By: Ray Hanania

Steve Jobs was a tyrant. You can see it in his Apple products.

He supported censorship by limiting the freedoms of the users of his products. He developed hardware with software restrictions that prevented and still prevent users from maximizing their experience with Apple products.

And, there is even the story that he ripped off Steve Wozniak, his “I built an empire from my garage” partner, in some business deal, too. I’ll bet there are many, many more.

That’s the real Steve Jobs. But in the glow caused by our addictions to the silicon diodes that he puzzled together to make remarkable but limiting products like the iPod and the iPad, we’ve lost sight of reality.

Hero-worshiping will do that to regular human beings.

First of all, the biggest clue is that he is a billionaire. Has anyone who became a billionaire not done so with the zeal of a plunderer?

Second, his products are built on the concept of selfishness, not human enlightenment. He didn’t invent the iPad to broaden man’s experience in this human world. He did it to make money. And, he did it with an inherent close tie to the same drive that has pushed dictators to brutalize the Middle East, where at least part of him originates.

He’s no Jesus Christ!

I reluctantly have fallen in love with the iPad pretty much the way everyone else has, by surrendering my ethics and morals in order to use it.

Is there any other hi-tech computer-based device that needs a software program that is described as “jail breaking” to overcome its restrictions? No. Just the iPhone. The iPod. And the iPad.
It’s become a phrase synonymous with the censorship that Steve Jobs has inherently built in to everyone of his moneymaking products.

I mean, I like the iPad. But I also like Jordan and Israel and Egypt and even Syria. I may visit those war-torn brutal dictatorships one day again soon. But there is always an underlying fear — and a reality — that one’s rights can be immediately revoked in any and in all of those countries. Yes, even in Israel.

Steve Jobs revoked our inalienable rights of expression and freedom in every product he built. He used brilliant ideas not to expand the minds of mankind, but to expand his checking account.
Who can blame him? It’s his right to be greedy. It’s not a sin. But it’s not a virtue, either.

Steve Jobs was just a man. He was not a God. He was not driven by do-gooder intentions. The overwhelming love for him expressed by so many over the past week reflect not a genuine love for his achievements and the way he conducted his business life, but rather the same emotions felt by people who have been taken hostage by hijackers.

Steve Jobs is much like the leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army there to liberate humanity by imprisoning, raping and pillaging society. The American consumer has been more like Patty Hearst than Patrick Henry. We went along with it and never once really protested or tried to “occupy” any of the computer institutions yelling “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

Give me an iPad and I will shut up. Compromise my ethics. Allow myself to be censored. Pay a fortune for less hardware to get more managed technology. Yes, that’s what it is, “managed technology.”
Let’s speak the truth about Steve Jobs. The hero worship is done.

Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist. He can be reached at www.TheMediaOasis.com.