What is with with all these entrepreneurs thinking they can rule the world? In the circus that is the USA presidential campaign, at first, we had to come accustomed to the douche and his lack of PR skills and, at most times, verbal word vomit.

The latest act to join the foray is John McAfee – the programer who created the anti-virus software and is now a multi-billionaire. He announced his running with a super weird video, obviously filmed in front of a green screen and then edited to include a swish old school library and classical music in the background. So classy.

And it seems McAfee also has a thing for spewing out word vomit – but his is a little less on the insulting side and is apparently inspired by an Ayahuasca trip – not that you can’t tell by those beady eyes.

He speaks facts, quotes old presidents and gives attention to a very low cyberspace illiteracy. Here’s the original version of the video below, complete with the good ol’ flag in the background and we’ve added the transcript below for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

It is near certain that the authors of America’s “Declaration of Independence” and Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” — texts of agonising beauty in the face of today’s harsh realities –could not have anticipated a world in which spy cameras are hidden in cactuses, the Government surreptitiously parses our verbal communications and the concept of privacy is fast approaching extinction. They could not have anticipated a world in which information is the prime commodity of exchange, at the expense of Grace, Compassion, Solitude and the remaining fragile components of the besieged human heart. What they did anticipate is that Governments, no matter how powerful, will always hunger for more power, and that Power inevitably corrupts.

Governments are composed of human beings, and all of the frailties that humans possess are absorbed into these Governments, and become active within these Governments. Hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, greed, distrust and the whole host of afflictions that humans must bear, lurk just beneath the surface of civility displayed by “Government”. When individuals become angry with one another, an injury of some sort will likely occur. When governments become angry, entire civilisations are wiped out. When individuals become greedy, they are no longer invited to dinner. When governments become greedy, starvation afflicts the weaker nations. When people become fearful, other people avoid them. When governments become fearful, the populace is included among those elements that the government fears, and the populace has nowhere to go. These truths are self-evident to anyone who cares to look with the right kind of eyes.

More than 200 years ago, a document called the “Declaration of Independence” was penned, by some of the greatest minds in the history of civilisation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; – That people are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, – That among these Rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.”

A scant 4 score and 7 years after these words were written, a gaunt President Lincoln stepped onto one of the bloodiest battlefields in human history to admonish his current, and all future generations, to bear the responsibility of we, the Governed:
“We must now dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I live in a country that has passed so many laws that, at an average reading speed, would take me 600 years to read, reading 24 hours a day. I am protected by a government that invades my privacy so that it can assure me that I am not the enemy it is protecting me from. I live in a country that is governed by people largely illiterate in cyber security (as proven by the multiple government computer hacks) – yet cyber warfare is now the means if war. My government is dysfunctional. For the 300 million other Americans – you are in the same boat with me.

[source: gizmodo]