Whoa Percy - ONCE was enough

You've run afoul of the Best Comment/All Comments dichotomy.

You must be signing out and in. The software defaults to the BEST COMMENTS version (see tabs at the end of every story) and yours hasn't made the grade yet.

Just select ALL COMMENTS and don't sign out when you move along in your surfing day - then you'll see that you successive attempts to get someone to listen have simply piled up 4 (sorry 5 now) identical comments.

what would the left do

what would the left do without the fabled slippery slope? fearmongering, pure and simple.

Slippery slope

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED, BELATEDLY. -MODERATOR.]

What would the Right do without its being able to stick its fingers in its ears and chant so as to remain completely ignorant of the world, its history and pretty much everything else.

What was that name Stalin had for people that cheer on tyranny? Oh yes, "useful idiot".

the sky if falling

the sky if falling [OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM COMMENTING IF YOU'RE JUST HERE TO BAIT PEOPLE. -MODERATOR]. better find a cave where all you doomsdayers can hide out together.

I think the police DO need watching

Here's a little story from the Province:

Apology nine years too late -- and not enough
Standard of care for the weak still far from acceptable

Joey Thompson
The Province

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Finally, after nearly a decade of cover-up and BS, an apology has
emerged in connection with the brutal neglect of wino Frank Paul, who was
dumped from a paddy wagon into a dank alley like a soggy sack of decaying
garbage.

Unfortunately, there is no honour in Const. David Instant switching on
the tears and cranking out the "I'm sorry" to Paul's Maritime family for
leaving the drunk to die on a damp, near-freezing winter evening.

After all, it took nine years and a subpoena to get Instant to speak
the truth recently at an ongoing government-appointed public inquiry and to
own up to his part in the savage, reckless killing.

But at least he's learned from his mistakes.

Can't say the same for former Sgt. Russell Sanderson. The now-retired
officer refused to let the wasted 47-year-old sleep it off in a heated drunk
tank that December evening in 1998. He told Instant, fresh from cop boot
camp, to yard the motionless, supine man out of his jail.

Sanderson swears to this day that Paul didn't need to dry out, that he
wasn't drunk: A disability, not booze, made it difficult for the guy to
stand.

He didn't need medical aid either, despite the fact the homeless man
was comatose and stinking of rice wine and urine. He testified he meant
Instant should drive Paul to a safe place, not dump him in a lane, albeit he
didn't say that then.

No, he protested, he wasn't liable for Paul's death. There was no need
to apologize to his family.

and a little more - from the same source

This is thin, incredulous testimony from a seasoned officer whose
recall isn't close to that of colleagues and the pathologist who found Paul
died of hypothermia from acute intoxication. An autopsy confirmed Paul had a blood alcohol level of .35 -- more than four times the legal level of
drunkenness.

But that's just part of the tragedy.

Vancouver city police told the New Brunswick family Paul died in a car
accident. Others were told he was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

"So we never asked anything more," cousin Pauline Simon said four
years after Paul died. "That's been the belief for years."

Cops have never retracted the tale, apologized, or admitted that they
made things up to cover their butts.

An internal police investigation resulted in a two-day suspension for
Sanderson, one day for Instant. B.C.'s then-police complaint commissioner
Don Morrison shrugged off queries from family and others. He was later
slammed for being far too cozy with the officers he was mandated to oversee.

No question, police have a difficult, superhuman job. Hang around with
criminals and lowlifes and you'll start seeing them everywhere.

All the more reason why law enforcers, like reporters, must take steps
to avoid becoming inured to the frailties and vulnerabilities of the
misfits, unfits and counterfeits who cross their paths.

Because no matter how tough the task, no matter how strong the
commitment to protecting the rest of society, we owe a standard of care to
the weakest among us.

And if we think police have come a long way in the sensitivity
department in the nine years since Paul's death, think again.

Think about Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski's final moments,
brought down at the airport by merciless, Taser-toting Mounties.

[Another case where, except for a bystander's video, we'd still be getting spin from the cops. Let's keep on watching!]

