So I read this and had feelings which are best described as a flavor of anger. But not like "grr that gets me going" anger more like "I will climb a mountain and call for the one that burns the sky." There's a lot of words in my brain that have been bumping together and forming sentences lately and reading this put some of those sentences in order. I'm concerned that every living thing on the planet might be if this continues. So I put some of those words together in a verbal tirade that Sebaba the intern who operates my computer typed up. It's equal parts rant and article reaction so if it doesn't belong here I'll have Sebaba climb into the pain bucket and move it.
Spoiler: show
None of us are safe. Seriously. The idea of safety is laughable, basic common sense says any idea you can come up with somebody smarter, better funded, or even just more flexible can work around. We have sacrificed things that were dear for us, but not for any actual safety. Set a timer for a minute and see how many ways to cause chaos or kill massive numbers of people you can think up that would meet no resistance from security measures, the police, concerned parents, watchful neighbors, or what have you. We're not safer.
The cliched response is that it's just the illusion of safety but that's a lot of bullshit too, when was the last time you felt safe in the airport? You've got constant reminders that occasionally the blind squirrel find a nut and one of the people who has the means and tools necessary to hurt people succeeds. But that can't be more than like a third of the fear. My big defense against terrorism is the fact that it's so rare that any real amount of time I spend thinking about it is totally wasted. What I am afraid of at the airport is the fact the TSA are a bunch of people with little or no education and a level of discretionary power that you generally have to somehow earn. Anyone whose even heard of psychology recognizes this as a recipe for assholes. I'm worried that some cocksucker is going to steal my laptop while his asshole coworkers pat me down because while they spent a billion trillion dollars on a machine that can spot items hidden on a person's body it's being operated by somebody who smells like corn chips despite having none on his person.
People constantly bitch that kids don't go outside anymore but we are rapidly criminalizing the act of letting them do so. Why is "free-range parenting" a thing? Why is it some kind of weird hipster trend to recognize that a kid will not cease to exist if you stop looking at it? Hell even if they get hurt or lost or something they can walk up to anybody on the street and say "hey I'm hurt or lost or something" and make a billion to one bet that this isn't one of the couple of guys who actually go around snatching raping and killing kids problem fucking solved.
While we're on the subject leave kids the fuck alone. Maybe I'm an idiot with a sandwich bag full of human toes but it's completely lost on me how severely punishing children for thinking the word "gun" too loudly is supposed to be a good thing. Poptarts chicken wings hello kitty you've heard the stories and it's all ridiculous. Again maybe I'm missing something but pretending that weapons are so powerful that even symbols of them reduce authority figures to irrational behavior while dedicating hours and hours of news coverage to propping up mass shooters like macabre idols would be exactly how I would try to convince someone who was in a bad place that they should do something crazy.
I'm a little but US-centric ,because if I approached issues from a perspective I didn't have I would be a lunatic with a half-full bag sandwich bag of human toes, but it's not this is a unique thing. Canada's debating passing a bill that grants additional powers to gather information on people and monitor their communications directly in response to two tragic terror attacks perpetrated by people who acted alone and talked to fucking nobody. Thank unrenderable runes that there are people fighting but they aren't fighting the way they need to. I think a big part of the problem is that as we've become fearful of everything and sought out more and more protection we've become less and less worried about our governments.
You should always kind of be afraid of the government. Even assuming we have total trust in the people we've elected there are going to be new leaders, there are going to be new situations, there are going to be new standards of right and wrong. I'm not going to say slippery slope for the obvious reason but moral slide is a real thing, the ratchet effect is a real thing. When we take one step in a direction we're uncomfortable with we have to understand and accept that unless we take action to stop our momentum and change direction we're probably going to keep going that way. Does anybody feel right now the same way they did after 9/11? Of course not I was ready to start glassing people and I was ready to sacrifice a few liberties if it meant I would be safe under the blanket of government protection and I being a dumbass went shopping hungry and I made some less than responsible purchases. Those rights aren't coming back and the security never really came.We will all live and die never again knowing a time when the police didn't look more frightening than actual storm troopers.
Here's the problem: It's our fault. We backed down at every oppurtunity. We've made a point of showing the Government and the TSA and the Schools and anyone else who uses our fear to keep us in line that if they push us we will back down. Back in 2002 when we weren't quite out of “shut up and take my freedom” mode wizard and almost shaved bigfoot Penn Jilette called the police on the TSA and noted how quickly they went from “I can do whatever I want to you” to “please be cool man” when he reminded them firmly that you aren't allowed to touch somebody without their permission. It was a great thing and some people deluded themselves into thinking maybe it was something other than a flash in the pan. Maybe we were going to get out of the mindset that when someone tells you how things are going to be you have to listen to them. Because otherwise what are rights? If we're willingly going along with whatever those in authority say does it really matter that we have hypothetical protections? But it didn't really work out like that. It's a sort of fun story that still pops up now and again but we're still just backing off with no prompting.
That's not even the worst of it. We earned this, not because we didn't do anything but because like always we were the vanguards of our own demise. We created a climate where unpopular ideas were punished and people who were bothered by the little changes were vilified or mocked. Whenever something awful happened we all jumped up, eager to be the most outraged person in the room and in an effort to keep that going we went along with whatever bullshit was being peddled. We freaked out about mass shootings and we let our schools turn into prisons, we worried about terrorism and now
we're being monitored in ways that someone from a less desensitized age might call Orwellian; hell, one admittedly awful murder convinced us fetal homicide laws were a good thing and now pregnant women are basically being kidnapped by the state.
