Activism Tip: Texting & Google Voice

Cross-posted on Young Americans for Liberty.

As we know, emailing chapter members and calling them is necessary for turnout, but there is one way you can guarantee they received the message: Texting.

Texting is essential. Individuals are more than likely to read a text message from a stranger or an unknown number than to answer their phone from a stranger or an unknown number.
So, let me introduce you to the texting abilities of Google Voice:
Google Voice allows you to keep track of your text messages and gives your chapter a phone number it can utilize.

Although you can create a group to text via your phone, Google Voice sends text messages free of charge. And, with Google Voice, you have the ability to keep a history of your messages sent.
Google Voice is a powerful online phone tool every chapter should utilize. The morning of an event and an hour before your meeting, reminding your chapter members of a given task is essential to success.

Here's a video about Google Voice:

 

So how does your Chapter utilize the texting abilities of Google Voice? Here's a short walk-through:
Let's say for example you have a list of your contacts in Microsoft Excel.

If I were to copy and paste my contact's phone numbers into a Gmail Compose Message page, Google neatly adds commas after each phone number.



Once you have added the list of phone numbers in your Compose page, copy and paste up to 5 phone numbers at a time into the "Text" field in Google Voice. Once doing so, insert the proper message and click "Send;" do this repeatedly until you have sent the text to every phone number on your list.


Voilà! You just sent a text message to every single one of your chapter members with a phone number listed.

So if you haven't created a Google Voice account already, what are you waiting for? Create a Google Voice account today, and text your chapter members!

The Modern Liberal, Social Justice, and the Internet

When asked to define the planks of modern liberal thought, a couple of principles come to mind: social justice, positive rights to create equality under the law and a safety net, the creation of government institutions to remove social and economic inequalities, and constraints on power. With today’s advancement of technology, the modern liberal must ask: what ought to be the government’s role with the Global Area Network, the Internet? I will present a three-part modern liberal argument for why the government should not overstep its reach on the Internet; specifically, why legislation expanding the government’s involvement or the establishment of institutions, is harmful to social justice and equality.

The Philosophy 

Philosophically speaking, the champion of modern liberal thought is John Rawls. In his works, Rawls builds a conception of justice or what he called “Justice as Fairness.” In his conception, Rawls argues there are two key principles to his argument: the liberty principle and the equality principle.

The liberty principle goes as follows: "Each person has an equal right to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties which is compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for all."[1]

The equality principle goes as follows: “Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:

(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and

(b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity."[2]

Rawls builds these principles off of his central theme in the social contract of justice or the “original position.” In the original position, Rawls argues parties must select principles that will determine the basic structures of society. This choice must be made behind a veil of ignorance, which would deprive participants of information about their characteristics: ethnicity, social status, gender and the conception of good.

Now let’s take Rawls’ principles and argument as the best way to form a society, and ask: does the modern structure of the Internet uphold Rawls’ conception of Justice?

The answer is yes.

The structure of the Global Area Network, the Internet, is built off of protocols that were made behind a veil of ignorance. The rules and protocols on the Internet are consistent and allow the equality of opportunity, equal basic liberties, and provides the greatest benefit to the least advantage.

Let me explain.

Under the current structure of the Global Area Network, any individual can publish or access information equally; and, the structure is transparent, which allows its participants to acknowledge the social contract. The greatest impairment to this structure is corporate interests attempting to lobby government favoritism, and government censorship and manipulation to the current structure.

Part One of a Three Part Series

Works Cited

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1971. Print.

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[1] Rawls, 1971:291

[2] Rawls, 1971:302

A Rainy Day

Back in California

My Life on the Campaign Trail P.III

Here are a few photos I took over past month on the Campaign Trail:

Washington

Oregon

My Life on the Campaign Trail P.II

Here are a few photos I took over the past week on the Campaign Trail:

Northern Nevada

Central Idaho

My Life on the Campaign Trail

Here are a few photos I took over the past few months on the Campaign Trail:

Southern Nevada

Central Iowa

Southern New Hampshire

Visiting Southern California