(words in italics are mine)

hysterical

The only fear mongering rousseau is coming from people like you who suggest the only way to deal with society's problems is through intimidation, threats, punishment, and fear. The sky won't fall without ubiquitos public surveillance, crime won't cease with it. Why waste the money on such frivolity? Do you work in the security industry?

quote your source

"Sousveillants can get penalized and even thrown in jail if they are caught videotaping authorities." Yeah, like where? In Canada? In Wonderland? Or is this just the Tyee making outrageous statements again?

Your use of hyperbole suggests....

that you might be practising for that day, Frank.

Really weak arguments, sorry.

Now we're talkin'...

There is a growing guerrilla organization in England, estimated at over two hundred members, who actively plan and carry out destruction of surveillance cameras. How long before that idea catches on here? Asked Umslopogaas.

Gawddamn soon, I hope!

We need more open and brazen rebellion against all manifestations of this neoconazi crap period we are being forced to endure. There's still way too much nice out there.

Here they are just called thieves.

'We need more open and

'We need more open and brazen rebellion against all manifestations of this neoconazi crap period we are being forced to endure. There's still way too much nice out there.'
such wonderful citizens posting here. god help us all.

Re: Quote your source

@Pender Paul:

Thanks for your question. While I am sure you could turn up a few more with a simple google search, here are a few examples of cases where citizens have been penalized for filming the police:

Man Tasered For Filming Police Search
Man Faces Jail For Filming Police
Cop Arrests Journalist for filming
NH Man Arrested for Videotaping Police

'There is a growing

'There is a growing guerrilla organization in England, estimated at over two hundred members, who actively plan and carry out destruction of surveillance cameras.'
let's see. there are 51 million people in england and 200 are actively against surveillance in public places. wow! what a movement. better get on board.

British surveillance futility

For anyone who's actually interested in understanding the futility of CCTV as an effective way to combat crime I'd suggest the following article by Brendan O'Neill from the New Statesman:

http://www.newstatesman.com/200610020022

Please note especially the statistics at the end of the piece:

Surveillance by numbers
Research by Matt Kennard

20 per cent of all the world's CCTV cameras are in the UK

300 number of times a day the average Londoner is caught on CCTV

1 UK's position in the global league table for ratio of CCTV cameras to people

12 number of people per CCTV camera in Britain

0 percentage improvement in police detection rates of violent offences with CCTV

[EDITED]

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED. PLEASE, IF YOU THINK SOMEONE IS BAITING YOU, JUST IGNORE THAT PERSON. -MODERATOR.]

[EDITED]

[POST DELETED. -MODERATOR.]

Voluntary Surveillance

Speaking of surveillance, here's an interesting article from the Guardian about Facebook. It focuses on one of its radically neocon initial investors Peter Thiel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook/print

[EDITED]

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER DELETED. -MODERATOR.]

[EDITED]

[COMMENT REMOVED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN WITHOUT THE PERSONAL JABS. -MODERATOR.]

[EDITED]

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER DELETED. -MODERATOR.]

Elliot has no shift-key

Can we use the one where you and snert hide from the world out of fear of terrorists, criminals and teachers?

frankwest; at least we're

frankwest; at least we're not afraid of the gov't and the police.

There's my chuckle for the day...

Can we use the one where you and snert hide from the world out of fear of terrorists, criminals and teachers? Rapier slashed Frank.

Good one, Franklin. I can now go about my day with a chuckle.

[OFFENSIVE COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER DELETED. -MODERATOR.]

Nemesis-Elliot-AdamWest-Robin

I never thought you ever were, from day 1 its been pretty clear the Right is as pro-gov't and pro-police as one can be.

I guess its because you're afraid of society's "feral impulses" and prefer control.

Canis, thank you :-)

actually frankwest it's b/c

actually frankwest it's b/c we prefer good gov't, law and order, and civilized behavious to a society where people like canis and your gang encourage disorder and destruction for the sake of 'individual liberty', and you're not willing to sacrifice some freedoms for the sake of the common good. the problem for you guys is that you're just a very small minority of the canadian population and therefore you will always be losing, but on the bright side you'll always have a reason to bitch and whine about big brother and the man and blah blah blah blah blah...

Elliot

Strange all that coming from you Elliot since you're the one that's been banned from this board 5 times since you can't control yourself and for some reason you can't even make yourself stay away.

Almost sad to contemplate how bad life must be for you.

