This poem sums up my thoughts: In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
First it was anal airport searches in the name of "safety" (which is a flawed concept especially after the stellar Katrina performance), now they're working on scanning through your laptop/music player. Now, they can tap into phone conversations for intercepting "terrorist plots", or just to listen in on anyone. Most recently, it's "For the children!" and more rights are removed, and privacy is a thing of the past.
If you didn't read the comments, there's some interesting information about the political climate over there, but this post struck me:
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." - Mein Kampf
You may be thinking, "but this is Germany, not US". It's not just Germany. There is a massive and growing hysteria surrounding child porn, to the point where it is now possible for parents to go to jail for taking pictures of their kids playing in the bathtub, kids as young as 9 to be registered on the sex offender list for 25 YEARS for comparing willie sizes with their friends, and more recently the Vanessa Hudgens "sexting" sensation.
Kids are getting sent to "retraining facilities" for what 20 years ago would have been considered normal adolescent behavior. Forced into the hands of untrained, unqualified "experts", they have no human rights, and some of the indignities and torture they have to endure is appalling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQ5AKk_QR4 For more information, check out Judith Levine's book Harmful To Minors.
Meanwhile, it's looking more and more like 1940 again. It's the same stuff! Homosexuals were described as mentally ill and violent people who preyed on children. Jews ate and drank their blood in Satanic rituals held in the basement. Hand over your rights, we'll expunge them!
Now it's the terrorists and the pedo's! Mentally ill people who are violent, and are lurking around every corner. Boo! But we'll protect, just hand over more of those rights!
It won't take long for this new internet censoring to be tailored for other content, and you can kiss free speech goodbye. China's already doing it, and The West is nearly there. Instead of empowering ourselves and our kids, we turn to the most unqualified group of people to enact extremely bad laws that drag healthy kids through hellish facilities, hellish court battles, and years in state custody...for their protection.
And yet we continue to listen to them for information. They bring on "experts" like (recently disbarred) Jack Thompson to talk about the perils of violent video games, and pump extreme examples of kids blowing away their school into the minds of concerned parents. AKA, completely inaccurate information. The same group of people who lied to the Native Americans for years, who lied to Americans about sexual forays in the Oval Office, and the same group of people who never saw 9-11 coming, took 3 or 4 days to do anything after Katrina, and we look to them for quality information and empowerment?
Did you know we have the 36th freest press in the world? What kind of country are we creating by continuing to buy into the fear-mongering? Why do we continue to give away our power?
I thought V For Vendetta was fiction, but it's not anymore. "Said Reporters Without Borders: “The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn. Destabilized and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms. The economically most powerful dictatorships arrogantly proclaim their authoritarianism, exploiting the international community’s divisions and the ravages of the wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism."
And I would add, the fight/hysteria against underage porn, which now lands kids on the sex offender list for taking pictures of themselves, because they clearly were coerced into getting the idea, picking up the camera, and pushing the button.
In the words of an internet meme: We're doing it wrong.
Meanwhile, we are less informed, less empowered, and in today's world, ignorance is not bliss. I'm glad there was a higher turnout at the election, but we as citizens can't just go back to normal life. I can't, at least. I can't stick my head in the sand anymore. It is information warfare out there, and until people investigate for themselves, the entirety of the world equation, the agendas, the science, everyone will be operating and making choices from ignorance. I'm sure I'll be cringing 4 months later at the ignorance of this post, but I'm committing myself at least to keep investigating.
I wasn't always like this, but after a while, I began to wonder, just why these people have so much power over us when they demonstrate time and again their incompetence, disregard for humanity, and fear-mongering.
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Bla, bla, bla, bla, we are all going to die, bla,bla. At least that is the way this sounds to me. I know that what concerns me is not going to concern you and I will sound this way to you who don't agree. I happen to think the liberals are taking away my freedoms and my liberties in the name of Save the Planet and Save the Poor and Save the Sick. The knife cuts both ways if you are serious about your message.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:The Chinese government may be backing down from its plan to install new "filtering" software, Green Dam, on all Chinese computers. But it would be naïve to think that scrapping the Green Dam mandate means the end of headaches for computer- and device-makers world-wide. More and more governments -- including democracies like Britain, Australia and Germany -- are trying to control public behavior online, especially by exerting pressure on Internet service providers. Green Dam has only exposed the next frontier in these efforts: the personal computer. ... But Green Dam is only an extreme example of a global trend: The Internet censorship club is expanding and now includes a growing number of democracies. Legislators are under growing pressure from family groups to "do something" in the face of all the threats sloshing around the Internet, and the risk of overstepping is high.
In Germany, Internet users and civil liberties groups are fighting proposed legislation mandating a national censorship system. The Bundestag votes today on a bill authorizing German police to establish and maintain a list of Web sites that Internet service providers would be required to block. In a petition against the bill, German civil liberties groups call it "untransparent and uncontrollable, since the 'block lists' cannot be inspected, nor are the criteria for putting a Web site on the list properly defined." These concerns aren't unfounded: Some German politicians have already suggested extending the block list to Islamist Web sites, video games and gambling Web sites, while book publishers have suggested it would also be nice to block file-sharing sites too.
quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Bla, bla, bla, bla, we are all going to die, bla,bla. At least that is the way this sounds to me. I know that what concerns me is not going to concern you and I will sound this way to you who don't agree. I happen to think the liberals are taking away my freedoms and my liberties in the name of Save the Planet and Save the Poor and Save the Sick. The knife cuts both ways if you are serious about your message.
I would've preferred you absolutely pick apart my post, and ravage it, instead of "bla bla we're all going to die" (is die or death mentioned anywhere?).
I was serious about my message, and despite the shrillness, I still am. Like I said, I wasn't always like this, and this is the pattern I'm seeing. I don't see the logic in "liberals are infringing on my rights, so I'm going to let conservatives infringe on theirs, even though mine are also taken away". If it's going to come down to liberals vs conservatives, maybe we should allow them separate reign or something, so the knife can cut only into those who want to be cut. Conservatives have their initiatives, liberals have theirs. Create a country called Liberaland, where their agendas can run wild and free, and create Conservative land, we can then look across the fence at each other and go "pfeh! those guys sure have weird ideas"
Let's discuss! Tell me more about the knife cutting both ways.
EDIT: Mucus, thanks for the link. Will have to read it later today.
posted
Where I live they have taken certain laws surrounding, I don't know if there is a techical term, but minors having sex to an extreme. I know a person who is in trouble with the police for having sex with someone the same age as himself, but because he was her tutor. Thus being in a position of power, that making it against the law or something. It was news right when school was about to get out, I think I should check into what happened with it.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
"If it's going to come down to liberals vs conservatives, maybe we should allow them separate reign or something, so the knife can cut only into those who want to be cut."
Actually, I have proposed just that and feel the United States is heading in this direction.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: "If it's going to come down to liberals vs conservatives, maybe we should allow them separate reign or something, so the knife can cut only into those who want to be cut."
Actually, I have proposed just that and feel the United States is heading in this direction.
Is this the same proposal where you outlined how you expected the united states would balkanize?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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