The law is a living amorphous beast like the aliens in The
Abyss only, you know, not really at all.
It changes incrementally by each important decision. That is why our supreme court justices are,
in some respects, far more important than the President ever can be. The way we interpret the law is directly affected by these few individuals who hold power as long as
they choose or are able do so. Which is
why we have to be vigilant for certain changes that endanger our freedoms. The hot button issue for many years has been privacy,
or rather how much can those in power can run over privacy with a truck and get
away with it. Then run it over again, light it on fire, stare at it laughing to its jerk friends and then pee it out. Then ask you for thanks for totally doing you that solid and putting out that pesky fire out.
Bunch of jerks.
“The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a
5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any
offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials
have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.”
Oh good. That fills
me with glee. Let’s have officials
(notice not law enforcement but the term officials) given authority, willy-nilly,
to pry apart people’s butt checks.
Nothing bad can happen. Except
for the countless times awful things have happened in similar situations.
Let’s think on this for a moment. The law is meant to protect and safe guard us, the citizens. Not from our selves but from things like tyranny, persecution, injustice, as well as gross violations of inalienable human dignity and rights. We should, as a people, treat our enemies better than our enemies treat us. We should treat our prisoners well. Crime does not suddenly divorce someone of their humanity. There are quite a few valid and moral reasons to breach the law. We haven’t even touched on false arrest, setups, racism as motivation for arrest – like ‘driving while black’, which I’m sad to relate is real phrase due from common racial profiling practices from police for decades – or any other reason for why that person being brought to jail shouldn’t be there. If you can strip search anyone why not everyone? It would seem unfair in a sense that one person is deemed worthy of search while another isn’t. There is so much room for abuse it's frightening. It’s decisions such as this one that inch us closer and closer to a state like those in bad science fiction where the government deems thinking dangerous so it removes your ability to think so it can remove the danger. Benjamin Franklin had a very apt phrase for such troubled times.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
I think we can all agree he was a reasonably smart guy. Privacy is an essential liberty. Being clothed and not forcibly striped down is an important right. We are under constant barrage of threats to our privacy. From internet companies storing our information, to phone tapping, to increasing powers of search and seizure, to the ability to cart someone away and detain them indefinitely just whispers of suspicion. That last part should cause a wee bit of discomfort or pants wetting, which ever you prefer, it isn't my place to judge your choice in reaction. Indefinite detaining. That sounds fun. I wonder if there is enough red tape and scary men in suits to keep your family away from the truth? Long enough for you to be tortured or killed certainly. The human rights violations in this country are only growing worse.
Our culture has became so shell shocked that we’ve
shifted from love of freedom to love of safety.
From love of knowledge and wonder to love of vitriol and unquestioning
loyalty. That is our legacy from the tragedy in New York. They day everyone in my generation will remember what they were doing and where they were just like the Kennedy assassination for my parents' generation. The founding principles of this
country, to question and act out against poor representation, have slowly
become un-American in many eyes. It is absolutely
scary. Everything should always be
questioned. All the time. Truth doesn’t sit around to be discovered by accident; you don’t wander around a dark room and stub your toe on truth. It waits and hides. It is obscured and obfuscated. It’s up to the masses to educate
themselves. But it’s hard to look for
truth and it’s hard to be vigilant. It’s
just so much easier to go along for the ride and only complain when things noticeably
affect you. Like when gas gets too
expensive. Which, holy crap, it fucking
is.
But that’s just prisoners being mistreated. They are obviously worth less than upstanding
citizens so it’s not important… fuck
anyone who says that, and that means you Kyle, you dick. But what other parts of our lives are being
encroached on? Well, what about airport security?
Obviously we need to take airport security seriously. Privacy is fantastic but there are certain
limits to privacy when it concerns safety.
I think even Franklin would agree to an extent. We currently have millions of dollars
invested in nude body scanners at various airports in the United States. A million seems like a lot. But a billion, which is how much we actually
have invested, is a touch more. Holy
shit. Just imagining that much money confuses
and astounds me. Seriously try to picture
it somehow. Just wrap your head around
that one. One billion dollars. For machines that take naked pictures of
you. Yeah, and those pictures will never
be stored anywhere for later viewing or viewed by anyone sexually. Now if that isn’t aggravating enough imagine
that these scanners aren’t even close to fool proof. But let’s up the ante. Lets’ assume it was explained that they were
not foolproof and the government went ahead with buying them anyway. Not my government who protects my freedom and
privacy? My government would never allow
people to take pictures of my naughty buts if they didn’t think it would
work… If you have read my blog before
you know this ends poorly for us. Yeah,
a blogger confronted the TSA over these machines with proof of their
failure. Heck, he even posted his
findings. Not what I would have done
mind you with, you know, people out there who seem to want to sneak stuff
through with devious intentions looming, ever looming.
Okay, so maybe those
things aren’t foolproof and maybe they dose us with “carcinogenic ionizing radiation”
(X-rays). You know that stuff doctors
run the fuck away from and give you a goddamn lead vest and they just give a
quick click. Yeah, I can assume these
TSA guys are trained just as rigorously.
Or not. Probably not. But hey it’s not they are sexual predators
who enjoy taking naked pictures of attractive young ladies. Yeah, because a man in that position would
never infringe on privacy and human decency to see boobies.
“Not one, but two of the men working for TSA at Dulles Airport on that day have now been arrested for sex crimes.”
“Not one, but two of the men working for TSA at Dulles Airport on that day have now been arrested for sex crimes.”
Well, that hardly seems surprising. It seems officials, TSA agents to police
officers, really just like seeing people naked.
I feel so safe. Now if you don’t
mind I’m going to go to shower to curl up and have nice cry.
Ben
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!