Why we should all be afraid of Big Brother

[Generic Other]

To those of you who believe that you have nothing to hide and thus no reason to fear being spied on: I am ashamed that you are my fellow citizen. And I am afraid of you because you insinuate that those who do object to being spied on are guilty of hiding some wrongdoing. And you don't see how contemptible that is for you to imply such a thing. Some of us view our right to privacy to be as important as our freedom to speak our minds or to assemble to redress our grievances. Just because I defend my right to privacy does not give you probable cause to be suspicious of me and begin to spy on me at ever increasing levels.

You indict me with your smug comment. How much longer before you turn me in and testify against me for having unorthodox thinking? How much longer before we have secret courts, blackmail, threats of harm in our personal lives to coerce us to conform in our thoughts and actions?

That is what our government is now capable of doing. That poster I made can have any president's face on it. It used to have Bush's face on it. It never occurred to me to put Obama's face on it, because it is not his face that scares me the most. It is the face of some future "monster" slouching towards Washington to be born. We don't know whose face that is. But we know what it would look like. Maybe not a Nazi in a uniform. That we would all too easy to spot. No, our Big Brother will wear a suit and tie with a flag pin in the lapel and he will be con-man who will sell us the snake oil that kills us.

And I for one am not having any of it. Not now. Not ever.

[Puzzledtraveller]

1. k&r

"We Are The Dead" -David Bowie


Something kind of hit me today
I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way

People will hold us to blame
It hit me today, it hit me today

We're taking it hard all the time
Why don't we pass it by?
Just reply, you've changed your mind
We're fighting with the eyes of the blind
Taking it hard, taking it hard

Yet now
We feel that we are papers, choking on you nightly
They tell me "Son, we want you, be elusive, but don't walk far"
For we're breaking in the new boys, deceive your next of kin
For you're dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy
You're just an ally of the leecher
Locator for the virgin King, but I love you in your fuck-me pumps
And your nimble dress that trails
Oh, dress yourself, my urchin one, for I hear them on the rails
Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said
We are the dead

One thing kind of touched me today

I looked at you and counted all the times we had laid
Pressing our love through the night

Knowing it's right, knowing it's right

Now I'm hoping some one will care
Living on the breath of a hope to be shared

Trusting on the sons of our love
That someone will care, someone will care

But now
We're today's scrambled creatures, locked in tomorrow's double feature
Heaven's on the pillow, its silence competes with hell
It's a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell

And the streets are full of press men
Bent on getting hung and buried
And the legendary curtains are drawn 'round Baby Bankrupt
Who sucks you while you're sleeping
It's the theater of financiers
Count them, fifty 'round a table
White and dressed to kill

Oh caress yourself, my juicy
For my hands have all but withered
Oh dress yourself my urchin one, for I hear them on the stairs
Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said

We are the dead
We are the dead
We are the dead

[quinnox]

2. Racist! Libertarian! Heretic! Anti-Obama and non-believer! *Sputter*

You, you, you, *runs out of breath*

[Buzz Clik]

3. "I am ashamed that you are my fellow citizen." Gee, that's harsh.

And I am afraid of you because you insinuate that those who do object to being spied on are guilty of hiding some wrongdoing.

I never said that.

You indict me with your smug comment. How much longer before you turn me in and testify against me for having unorthodox thinking?

Err... what? Who is doing this exactly?

I would suggest you find a way to quit being so afraid.

[Generic Other]

6. A poem for the paranoid:

They know you. They know all about you.
They do. In your head, little green men
kicking around under your scalp,
fracking your data, mining your brain.
They know you. Don't try to recoil now
your sinkholes bubbling with secrets.
What oil spills, fish kills, bird falls
and all the other thoughts
did you recall for them?
What did you boil for dinner?
What underground
tunnels have you been digging
to save yourself?

You look up at the clouds a lot --
they track your retinas
from a satellite in space that sees
a spot of mustard on your tie;
they zoom in on
your room behind you;
they listen in on your calls.
And you are loud as they mic check
another thought.

You hear them up there
messing with your head
where on a wire do you lead?
They correct your grammar as you go.
And They know. Everything you read.
Everything you dare. Everything you share.

