On 1/6/16, Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org> wrote:
> ... I've found myself self-censoring quite a lot more
> since my kids were born.
this topic has been on my mind recently,
"You know, It would be a lot easier you just didn't do X"
"This wouldn't happen if you quit annoying Y"
"If you accept, Z will pay nicely and protect you."
where X is FOIA requests, security research, PET development, etc.,
Y is some powerful entity like FBI, NSA, Verizon, Intel, etc.,
and Z is some convenient but forever bound by position requiring a
clearance and suspension of moral qualms.
when you've got the world to loose (nothing more encompassing than
your own family!) preservation is near irresistible. simple fear of
harm might be compelling enough for the majority to cower compliant,
even.
Indeed. But isn't this also a pro-social trait? If society is meeting most of your needs, you will be disinclined to try to overthrow it. If that is because you are happy with what you have, like for example a family who are safe and have lots of stuff like in my case, is that such a bad thing? Of course, if that is not true for a large fraction of society, such safety and wealth can end up being temporary.
when i was young, these questions of "do i do right? or do i stay
safe?" were abstract and applicable only to foreign backwaters or past
history. a modern, free liberal democracy need never exercise such
restraint - we have Blind Justice which always finds in favor of the
righteous!
over some years i lost this innocent faith in perfect justice, saw
abuses of power against the less fortunate or less familiar, accrued
things dear to me like friends and new family, and became comfortable
in a lifestyle with all needs met.
.
.
.
now USA in a state of perpetual war, executive power at record levels,
surveillance staggering in breadth and invasiveness, censorship and
suppression of speech creeping ever further into the centralized
systems dominating over our way of life, it's not good...
and yet we're not rounding up foreign-born citizens and their
families for incarceration at detention camps (like Japanese during
the war). not to mention that much of the rest of the world would be
killed or imprisoned leading my kind of life in another jurisdiction!
I used to feel like things were getting worse and worse, but then I remember the world wars and the alien & sedition acts and Jim Crow. Well, not directly, but you know what I mean. During WWII it was not permissible to speak out against the war; you'd be considered to be aiding the enemy. I think it was worse in Europe than in the US, but still. There was a time when a majority of American men in a certain age range were veterans. Now they're a tiny minority. It allows a much greater diversity of thought.
when people are being killed for exposing corruption or injustice, it
seems ridiculous to complain about annoyances resulting from optional
activities i have chosen to undertake willingly - not out of dire need
or coercion. with all my needs still met.
Indeed, though I think one should be wary of relativism. Just because there's worse doesn't make our own system just.
all of which made me wonder, what did the every day German or Italian
citizen see before fascism ravaged sanity? what did they see that felt
disturbing, but not overtly threating and could be ignored? what did
they see which told them all legitimacy was lost and only resistance
remained?
the #YallQueda rebellion staged their last stand in my state, with
land use abuse the straw upon their broken backs. perhaps loss of
livelihood a better Rubicon?
That movement is lasting echos of the closing of the frontier, at least according to Dan Carlin (and his explanation seems compelling). You can blame Teddy Roosevelt.
But this is a question I often think about myself. At least in Germany's case, there was certainly a major trait that was visible from the outside: crushing debt and economic malaise the country had no way of digging itself out of. Massive national humiliation. Greece is in a similar situation today, and Russia seems not far behind. An American political colloquialism comes to mind: "It's the economy, stupid!"
Which brings us back around to the paragraph you quoted: there was a revolution because people's needs were not being met. There is no guarantee that a revolution will wind up with something better than the thing that caused it. Especially since revolutions are typically driven by a tiny minority, with the majority being incited by whatever it takes to motivate them, typically lots of bogus conspiracy theories. Even the American Revolution was this way, with a large fraction of the populace believing there was a conspiracy in England to "enslave" the colonies.
then another "If you quit doing that, it would all be much easier..." was said,
and i wondered if this was the key sign of trouble i was fearing to
see. when lawful activities performed for the good of the public draw
unjustified scrutiny and disruption from the state, has the state
itself become corrupt?
I think you will always hear this from authority. It is "blame the victim" plain and simple. And if you consider the authority legitimate and "just doing their job," is it not true? The insidious thing about it is that it presupposes that legitimacy.
how far must this corruption spread before it cannot be stopped
without destruction of the state, no matter the size and vehemency of
public protest?
Good question. I was just talking about a related topic recently with some coworkers: revolutions seem to happen when they are closest to being unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn't be possible. So I think the answer is that for corruption to spread that far, it must be pervasive throughout society, not through some separate thing called "the State." Which means if the State is really that corrupt, revolution may well be impossible, and the only solution may be war by other states. Instead, revolution will happen not because the State is extremely corrupt, since that would require a corrupt society, but because it is weak and the people perceive it as corrupt.
can the tools of technology and manufactured consent provide the state
ability to become completely corrupted without detection, nor
resistance from the public?
Hmm. I think the notion that the State and the public are not truly separate applies here as well. So it's not so much that it wouldn't be detected as that the corruption would encompass all of society.
i don't know the answers, and i am curious to hear opinions.
i still live a rich life with needs met and i don't think we're on the
brink of a fascist nightmare future. maybe hell on earth is closer
than i think...
thoughts?
In the foreward of an obscure book I've started reading, The Omega Seed by Paolo Soleri, the foreward author talks about how the Christians, instead of continually trying to fight ineffectual revolts against the Romans as their Jewish forebears had, instead focused on building communities. I think we need to focus not only on building communities where we're connected to one another, but where we're strongly connected to people around us who may not share our exact beliefs. However you might feel about cops, for example, if you're friendly with the cops in your community, they're much less likely to be willing to lock you up and throw away the key on false pretenses. Even if they know your general beliefs about cops. Being connected to people makes it much harder for them to believe bullshit about you. For that reason I doubt I'll be remaining on
liberty.me much longer. I don't want to live in an echo chamber.