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Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?
gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?" The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?
Am I just accustomed to old ways? Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia? What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?"
Sorry, sir--not to be rude--but I don't quite buy into your "big question". (c'mon... peaches??) There are many other real-world, legitimate examples of our freedoms eroded.
From Dictionary.com:
demagoguery:
n : impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace.
Sigs cause cancer.
First of all, by Orwell's definition, the Brother has to control not only your present and future, but to also be able to change the past.
Q: When was the last time the Bush administration changed the past?
A: Never, so whatever we have here, it is not yet 1984.
Second, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Unless you download pornography or plan arson, why should you object to being monitored on the internet or at your store?
Third, biological/organic material is ideally suited for preserving and transporting infectious agents. Peaches are perfect for storing bacteria due to the availability of sugar, moisture, and organic acids.
If anything, eggs should also be added to the watch list as it is the only means for growing smallpox and influenza viruses available to the terrorists. In fact, eggs are currently used to manufacture vaccines against the said viruses.
Fourth, and I paraphrase the Administration spokesman here, I would rather the government collected my call records than my remains
Fifth, the Bluetooth and Wireless technology can be used to control remotely-piloted aereal drones used for terrorism, and must thus be treated as dual-use technology; all foreigners must be required to acquire a deemed exports license to own, operate, or examine the said technology. Manuals should be classified.
Sixth, none of you liberals objected when the Clintons were killing Foster, murdering teenagers with trains, flying in cocaine, and selling missile technology to China (which since then has implemented the sold Aegis, nuclear isotope, and manned-spaceflight technology).
And finally, why do you hate America so much!!!!!11
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Its Big Brother, but its a distributed Big brother.
*sigh*
Big Brother was not a tryanny of observation, it was a tyranny of control.
Go back and read that (god-awful) book again. Note the (thorughly depressing and rather insipid) plotline. Pay special attention to the description of how Big Brother operates.
I guess this sounds kind of defeatist but take the federal minimum wage as an example. How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour?
Their voices aren't heard because they don't give a flying rat's ass.
If they gave a flying rat's ass about anything, they'd be making more than minimum wage.
Next question?
The key difference being, of course, that these corner grocers didn't enter your information into a central database that is accessible by who-knows-whom for purposes legitimate or not.
I've been looking for someone to offer the old "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about" argument so I could jump down their throats, but I'm pleased to say that you're the closest that anyone's come so far. I'm still reading, though...
Glenn Greenwald? Master of sock puppetry and a certifiable net.kook.
m l
http://instapundit.com/archives/031632.php
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/003902.ht
Wow, looks like someone must have just taken a "social problems" class in college last spring.
Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones...
Actually yes, minimum wage jobs are the easy ones. Minimum wage jobs are either for lazy people or stupid people. No one, under any circumstance known to man, should be making minimum wage in America if they are motivated at all. I worked with illegal aliens when I worked at KFC in high school, and they made around $8-$9 an hour (and overtime). Some made more than that. They did a job that most Americans would hate (expecially for that pay), but they are not making nearly minimum wage
I dont care if your parents were homeless, you still have just as many opportunities as your average illegal alien. Find a program that helps homeless get a first job. If your area doesnt have one, walk 100 miles to an area that does. Do some hard work. I did roofing for one summer in college, and worked with a guy who actually got the job while he was homeless in a shelter. It paid $14 an hour under the table (about 50-60 hours a week, no overtime pay). That was about $750 a week, but it was the worst work I ever did (and I grew up on a farm). You could afford an apartment in 2 weeks.
The ONLY people making minimum wage are LAZY, STUPID, or in highschool. I have known many people who made minimum wage, have known illegal aliens and homeless people, and have NEVER seen an exception. But in this "politically correct" world, we cannot call anyone what they are anymore. They are disadvantaged, not lazy. They are uneducated, not stupid. Survival does not require a high school education. Someone who cannot survive in this society (and at least can speak a language, any language) cannot blame anyone except themselves.
I still think we should be doing more to help disadvantaged people work their way up in society. But anyone who is still making minimum wage today is beyond help, because they are the problem.
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill
Flat-out false. Given that, how much of the rest of the article can I trust?
yeah.. those damn poor.. we should just exterminate them via incineration.. *end sarcastic rant*
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