You can't hide. The ones who said you could
lied. They know how many drive-thru's
you've been through, how many sides
of your story you've told. Your secrets are older.
They know which ones are true. Better
than you do.

Who do you believe? Them or what you
remember? What's worse than forgotten
they retrieve. You thought you could erase the truth
but they recognize your face.
That's what they do when they monitor you.

[Buzz Clik]

8. I like your poem.

I heard it before when the mind wave collimator tube directed the frequencies into my head.

[Generic Other]

9. Channel some George Orwell

“He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. . . . Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings; for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.”

Oh, spoiler: At the end of the novel he discovers they can alter your feelings. Look at you. They're already half way there.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

15. ...

[frylock]

7. the ironing is delicious

I would suggest you find a way to quit being so afraid.

[Generic Other]

10. And I would suggest you need to start doing more thinking

outside the reptilian brainstem.

[frylock]

14. did you mean to reply me or buzzclickwhir?

i'm pretty certain you and I are on the same page regarding the overreaching surveillance.

[Generic Other]

20. Oops, my apologies

I thought you were suggesting I needed to iron my tinfoil hat before wearing it. I am a bit slow today!!

[frylock]

23. ..

[Buzz Clik]

21. I think she's mad at you for not sharing some of your delicious ironing.

[Generic Other]

29. And you think you can read my mind

I am relatively certain I can leave DU and find another site where I can read yours too. Google. Or Facebook. Or Yahoo. Or Verizon. Or maybe even just some other website.

[Buzz Clik]

35. You need to understand the concept of "subthread".

Subthreads occur when posters other than the author of the OP are having a discussion. The exchange of comments in a subthread are not necessarily directed at the author of the OP.

In this case, I was simply teasing frylock for his/her use of the Bart Simpson malapropism. I most certainly was NOT opening a third front of conversation with you.

[Generic Other]

37. Since I was the subject of your comments I think that entitles me to an opinion

You are the misplaced person in this thread. Your only intent is to mock.

So go ahead and enjoy sharing your private information with us all since you advocate suich transparency. Maybe start with dick size and go up from there.

[Buzz Clik]

52. Let's see if we can agree on a summary of all this:

If someone disagrees with your views about protection of privacy, then you are ashamed of them and you suspect that they will turn you in to the government for some undisclosed reason.

And, even though I told you I agree with you in principle, I disagree with you and the next thing we know is that I'll be posting the size of my schlong right here on this thread.

But, the way you've stated your opinions is not even slightly unhinged.

Is that about it?

[quinnox]

17. I think the post was agreeing with you

basically they were saying its ironic that the reply above said "stop being afraid", when they are the ones defending the spying program which has one if its main aims as being to protect "Amuricans" from the terrorists.

[Buzz Clik]

22. Actually, I wasn't defending anything.

I just found the OP to be bizarre.

[Generic Other]

27. Of course you do

That is the point. In your world view, I am bizarre for valuing the one thing I believe I ought to be able to control -- my right to privacy.

That means, I have the right to form opinions contrary to yours, I have the right to keep my medical records private, my employment and educational records secure from prying eyes, my phone records, my personal business, my face, retina, fingerprints -- all private unless you have probable cause and a warrant to do otherwise.

I will do everything in my power to prevent myself from becoming your personal data mining project.

[iemitsu]

30. I'd like a look at your pee please.

[Generic Other]

32. Blech!

I almost peed myself laughing.

[Buzz Clik]

33. No, that was not my point.

That means, I have the right to form opinions contrary to yours, I have the right to keep my medical records private, my employment and educational records secure from prying eyes...

I completely agree with all this.

However, I found your immediate indictment of those who do not agree with you to be strange: "I am ashamed that you are my fellow citizen... How much longer before you turn me in and testify against me for having unorthodox thinking?"

Sorry, but that comes across as a bit unhinged, even though you and I basically agree.

[Generic Other]

40. Unhinged? For wanting to lock the door in my private space?

As I said, I did not come to this position in the last few weeks. I do not have much patience with dishonest people of any sort -- the self-deluding especially.

Those who insinuate that only people who have something to hide fear the level of surveillance in this country are making a false accusation. They are not to be trusted. Not with my life. Certainly not with my privacy.

