Re: Only in Your Brave New World - not mine !
Author: T Judah
Date: 03-07-2009 - 20:51
Tell me, in your "Brave New World", where very sophisticated means are used to spy on every one else, what are they going to see 99.999999 percent of the time, besides how often you pick your nose, or lean funny in the chair to make silly noises. Or perhaps they hear you mention the wrong politics, or the wrong religion. Or perhaps you forget, and even mention the boss's missing new cloths.
There are a million ways to abuse such surveillance. And it surely will be abused if left in private corporate hands. Come to think of it, with all the power mongering greedy politicians and bureaucrats in gov't, it will be abused even faster there.
And what are you going to do about it when someone does mismanage a 10,000 ton train full of hazardous material sometime or other. After you fascists have discovered that you still can't prevent accidents, what then? Of course, only then will it occur to you that cameras are not enough - that pain transducers should be put under every locomotive engineer's skin - or else be fired, or worse.
Surely that will make them stop! But then again, it might just distract them all the more - and now we have come full circle. The only likely outcome of any sort of compulsion device in the cab, is just more distraction, which is what caused this wreck in the first place. Of course, this circular pattern often happens as a result of any extremist notion.
I'm sure you've heard of "Extremism"; ya know, where an absolutely held value seems to be obtained, but only at the cost of other all important values.
And that "big brother bull" -- ain't bull. No one I know of wants to have anyone looking over their shoulders. Why should they then expect to look over anyone else's.
Lest any other fascists forget - this is America. Now where in the American ethos have such things ever been considered justifiable? Only by virtue of probable cause - that's where - period. 99.999999 percent of the time, there is no such probable cause, and therefore, no surveillance - in America.
Now I will grant you, that it appears that in this case, MetroLink did have probable cause to sneak up on this guy and check him out, but failed to do so. However, they were relying on a middleman, who did nothing about it either. Perhaps your fascist cameras belong in the boardrooms. And we all know how well that will be tolerated!
Perhaps, we should also question the use of middleman contractors in the first place. MetroLink is ultimately responsible for the safety of its riders - and as the saying goes "If you want the job done right, you must do it yourself"
Of course - if we do not, as a people, wise up and be responsible on our own initiative to avoid unsafe or anti social behaviors, some fascist will come along and do it for us. Of course he will talk up all his wonderful "Final Solutions" to all our problems - and being the uneducated products of our own defunct education system, we will buy it hook line and sinker.
We will have lost our liberties by then.