Chin up my good man, don't be so sour, tomorrow is a new day, you can make something of yourself yet. Good luck.

nice spin frankwest. keep

nice spin frankwest. keep doing what you do best.

Elliot

Thank you for the compliment.

no worries. the ndp must

no worries. the ndp must value you tremendously gfrank. god knows they'll be needing you for their next campaign.

Reminder

As fun as this thread might be for you (and by "fun" i mean "boring and repetitive"), your sniping back and forth appears to have killed this thread.

Just to be clear, we will ban those who persist in behaving like trolls.

For the rest of you, please help us elevate the dialogue here by not taking the bait.

Thanks,

Geoff.

Admin...

At the societal fault lines where left and right, progressives and supporters of the ruling class status quo clash, words and sparks are gonna fly. I suggest, you'd do less harm to the site and the clarification of the differences between the two perspectives, the source of their irreconcilable differences, and suffer less angst yourselves if, maybe, you just recognized that and let the mud, the blood and the beer fly.

The hoisted effete intellectual pinky fingers will invariably recoil with indrawn breath and horror from this crass reality of course-, but which changes the reality not a jit.

Your online rag to drag into the boredom of formal discourse respectability and hoisted pinkies, for sure, but my contrary view nonetheless.

Haven't you noticed the greater slide of commentary participation, in fact, in your other "paler shade of pale" yawn threads? Whereas the only real life that exists here is in these odd raw bone threads you toss to us junk yard dogs?

I'll take real passion anyday. Even the extreme right here has more going for it.

wow! the editor's been busy

wow! the editor's been busy with his bleach bottle. i never thought i'd say this canis, but i agree with you completely. sorry about that. as the tyee has become more 'proper' it has also become more boring, but i guess that's their prerogative. i have noticed though, that when posters who have a different point of view don't post here the threads dry up pretty quickly. no great loss. a bientot.

Minor complaint ...

I'm not sure that all the comments are visible. When I click on "All comments" nothing happens. Some of you refer to comments I can't see.

Geoff advised that I dump some cookies. Did that. No improvement.

I really dislike the "Best Comments" or "All Comments" system ... is it really necessary when we have the ol' bleach bottle at work?

Something kinda feudal about "Best" vs "All."

Maybe we should use it?

"I really dislike the "Best Comments" or "All Comments" system ... is it really necessary when we have the ol' bleach bottle at work?

Something kinda feudal about "Best" vs "All."

- From what I understood at the beginning, the idea was, that this division would be effected by other posters 'suggesting as best comment', the intent being that consistent recognition of staying on the issue and effecting debate as opposed to sniping and petulance would serve to elevate quality, as some people care about the opinion of others.

About the actual issue: I think it is important to remember to distinguish between public and private space. I feel less imposed on by a security camera over the door of the grocery store, where I know I'm out in public, than I do by people wandering by while I am working in my garden and who will yell their approval, or otherwise, of my landscaping style, somehow deciding that my garden, which I consider private space, is community property, where they can make themselves at home and opine uninvited.

As far as being 'watched', what the heck, it is a grand illusion that 'they' cannot lay hand, or eye, on almost every parameter about us they think they need, legally or otherwise. Clean living helps a lot of that worry, and there is a certain convenience and hominess in not having to explain ourselves at every turn, because they already know us, as the Cheers theme song has it. Loosen up folks, what dire secrets are you concerned for? What dark deeds make you toss and turn at night, for fear they should come to light? If there really is some occurrence in your life along the lines of 'enemy of the state' or such, for God's sake read the Art of War and live by it; it remains the best strategic manual there is. Lucifer's Hammer would also be in order...if it really is that dire.

Clean living

The thing is Dorothy, I want the freedom to live "uncleanly" if I so choose. Like Conservative MP James Moore, I don't want Big Brother looking over my shoulder and judging my level of cleanliness because what it really means is judging my level of government-mandated conformity.

Because it has nothing to do with "clean living". Its all about conformity.

If we were a truly "clean" society we wouldn't have homeless, child poverty and 1 in 4 workers suffering from depression.

Fact is we're an unclean, often violent society that worships the power of money and kicks to the curb anything that would make our society more compassionate.

And I have no desire for the people who have made this society as unclean and violent as it is making sure I'm on their side. Because if anyone needs to be watched 24/7 by cameras its those making and enforcing the laws and those controlling our financial system.

