of society, so seeking personal growth is the best, and perhaps only, way I can effect real change in the world.
Do you believe government authority is legitimate, legality has any bearing on morality, or virtue is attained through obedience?
It seems to me that my own opinion of government is irrelevant in that it is a fact that all the nations of the world are governed by them and their regulations and actions. Morality is the distraction for the masses who get bogged down in moral debates. Morality has arguably never played a role in the political arena, it has been and is geopolitical interests that are being played on the world stage.
The moralistic statements of politicians have probably always been made for propaganda purposes and are currently being made for propaganda purposes as well. If the economy is doing badly at home, the politicians at the top fear that their economic and foreign policies could lead to unrest at home if the masses cannot be brought into line.
Here in our country, we can see this quite clearly at the moment, that the exaggeration of one's own importance in the world has led to the forces regrouping and the tightening that our government is imposing on its own people, which does not go unnoticed by those who do not want to abide by these rules.
The change in the law you describe on the possession of weapons or the distribution of instructions for weapon modifications should, like presumably many other regulations from the USA, make it clear to your people what they will face if they openly revolt.
Ultimately, it must be said that the individual can do absolutely nothing to prevent actual political decisions from being made.
For me, however, this does not mean that I have to despair or worry all the time. But I do realise that the way we have been living here in my country has never been a guaranteed standard and that former prosperity can turn into its opposite. When push comes to shove, people in a country eventually become lawbreakers because they have no other choice.
My family grew up in a foreign land and my father taught my brothers how to steal. As we were poor, they stole sacks of wheat and the like. People will learn to steal and to cover up their actions when it comes to survival. They will adapt to circumstances, a very valuable characteristic of man.
For me, virtue is not a value based on obedience. It is rather the achievement of serenity and not panicking in situations that are difficult to deal with, but remaining calm. It is easy to practise serenity in easy times, but it is naturally put to the test in those very times when the going gets rough.
I agree with that.
I would argue that every instance of government overstepping its alleged bounds is one more proof of its illegitimacy. The more we point it out, the less credibility they have in the public eye next time. It is the lack of morality in government which we must tirelessly point out to a people steeped in the religion of democracy.
What exactly does "the exaggeration of one's own importance in the world" mean? I agree that "Ultimately, it must be said that the individual can do absolutely nothing to prevent actual political decisions from being made." This does not contradict the principle of individual liberty. Trespass does not negate the concept.
The court system seems to have impeded the ATF's bump stock ban, and their regulatory overreach against forced reset triggers is likely to be overturned as well, not that I have a lot of faith in the "justice" system as a whole. Meanwhile, armed citizens have prevented mass shootings and government aggression. I suspect that is why they continue to push for our disarmament before enough people see through their facade of legitimacy.
Bad laws should be broken, and that was one of the principles of the founders who rebelled against England in the 1770s. Government cannot prevent "illegal" immigration or "illegal" drugs, and they can't stop "illegal" guns. HIVE is also a tool we can use to undermine any efforts to quash "illegal ideas."