If I am unhinged it is not because of my stance. It is because of your easy acquiescence of my rights.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. K&R And you know exactly who will be screaming the loudest

as we move ever closer to this. But rest assured it will be the liberal's fault.

[geek tragedy]

5. You really tore that straw man apart. nt

[jwirr]

11. I hear you but what bothers me is that both consevatives and liberals are talking about not trusting

Big Government. The problem is that we both mean different things. They want us to cut all social programs and we want to keep them out of our private lives. Maybe it is not the size of the government we should be afraid of. Maybe it is the ideology of the elected officials within the government.

[Octafish]

12. I'm reporting you for oldthink.

As your words on DU stand for virtual eternity in Utah somewhere, consider it done.

Citizens and their servants and cannon fodder in the future will consider your words to be those of the patriot, one who believes in what the Constitution says -- that no man is above the law, even the commander-in-chief. If not revolutionary, they will probably sound alien.

BTW: Not really reporting you, Generic Other. I do want to plug an antidote for Big Brother:

http://littlesis.org/

[Generic Other]

25. Little Sister! Let that be me!

I am not ashamed of my words -- just of the direction this country has taken through much of my life.

[iemitsu]

28. Thank you Octafish, I was unaware of the existence of

Little Sister until just moments ago.
Its good to know that all the siblings are working to protect me from harm.

[randome]

13. I think everyone fears Big Brother.

The point of contention is do we have a Big Brother now? I don't see it.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[spin]

39. We may not have Big Brother today but we may ten or twenty years from now if ...

we continue down the same path. It might easily occur under a conservative administration and make life difficult for liberals.

When and if that day occurs the terrorists will have won.

[iemitsu]

16. Excellent post my friend

This part especially, "And I am afraid of you because you insinuate that those who do object to being spied on are guilty of hiding some wrongdoing. And you don't see how contemptible that is for you to imply such a thing."
I fear those, who can't or won't think for themselves, who still buy the Cold War BS that we wear the white hats, and who believe that any good could come from allowing the government to collect more information on us than we have ourselves. These "smug" characters will be the McCarthyite creeps, who rat on their neighbors for questioning the status-quo, who become the neighborhood watch-people and morality-police justified by the security state, and they will be the reason we all lose our freedom and any hope for a democratic solution to the problems we face as a nation and a world.
Thank you for posting your wonderful artwork and your comments.

[DeSwiss]

18. K&R

[Avalux]

19. I read 1984 in high school and it scared the crap out of me.

It made such an impact on me that I know it's been an influence on how much I value privacy - the RIGHT to privacy.

Now 30 years later, Big Brother is a reality. I can't say I'm shocked.

[MineralMan]

24. Nice rant!

You go!

[blkmusclmachine]

26. We're all Germans now.

[KurtNYC]

38. ...old Tom Jefferson rolling in his grave...

http://vimeo.com/12429287

[Generic Other]

46. Ouch!

That hurts, doesn't it? Sometimes I feel such a sense of failure when I think of what our founders hoped for our nation and what we have become.

I think I want to hear more of Clan Dyken's music!

[panader0]

31. Sorry--I choose not to be afraid.

It isn't because I'm "okay" with government listening.
It isn't because I'm smug.
It isn't because I have "nothing to hide"
It isn't because I have never heard of Nazis.

I just choose not to live in fear.
Sure I wish that programs like the NSA didn't exist.
But I know well that our government, our banks, our stores, our libraries, our police and many many more have been gathering and storing information for years and years. I have a police record-two misdemeanor pot possession busts, one DUI.
I don't worry when I drive that "they" are after me. I don't worry when I post on DU that agent Mike is on my case.
I could not live that way, in fear all the time.
I choose not to be afraid, just as I choose to be happy.
Please don't be ashamed of me. (Oh, and I promise I won't turn you in, whatever that means)

[Generic Other]

34. You also choose

to be "happy" while you
watch your nation embark on endless wars,

you choose not to "worry"
as one by one they restrict and infringe on your rights
in banks, libraries, airports....

you choose not to live in "fear"
but you have an arrest record that means you already gave up your rights.