Look at the fight Obama had when he made Illinois the only state where the police are videotaped when interrograting a citizen. If the uniforms think the rest of us should be videotaped when we're in public spaces how come they don't believe they themselves should be when alone in a room with another citizen? The same argument applies, if they're not doing anything wrong why are they against it?

We already have laws that prevent my freedom from impinging on that of others. I don't have the freedom to kill people and I'm happy to give that up to belong to the community.

I should be free to live and move in the public space with no worries someone is watching what books I take out from the library, what purchases I make on my VISA card, what organizations I donate to, what I choose to do with my free time, what public space I choose to walk in, what people I meet etc.

Because if anyone thinks that as long as you live clean you have nothing to worry about then you have no freedom whatsoever.

Freedom does not mean the freedom to conform to what the people in power think is acceptable.

Until the powerful allow themselves to be watched (and their conversations taped) I don't see any reason why I should be.

Nor do I even see why this is even up for discussion? What is the driving force behind this? Car-thefts? The cure is worse than the disease.

The point being...

Canis and rousseau,

This may be fun for you and a handful of others but we think it's not for the majority of our readers. We'd rather have a forum where a diversity of voices can be heard, than one where a small minority sling insults back and forth ad nauseum. In case you're thinking, "If they can't stand the heat, get out of the fire," I'm sorry but no. We'd rather try to create a place where marginalized voices can be expressed. Call us crazy but that's just the way we are. Their opinions are as valid as yours.

Geoff.

Best and worst...

I won't bother to respond to Geoff of Admin above, because it's clear we are not going to agree anyway-, and he is NOT about to address the sliding participation in most threads anyway, brought about more by the editorial and censorship policy "taming" of the so-called "feisty one".

Such life as in fact remains in Tyee, floating belly up and gasping on the stale waters, is in fact more found in the threads specifically designed for the hoisted pinky finger intellectuals set.

Into which background Mary's comments upon the growing feudal atmosphere here well fits, in my view. It all dovetails into that attempt Mary, again in my view, to artificially create an "intellectual elite" atmosphere, in order supplant us wild weeds with more domesticated and tame blooms. And it is failing miserably.

And which again fits all very well into the broader topic discussion here-, about the "surveillance society". That and Tyee increasingly, unfortunately, all reflect, and are part and parcel of the same fundamental "controlling" agenda.

My view.

It is the same basic mind-set dynamic at work.

Correction...

Should read, "Such life as in fact remains in Tyee, as it floats belly up and gasping on the stale waters, is in fact more found in these "wilder" threads, than in the threads specifically designed for the hoisted pinky finger intellectuals set."

The way it's s'pozed to be

"..I should be free to live and move in the public space with no worries someone is watching what books I take out from the library, what purchases I make on my VISA card, what organizations I donate to, what I choose to do with my free time, what public space I choose to walk in, what people I meet etc."

And so you are. The books are in the library; the people are equally free for you to meet; the stuff is there to buy, and no one blocks your Visa card, unless you’re out of credit. As well, the donations are tax-deductible along with any other, if the organization has even a modest charitable turn; note that the Roman Catholic Church still has status as a tax-deductible charity. If these are the grand totals of your planned ‘transgressions’ which you’re worried about having scrutinized, you aren’t in any league that you need to worry about these things. But you want to see change, to advocate for it, and you want to be heard, then be prepared to be under closer scrutiny than if you stayed as a sweet little consumer, who answered when spoken to and were into brand loyalty. Nothing worth doing comes without a price or a risk, and it is up to you to calculate how far you are willing to go. You no doubt know the old adage about ‘only he who is willing to risk going too far’, and so on.

And another thing...

“…Into which background Mary's comments upon the growing feudal atmosphere here well fits, in my view. It all dovetails into that attempt Mary, again in my view, to artificially create an "intellectual elite" atmosphere, in order supplant us wild weeds with more domesticated and tame blooms. And it is failing miserably.”

This is serious stuff! Where did you pick up the notion, that elite is characterized by being lame and tame and combed in one direction??? Au contraire, it stands out precisely by going beyond conformity, all the time surpassing the prior standards. Maybe you are talking about some ‘studiosity’ club you crashed into, who fancied themselves part of an intellectual elite. One thing is sure – if people concern themselves with being or not being part of an elite, they don’t know the meaning of the word. I thought the recommend as best comment option was for us to use to recognize each other, when we had made a really damn good and to the point input. If not that, what is the intention? Point of information here, mod guy…

Which is about...

