On Sun, Jan 10, 2016, 04:50 coderman <[1]coderman@gmail.com> wrote:

     On 1/6/16, Sean Lynch <[2]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?

   This is kind of my worst nightmare; that my optimism has been misguided
   all this time. I wrote a post on [3]liberty.me about how to deal with
   an invincible adversary that may be relevant
   here: [4]https://undergroundeconomist.liberty.me/dealing-with-an-invinc
   ible-adversary/ .

   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 [5]liberty.me much longer. I don't want to
   live in an echo chamber.

References

   1. mailto:coderman@gmail.com
   2. mailto:seanl@literati.org
   3. http://liberty.me/
   4. https://undergroundeconomist.liberty.me/dealing-with-an-invincible-adversary/
   5. http://liberty.me/