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Sometimes the Horror just washes over you.

Posted by Zero 9 years, 7 months ago to Culture
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Just had a thought wash over me.
Nothing new here, no new info or sudden insight.

Just a dawning awareness of the magnitude of a thing.

Isn't it funny,
after decades of dire warnings,
from both sides of the political spectrum,
about the threat and horror of Big Brother Watching You...

Isn't it funny,
that when Snowden SHOWED US that HE ALREADY WAS(!)...

that our collective response was - a yawn.


Even amongst our own.

John Stossel - one of my favorites - was concerned but not overly so. It didn't even make his list of "100 Things I Hate About Government"
(Yesss, Stossel is a Libertarian not an OBJ, but he's still a proponent of AR and a voice for Freedom. And the closest we have to a voice in the Mainstream)

And I'd bet a dollar that several folks here in the Gulch, perhaps even self-professed OBJ's, do not believe in an inalienable right to privacy.

A right on a par with the right to bear arms or the right to freely associate.

The right of an honest person to be left alone.


It just kinda hit me.

The Big Brother scare is over.
We'll never hear the warning again.

It came and went.

And we didn't care.

Because it was for our own good.


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  • Posted by ISank 9 years, 7 months ago
    I had the vice principal walk in for an observation yesterday as I was explaining the 4th amendment. Her note to me was wow you really teach the BOR with a lot of passion. I never heard a teacher tell the students they have privacy and due process rights like that.
    I like an article on fee.org called "the America we lost" and I read it every year with my students.
    To your point, you are correct, it's horrifying and we need a revolution. I'm serious about that but I'm sitting in my backyard, with glass of wine and a raices cubanas. So no revolutions for the next 60 minutes please.

    Fee art at http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/th...
    Aloha, have fun
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    • Posted by mccannon01 9 years, 7 months ago
      Nice link. Thanks for the read. I hope you enjoyed the wine and cigar in your backyard! Now, here's an illustration of the link you provided:

      "Your" backyard? Try not paying the royal rent (property tax) and you'll find out whose backyard it really is, serf. ;-)
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 7 months ago
    I want to know what happened to being unknown to the government? Oh, we lost that when the personal income tax and social security were enacted. I want so bad to go back to being unknown to the government.
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  • Posted by crystalquartz 9 years, 7 months ago
    No; we do believe in being left alone. Most likely all of us were children back before video cameras were everywhere. And life was good; we all ran wild through the neighborhoods, with no fear.
    That is freedom. To be able to run wild, with no one watching.
    This NSA BS is not for our own good, it is the government's way of keeping us scared, so we don't all ban together, and revolt against them. It is called Fascism.
    The terrorists are coming in our southern borders now; if Obama cared about the good of the American people, he would not have opened the borders, and keep lying to us that they are secure.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 7 months ago
      Y'know what really gets me about it, Crystal?

      The threats we face today - the EXTERNAL threats - are so minor as to be almost beneath concern.

      I grew up learning "duck and cover" drills in grade school, back when you didn't have to be a nut case to build a bomb shelter. Every science fiction movie was an end-of-the-world movie and Concerned Scientists kept moving a minute-hand back and forth two or three minutes from oblivion.

      The generation before fought Nazi's who destroyed a continent and murdered by the million. The generation after fought the rise of Communism that killed even more and, at it's height, enslaved half the world.

      What do we fear today? The weather!

      Today we fear isolated acts of violence that pose no real threat to our nation. Our fears are fanned by 24 hour media coverage and politicians that pander to the whine of every Nervous Nellie.

      And for protection from these "threats" we have ceded nothing less than our most basic liberty, and allowed our government to ignore every constitutional restraint.

      What times we live in!
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  • Posted by sfdi1947 9 years, 7 months ago
    I believe it was Franklin who said, "those who shall trade freedom for security shall have neither."
    He said it 235 years ago and he was spot on then as he is now.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 7 months ago
      So true, SFD. Rational Philosophy will never be obsolete.

      And just as a solid hypothesis will predict the experiment, so too will a sound philosophy foretell the future.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 7 months ago
    I was lucky enough to grow up in a time that you had to look for government, except ATF, but they were usually lost in the woods and creeks when you found one of them.

    No, I value my privacy and work to remain as private as possible, but I'm sure I'm on somebody's list somewhere.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 7 months ago
    Most of the people I know are aghast at what Snowden revealed about the NSA invading our personal privacy. I do not read that as a 'yawn'.

    Jan
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 7 months ago
      "Most of the people I know are aghast at what Snowden revealed about the NSA invading our personal privacy. I do not read that as a 'yawn'. "
      I agree, if we're excluding some TV reporters I heard talking about it.

      I was on vacation when it was in the news lat last year, and I was aghast at how the MSM handled it. On the TV I could hear commentators uncritically repeating what gov't officially said. They weren't even trying to appear like they had any impartiality. They were just repeating what officials told them as if they fully agreed, not just as if they wanted continued access to a source.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 7 months ago
    I'm not so sure it was a yawn as much as being overwhelmed by horror after horror after horror. So many scandals coming one upon another so quickly any one of which deserves ongoing concern cheapens all of them. Sorta like hitting your head against the wall until it starts to feel good.
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  • Posted by johnmahler 9 years, 7 months ago
    It kind of reminds me of the "informer" times under the Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and other commie dictators who had children, wives, siblings, neighbors informing on each other to the "populist God" for extra favors or an edge. I don't worry about it because I am prepared to die defending my freedom. If I have no commercial weapons, I know enough engineering I can protect my life with what surrounds me. It works like Juditsu or Kung fu, where you use the force of your opponent to defeat himself.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 9 years, 7 months ago
    Too many yawns about too many threats to our freedom. Too many decades of education which teaches it is all okay. A family member recently went offline, fearing software was tracking her. She worried because she had medical records on her PC. I pointed out if the doctor's office has the information, everyone but family has that information. HIPPA is a joke. I assume I am being tracked, ever since Clinton and the Echelon scandal, where key words got US citizens put on a list. Fear also the loss of property rights, as Obama is for UN Agenda 21. Fear the loss of religious freedom, as Gaia worship is the UN tool, with big brother worship the transitional goal.Fear the loss of the right to own a car, cool your house, refrigerate your food, as all are in the crosshairs. We have the information, but no one is reading, no one can believe. When did we become such naive wimps?
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 7 months ago
    y'know, I abandon my right to privacy -- of my written
    word -- when I put it on here. I do not do texting,
    but do talk on the cellphone. I say "Hi!" to the NSA
    and the FBI as I talk.

    if I want privacy, I keep quiet, electronically. -- j

    p.s. or I call across the living room to a friend,
    my wife, or the dog.

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