And that quote from yourself, dorothy, is certainly true.

The elites of which I speak are in fact, within capitalism, as in earlier feudalism, the gold standard of conformity-, and their "official" intellectual elites, at least the institutionalized, "idealized" notion of themselves as "elites", held up by themselves for the rest of us plain speak "common herd" to conform to. (Toward which direction Tyee, for example, is certainly attempting to genuflect, most likely for its own gold standard reasons.)

On the other hand, I certainly do not disagree with you, that there is grounds for disagreement with this notion of what is exactly "elite" in fact. Your point is taken, if not exactly on my same wavelength. :-)

Dorothy

In other words I don't need freedom because everything I want to do is allowed by the state?

Au contraire Dorothy, it is not my ability to do them that concerns me at this moment, it is my ability to do them without big brother watching and recording for future reference.

An issue that at this stage is more of a problem in the USA than it is here what with the obscenely named "Patriot Act" and the department of Homeland Security which strikes me as the epitome of a McCarthy wet dream.

Again, I point out the example of Illinios when the shoe is on the other foot. Even the governor there was against the recording of interrogations.

Also, do you not find it ludicrous that we record people when they are outside their private homes but when you try to get paper about what your own government has done it takes months and they are still allowed to black out anything they don't want you to read even though every single thing they do is on the public dime and concerns public assets?

Seems to me that it would be best to record people that can affect society more than a car thief or someone wishing to urinate on a sidewalk.

Perhaps every phone call to or from a government employee, every personal conversation taking place on work time or in the workplace should be recorded?

After all if our premier and cabinet never do anything wrong they won't mind a reporter standing behind them every minute of their workday, listening in to every conversation and recording who they talk to and about what.

Same goes for the executives of all publicly traded companies, I'm sure they won't mind being on tape to make sure there's never any insider trading, never any agreements arrived at to skirt government regulation or taxes etc. After all, if they are doing something wrong it will cost us more money than the theft of somebody's Honda.

The point being, the people deciding we need to be on video when in public spaces haven't made their case as to why we need that.

The best place

Perhaps a state with less freedom for its citizens is the best place to live?

There was a time when people in the West were horrified at the story of children in the Soviet Union being congratulated for reporting on their parents.

We were turned off at the thought of the East German secret police using one neighbour to spy on another.

Now it seems we are ready to declare that such actions were for the common good because only people who had stepped outside the boundaries laid down by the state had any reason to fear.

I can understand the seductiveness of a society where everyone conforms but I think that is more scary than just about any other outcome.

An interesting example

Thanks for that Frank. Premier Campbell, despite getting a lot of opportunity to say he's all for openness and transparency, seems to be rather dragging his feet about disclosing certain 'papers' which may be germane to the case against Basi and Virk.

What's sauce for the goose, eh!

If citizens are going to be recorded in their public activities then lets get a chip implanted in all of the Premier's many and stylish pairs of spectacles so the rest of us can see and hear what he's up to while he does the "peoples" business.

I'd certainly 'be watching' that.

Frank

“In other words I don't need freedom because everything I want to do is allowed by the state? “

No, I am saying that since everything you want to do is ‘allowed’, I don’t see where the conflict is. It sounds as if you want a kind of utopian state of affairs, where you get recognition and can enjoy rights when you want it, but the rest of the time, the people around you, including ‘the state’ can just bugger off. If you want complete freedom, you could go to the back of beyond, some remote corner of Siberia, or Sarawak, or some such place, and stay out of sight, but then you would be facing the jungle and its dangers on your own. I don’t think you get to eat your cake and have it, too. The dumb majority is who won’t let you, and ‘the state’ is simply catering to their sense of security. You rattle their cage at your peril.

