The federal government does not have the power to regulate interstate commerce, as you're describing, under the constitution. The federal government has the power to ensure that no states forbid the importation of other states goods, or apply duties or tariffs to them. You're using "regulate" in the modern form and applying it to language that was written when the term had a different meaning. "Well regulated militia" means a militia free of encumbrances such that it can be functional, not one with a lot of extra-legislative rules applied to it. This is logical if you think about it- if they wanted the militia to be regulated, they would have laid out the ways he militia should be regulated, or at least enumerated the power to regulate the militia, in the enumerated powers clause. They did not. Further, "regulations" as we commonly understand them, are forbidden by the constitution, which explicitly denies the legislative branch the power to delegate its power to unelected bodies or to other branches.

The fist amendment states, "congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech". Blocking access to websites clearly violates that. Thus congress is explicitly in violation of the constitution, without regard to anything any court might say. Further, US Code 18-242 makes it a crime (a felony if one is armed) to violate the constitutional rights of any citizen. This means that passing SOPA would be, itself, a crime, at least in my interpretation.

The "shouting fire in a crowded theater" example does not refute the protections for free speech. In that case, the crime is not speaking the word fire while inside a theater, but in causing a panic, which is quite different.

I'm sure the word "Fire" can be heard, often shouted, on broadway quite regularly, when the author of the play included it in the dialogue.

I suggest that you take some time and read the constitution in its entirety. In fact, even better would be to get one of the many books that cover its writing, including citations of the intents and comments of the writers and past editions. The constitution is quite readable and quite explicit.

It is also quite different from the result after "years of jurisprudence" and precedent, which, like I pointed out in my original post, suffer from the intrinsic corruption endemic to government.

As Lysander Spooner once said, "either the constitution authorized such government as we have, or it has failed to prevent it." No ruling of any judge can overrule what is said in the constitution, and the constitution does not need to be interpreted very much, it is quite straight forward.

The reason it is this way is that the founding fathers were no fools. They knew judges and politicians would use emotion, expidents and pressures to try and change the system for their ends. It is a testament to their foresight that the system has lasted as long as it has, but they knew it would ultimately fail.

Thus they wrote a constitution that any american could read and comprehend, and they were quite clear that americans needed to take up arms against their government to ensure that the government remained restrained by the constitution:

"The tree of liberty must be renewed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants, it is its natural manure."

To the extent that our government bears little resemblance to the one outlined by this document, our government is one that is not authorized by the document, and thus wholly illegitimate. No amount of laws or court rulings can change this.

To the extent that this divergence has persisted, we as a people have failed to uphold the vigilance that was required of us.

Hierarchy simply means an arrangement between people with division of roles. Corporations are hierarchies but they are not governments.

There is a key difference. Governments impose their will on those who are subjugated by force, with violence. If you're subject to the rule of a government you don't have a choice, even when the government is violating your rights (as it would be with SOPA).

This is not the case with corporations, as employees, customers and owners of corporations all participate in the hierarchy on a voluntary basis. You are free to boycott them, resign your position, or sell your shares, if you disagree with the policies of the corporation.

You have almost no recourse when you disagree with government.

People can live in peace, and they can do it without governments, and they have successfully for centuries, under quite a variety of arrangements. The only reason for the prevalence of government we see today is the technology of warfare gave small bands of people the power to conquer and subjugate larger populations.

But it is not the natural state of man, any more than other forms of slavery were a natural state when they were more prevalent.... and slavery in the form practiced in the United States in the past, and elsewhere in the world has lasted essentially as long as governments.... for exactly the same reason.