I have never so much as had a traffic ticket.

And I have nothing to "hide" either.
But my secrets are my own.

If you want to share your information, feel free to do so.
You have that freedom.

I should have the same.

[panader0]

53. How ridiculous can you get?

I'm Happy to "watch my nation embark on endless wars"? LOL
I choose not to live in FEAR. Get it?

[Buzz Clik]

36. +1

[Skittles]

41. you're just NOT.GETTING.IT.

[randome]

42. Get a life! Oh. Wait. It sounds like you have one.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[quinnox]

44. no need to apologize, there are many with the same type of thinking

in fact, probably the big majority.

[FarCenter]

43. If privacy is the protector of your rights, then if privacy is compromised you have no rights.

Therefore, your rights must be based on a legal guarantee, not on privacy.

For example, if privacy is the only thing that protects your DNA from use by insurance companies in setting health insurance prices, then if the information that you will inevitably and expensively succumb to Huntington's disease becomes public, you will not be able to afford insurance. And once the information is public you have no way to make it private again, given the properties of the internet. So any violation of privacy is a permanent catastrophe so far as that person and that piece of data is concerned.

The better solution is to legally prohibit the insurance companies from accessing and using DNA of applicants in pricing insurance policies.

[FiveGoodMen]

51. Completely agree

If we got rid of victimless crimes and corporate personhood, we wouldn't need privacy nearly as much as we do now.

[Progressive dog]

45. Got it, I'm gonna stop wearing my flag pin,

at least where they might see me.

[Generic Other]

55. You wear a flag pin?

I associate it with that authoritarian mindset that makes me so nervous. And really slimy politicians. Sad how they have turned the flag into an accessory of tyranny.

I hope you wear it for more appropriate reasons. The sleazebags had no right to stain it as they have done.

[kitt6]

47. Why now?

Why not when Bush and Carlyle group? Connect the dots, infidels.

[Generic Other]

50. Excuse me?

I made that poster during the Bush era. Bush, Carlyle, Blackwater dot dot dot.

The old evil does not negate the new. And what's with the "infidel" comment? Are you trying to scare me too?

[Generic Other]

48. I do not approve of spies and informants

A few months ago, a certain DUer stated he was keeping track of the "recs" of DUers on a spreadsheet. I have not recommended a post since then. In fact I unrecommended every one I had made previously.

Because one person betrayed my trust here.

[Art_from_Ark]

49. Excellent post

Back in the '70s, when I read 1984, we were always told that we had it so much better than the Soviet Union, East Germany, Red China, etc., because their citizens were being spied on and had no right to privacy.

[MisterP]

54. *loved* this Orwell fanfic extended into the 90s

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=242381

[Generic Other]

56. It won't let me in but what an interesting idea

For one, Winston would be fighting to regain his true feelings and emotions, the thoughts they cleansed his mind of thinking. Because that was his assumption in 1984. That they could not take his private thoughts from him. And they did. They were able to change what he believed to be true and how he felt. They were able to control even words and their meanings, so he could not even articulate an independent thought. And they re-wrote history, so that evil men became heroes and vice versa. And they showed that even love was not strong enough to overcome their conditioning.

It is hard to imagine a more depressing sequel. Winston retina scanned, x-rayed, patted down, probed, inspected, tested, screened, profiled, and classified each day before going on the internet to post the talking points of the day on all the blogs and websites. And he probably doesn't like women anymore after Julia.

[MisterP]

58. this part especially

"So, Amy, how would you kill a Eurasian?" Steven looked at me and asked.
...
"I would tell them to kill themselves. ... After flushing their minds of unorthodox thought. ... Because, when traitors are executed, they will die in love with Big Brother... Their minds will finally be pure..."

[Generic Other]

59. And with that we are back full circle

to a bonfire, a supplicant, a forced confession and death.

Almost suggests that no matter what roads we take we will always lead ourselves back to the same hellish destinations unless we learn to find our way!

[Egalitarian Thug]

57. Not afraid, just as invisible as possible and engaged in guerrilla resistance.

Throw a wrench into the machine whenever you can. Refuse to be a part of it. Insist on dealing with people whenever possible. Things like that. It is far more effective than they lead you to believe.