I believe you can choose how square a peg you want to be in that round hole, depending on how important your cause is. Henry Morgentaler comes to mind. There is a hero! Oh, yes, he made a profit. What of it? He suffered, not for that, but for a just cause as he saw it. What of The Sakatchewan farmer, who in his mind ended the suffering of his daughter, and began his own? Once you take action, you have zero control over what people and their machine of orderliness do with it, but as far as your choince in library books – no one knows what you are capable of doing after reading Lord of the Flies, do they? You think they will mark you out, round you up in a conflict, and you will end up in a bad place among the non-cooperators. You will anyway. There is always a neighbor who secretly never liked you and can point to dangerous signs of intelligence you may have shown over the years. If you truly want to be a teflon-man, you pay with everything you have and can be. Is it worth it? Not in my mind. We all die some day, and who knows – you may like the company in Valhalla:

48.
Most blest is he who lives free and bold
and nurses never a grief,
for the fearful man is dismayed by aught,
and the mean one mourns over giving.

53.
Little the sand if little the seas,
little are minds of men,
for ne'er in the world were all equally wise,
'tis shared by the fools and the sage.

(Havamal)

Then I do not know why you keep bringing up the closed doors, which the nincompoops who run our levels of government are hiding behind? They belong to the dumb majority and do not want us to see them make asses of themselves or do their sneaky little numbers. But it is a completely different issue, which does not really belong in the same discussion, unless you are in the ‘tit for tat’ league?

Sometimes....

I am starting to worry about myself. Dorothy is actually beginning to make some sense to me. :-)

And that is not really a put down woman. :-) Just carry on being who and what you are. B-D lol.

dorothy

The conflict is obvious, being "allowed" is not the same as being free.

In a nutshell, yes, and its not utopian.

I think I'd rather declare that the rest of you leave and I'll go back to living in a society that will assume I'm innocent.

Exactly my point. Tiptoeing around so as to avoid being noticed is not Webster's definition of freedom, nor anyone else's. If that is how we measure freedom then you might as well say a guy in a POW camp is free. He's free to do anything he wants as long as its allowed.

Why are the doors closed? Because they want the freedom to do what they want without someone looking over their shoulder, correct? All I want is the same freedom as those who want me to be videotaped.

How is it different? If the people legislating videotaping public spaces and the people that carry it out don't live by the same laws they want the rest of us to live by why should I not ask why that is?

If its such a great idea then the legislators and the police should hire people to videotape everything they say and do outside of their home before they hire anyone with my tax dollars to do the same to me.

Quote:Why are the doors

Amen.

Dorothy wanders frequently in and out of sense. She tries to spread herself, frequently contradictorily, over all positions on the political map. As gets one spread pretty damn transparently thin and being really nowhere at all.

And becomes a kind of intellectual hoisted pinky finger mumbo jumbo itself very often.

She is the actual one who wants her intellectual cake and eat it too. Which suggests to me that you have to be an academic, not, Dorothy?

Though I don't sense a navel gazing "women's study" devotee. Mind you, one too many tabs of acid can produce the same effect. :-)

C'mon Admin, throw us junk yard political dogs another bone to chew on and fight over! This one has been reduced to harmful slivers. Including a little real red meat might help.

Unless of course, the heat we generate causes you to mess your pants. B-D lol.

Frank

“Tiptoeing around so as to avoid being noticed is not Webster's definition of freedom, nor anyone else's”

You still don’t get it. If you want that kind of freedom, you must subject mankind to a couple of thousand years of evolutionary pressure, which selects for intelligence. Right now, we are harvesting the result of the exact opposite. The great corporations, starting with the Roman Catholic Church, turned this neat trick of making everybody defined as ‘God’s children’, or someone’s children, and so laid it upon the capable people to work their butts off to ameliorate every possible result of one’s own stupidity having dire consequences, particularly churning out more offspring than we could feed or educate. We have carefully selected for doing the dumbest things we possibly could, overbreeding, over-consuming, overindulging. This society loves losers, because so many can identify with them, there is always forgiveness at someone else’s expense. This is why we blithely re-elected a drunk driver to run our fair province; this is why every truly successful person at some time in their carreer has some sort of traumatic ‘turning point’, so the rest of us will know he/she is ‘just one of us’ and not feel threatened or jealous of the success and wealth. Those people know how to manage our perceptions. And they know how much most of us hate actual competence.

