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Patriot Act Game Pokes Fun at Government
The Miami Herald is reporting that a new game based on Monopoly is taking a crack at Patriot Act and what creator Michael Kabbash describes as the curtailed freedom that has resulted. From the article: "The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties. 'I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say "We're all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left," he said. 'I'm like "Yeah, that's the point."'"
Have you ever written a representative or senator? Ever gotten anything besides a standard intern-generated-and-stamped form letter? The only people who actually have access to politicians are big donors, and they're generally part of the system and part of the problem in the first place.
Petitions are nice, but the real way to raise awareness is to go to the people, not the politicians. If a game like this can raise awareness, more power to it. At the very least, it made some newspapers, and now Slashdot.
So don't dismiss it so quickly: I would say the creator of this game has already done more than you to bring about change. Awareness is important.
Having been one of those who not only has written dozens of letters to many elected officials, protested, mobilized my neighbors, started website communities, and even created two movies. I think that the right thing to do *is* to create a game like this to get the word out. The average person doesn't care about politics, but a game like this is something that will spark interest. The only way to get our rights back is to influence a large number of people. The game will influence a large number of people.
This game sounds eerily similair to Police State, a game that was developed in the 1960's and inspired by life in the Soviet Union. The goal was a little different - you were trying to become the Soviet Premier (basically, the only person with any rights) while avoiding being denounced by others and sent to Siberia. The game board was even vaguely Monopoly-ish (in appearance, not in play).
If you're curious, you can see the game here.
Must... think up... something... clever!
My boss calls himself 'fairly conservative' and I call myself a left-wing lunatic. And guess what? on almost every issue that the two of us think really matters right now, we're in 100% agreement: free speech, privacy, civil liberties, and general government-intervention-in-private-life. When we talk about this we decide that we would've been at completely opposite ends of the spectrum when Carter was in office but by now we're almost indistinguishable in what we'll be voting for next time around. Now if only someone that actually encapsulated what we want was going to be running, but that's probably not going to happen.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
To answer your question directly, however, right now they are going after the Muslims (if the story of Jose Padilla doesn't outrage you, you need to have another look) and the poor (dismantling welfare/public health/education/affordable housing/manufacturing base, and building jails to handle the results).
I have a lot of American-Arab in-laws and they are regularly mistreated as they go from airport to airport. The only time that my wife did not recieve a "random" security check was after she married me and got my American last name.
My brother in law, who couldnt hurt a fly, has been checked every time and treated rudely and even interrogted. His high school band went on a trip to Washington DC and a tough-looking Secret Service agent asked him if his last name was "some kind of joke."
My father-in-law regularly runs into the same kind of problems.
These are merely anecdotal, but this shows that those in official positions sometimes rely on predujices to decide who is "suspicious." This has been true even before the Patriot Act. It just makes me worry that these officials will label someone as suspicious just because of their last name. Why arent they looking for better evidence instead of wasting their time strip searching everyone whose name last name ends with Al- ?
Article VI. states:
The framers apparently understood that the purpose of government is to uphold the innate rights and freedoms of mankind. Hamilton said:
Shouldn't all this mean that legislation like the PATRIOT Act is null and void? Maybe elected representatives should be required to study the concepts that the Constitution is derived from. For that matter, maybe these things should be taught in public schools.
The Bill of Rights was gutted when that airliner blew up when heading from JFK to Paris. President William Jefferson Clinton signed an anti terrorism bill that completely emasculated the fourth ammendment BEFORE the cause of the disaster was confirmed.
Your loss of rights has been going on for a long time, it's time you took a look at the past 15 years of legislation passed and WOKE UP!
Stop blaming one faction of todays government for finally showning you that YOU have no rights anymore. The assault on your civil liberties started two administrations ago.
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This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Why would all these people play along, when in many cases, it meant their own deaths? These are not top-secret, covert, CIA/NSA/FBI/military operatives we're talking about. I could maybe buy that those guys would play along and keep quiet in the name of "patriotism." But why the airline execs? The air traffic controllers? Why wouldn't someone have come forward with a story supporting your crazy assertions?
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