Maybe I'm just some asshole with an empty sandwich bag that smells like human toes but I think that unless we get into a nice rational headspace and draw some reasonable lines and firmly declare that if we cross them for any reason whatsoever there is a serious problem we're kind of fucked.
There are a lot of bad, dangerous things and people in the world- half of them are just me wearing a different mask. They are always going to be there. There is no way to be protected from them, not completely. None of us are safe, so let's stop being such goddamned pussies.
The cliched response is that it's just the illusion of safety but that's a lot of bullshit too, when was the last time you felt safe in the airport? You've got constant reminders that occasionally the blind squirrel find a nut and one of the people who has the means and tools necessary to hurt people succeeds. But that can't be more than like a third of the fear. My big defense against terrorism is the fact that it's so rare that any real amount of time I spend thinking about it is totally wasted. What I am afraid of at the airport is the fact the TSA are a bunch of people with little or no education and a level of discretionary power that you generally have to somehow earn. Anyone whose even heard of psychology recognizes this as a recipe for assholes. I'm worried that some cocksucker is going to steal my laptop while his asshole coworkers pat me down because while they spent a billion trillion dollars on a machine that can spot items hidden on a person's body it's being operated by somebody who smells like corn chips despite having none on his person.
People constantly bitch that kids don't go outside anymore but we are rapidly criminalizing the act of letting them do so. Why is "free-range parenting" a thing? Why is it some kind of weird hipster trend to recognize that a kid will not cease to exist if you stop looking at it? Hell even if they get hurt or lost or something they can walk up to anybody on the street and say "hey I'm hurt or lost or something" and make a billion to one bet that this isn't one of the couple of guys who actually go around snatching raping and killing kids problem fucking solved.
While we're on the subject leave kids the fuck alone. Maybe I'm an idiot with a sandwich bag full of human toes but it's completely lost on me how severely punishing children for thinking the word "gun" too loudly is supposed to be a good thing. Poptarts chicken wings hello kitty you've heard the stories and it's all ridiculous. Again maybe I'm missing something but pretending that weapons are so powerful that even symbols of them reduce authority figures to irrational behavior while dedicating hours and hours of news coverage to propping up mass shooters like macabre idols would be exactly how I would try to convince someone who was in a bad place that they should do something crazy.
I'm a little but US-centric ,because if I approached issues from a perspective I didn't have I would be a lunatic with a half-full bag sandwich bag of human toes, but it's not this is a unique thing. Canada's debating passing a bill that grants additional powers to gather information on people and monitor their communications directly in response to two tragic terror attacks perpetrated by people who acted alone and talked to fucking nobody. Thank unrenderable runes that there are people fighting but they aren't fighting the way they need to. I think a big part of the problem is that as we've become fearful of everything and sought out more and more protection we've become less and less worried about our governments.
You should always kind of be afraid of the government. Even assuming we have total trust in the people we've elected there are going to be new leaders, there are going to be new situations, there are going to be new standards of right and wrong. I'm not going to say slippery slope for the obvious reason but moral slide is a real thing, the ratchet effect is a real thing. When we take one step in a direction we're uncomfortable with we have to understand and accept that unless we take action to stop our momentum and change direction we're probably going to keep going that way. Does anybody feel right now the same way they did after 9/11? Of course not I was ready to start glassing people and I was ready to sacrifice a few liberties if it meant I would be safe under the blanket of government protection and I being a dumbass went shopping hungry and I made some less than responsible purchases. Those rights aren't coming back and the security never really came.We will all live and die never again knowing a time when the police didn't look more frightening than actual storm troopers.
Here's the problem: It's our fault. We backed down at every oppurtunity. We've made a point of showing the Government and the TSA and the Schools and anyone else who uses our fear to keep us in line that if they push us we will back down. Back in 2002 when we weren't quite out of “shut up and take my freedom” mode wizard and almost shaved bigfoot Penn Jilette called the police on the TSA and noted how quickly they went from “I can do whatever I want to you” to “please be cool man” when he reminded them firmly that you aren't allowed to touch somebody without their permission. It was a great thing and some people deluded themselves into thinking maybe it was something other than a flash in the pan. Maybe we were going to get out of the mindset that when someone tells you how things are going to be you have to listen to them. Because otherwise what are rights? If we're willingly going along with whatever those in authority say does it really matter that we have hypothetical protections? But it didn't really work out like that. It's a sort of fun story that still pops up now and again but we're still just backing off with no prompting.
That's not even the worst of it. We earned this, not because we didn't do anything but because like always we were the vanguards of our own demise. We created a climate where unpopular ideas were punished and people who were bothered by the little changes were vilified or mocked. Whenever something awful happened we all jumped up, eager to be the most outraged person in the room and in an effort to keep that going we went along with whatever bullshit was being peddled. We freaked out about mass shootings and we let our schools turn into prisons, we worried about terrorism and now
we're being monitored in ways that someone from a less desensitized age might call Orwellian; hell, one admittedly awful murder convinced us fetal homicide laws were a good thing and now pregnant women are basically being kidnapped by the state.
Maybe I'm just some asshole with an empty sandwich bag that smells like human toes but I think that unless we get into a nice rational headspace and draw some reasonable lines and firmly declare that if we cross them for any reason whatsoever there is a serious problem we're kind of fucked.
There are a lot of bad, dangerous things and people in the world- half of them are just me wearing a different mask. They are always going to be there. There is no way to be protected from them, not completely. None of us are safe, so let's stop being such goddamned pussies.