You can discuss with the machinations of the state till you’re blue in the face, but it is the pople around you you have to fear. Do you suppose Hitler or Stalin did not know how their messages would reverberate in their people? None of them could have done their deeds on the scale they did without consent from their electorate.

more later...

more for Frank

Have you not seen the Matrix, and do you not realize the truth of its message? Look over the edge of your pod, see the whole picture, and you will be flushed. The only lie in that movie is that actual ‘agents’ are needed. Your fellow citizens have already been recruited, and they will be eager to serve. Maybe you have a handful of trusty friends you can cross the river with, but for the most case, the regular people around you would throw you to the volwes. Not that they are ‘evil’, just mastered by their own fears. Everyone is afraid, and that makes them dangerous. They will tell themselves that you belong in a different league, and that makes it OK. You can take care of yourself in ways not available to their kind, since you are so damned clever, and they’re not. If you yourself are not afraid, that is the most important thing you have to remember. It may keep you safe on a bad day.

“How is it different? If the people legislating videotaping public spaces and the people that carry it out don't live by the same laws they want the rest of us to live by why should I not ask why that is?”

It is different, because the people you mention keeping secrets are in a public positions of trust, while you are acting as a private citizen, I assume. That makes the two cases completely unequal. Yours may be a little foolish, but theirs is criminal, as they try to avoid the public accountability they swore to adhere to. Therefore, it does not belong in the same discussion, and certainly not in an ‘and back to you, buster’ kind of exchange. Keep your gunpowder dry. Where DID you get your lessons in political strategies??

For Coy, eh, Canis

“…Dorothy wanders frequently in and out of sense. She tries to spread herself, frequently contradictorily, over all positions on the political map. As gets one spread pretty damn transparently thin and being really nowhere at all.
And becomes a kind of intellectual hoisted pinky finger mumbo jumbo itself very often.
She is the actual one who wants her intellectual cake and eat it too. Which suggests to me that you have to be an academic, not, Dorothy?
Though I don't sense a navel gazing "women's study" devotee. Mind you, one too many tabs of acid can produce the same effect. :-)”

Huh? Don’t you know it’s somewhat rude to speak of people in the third person? But since, halfway down, you think better of it, I will deign to reply: No, I do not think I can confirm or deny any of your categorizations, as that must be for my peers to decide. And, you said it, I am damn near peerless.

I am not an adherent of any identifiable ‘ism’, but simply tell the truth as I see it. What landscapes I have travelled through may mean something, or they may not. I consider the most valuable training I ever received to be in scouts, but ‘an academic’ would fit poorly as I have limited respect (make that practically zero) for academic credentials, although I do have some somwhere in my kitbag. I did learn Zoology, so I do see through your little name-game tweaking the Latin, but then I suppose everyone else has already been doing that.

And, pink is far from being my favorite color. Try bluish grey-brown, with winter sunrise-white highlights.

I am counting on people like you to point out contradictions in what I say. If you are not willing to make a fair exchange and go forward together, you are shirking your responsibility as a fellow scribe, shame on you! I cannot use broad sweeping statements to learn anything from, and learning is what I try to do here, together with everyone else I assume.

Dorothy

I'm not sure we're discussing the same thing. Now over the years I've come to know your point of view pretty well although there's a few areas I'm still muddy on. This is one of them.

I don't want to go through your argument point by point again and instead will address what I believe is the gist.

In the past you've defended the Scandinavian way of building a community right? A view I tend to agree with that for the most part.

You have also stated, I believe in our discussion with taxcutter99, that we can't have 30 million individuals doing their own thing and still have a cohesive society that gives a damn about each other, right again?

Another point I agree with, if I am correct in assuming what you believe, is that we enjoy a higher state of freedom within a community than we do in a state of nature.

After all, a state of nature may seem free on the surface but underneath there is no freedom at all from those that are not averse to doing you harm in order to advance their own position.

All fair enough if that is indeed your position.

However, I'm not arguing that. I'm taking the existence of society and laws as a given. Then I am suggesting that we can still have a cohesive society, as we have in the past, without video cameras in public spaces recording everything we do outside of our homes. And that the citizens of the USA were, in my opinion, more free before the passing of the Patriot Act and Bush's minions watching their communications.

Again, I'm not saying I don't want to be part of society, I'm just looking at the fact that state-controlled video cameras are not required. There is simply no pressing need. What they do is change our daily actions from the freedom to do what we want to being allowed to do what the person on the other side of the camera deems allowable.