8 ms·

All that doesn't count because the government doesn't physically attack your house with with black helicopters if you make a freedom blog (that nobody reads).

by Drakim 11y ago

All that doesn't count because the government doesn't physically attack your house with with black helicopters if you make a freedom blog (that nobody reads). Often I feel that we in the west have our own "whatabout-ism" when it comes to these issues. To those, I want to ask, if you wanted to enact fascistic surveillance and control over western society, how would you go about it differently from what we have today? Would you really want to bring attention to yourself by being loud and violent, like we seem to expect "real" evil governments are? Or would you just do it secretly, mix it up with other issues like child pornography, terrorism and piracy, and just paint the alarmists as overreacting?

igravious 11y ago
Yes. Because Julian Assange is free to come and go as he pleases. And of course Edward Snowden is happily drinking cocktails in Hawaii. And Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was never detained at freedom-loving Heathrow airport. Chelsea Manning posts freely and regularly on her blog. See also Jeremy Hammond. Also Aaron Swartz. Also Daniel Elsberg. Also Lavabit. Also... Ok, sorry for the sarcasm. Maybe literally they don't physically attack your house with black helicopters. But they will bring the full force of the legal system on top of you backed up by threat and/or use of physical force. And the tendency you describe is I think more properly denoted "whataboutery"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery
- mikeash 11y ago
  David Miranda is alive and free. I won't defend what was done to him, but if that's on your list as among the worst anti-freedom things the government does to its enemies, we're doing great.
  - jabgrabdthrow 11y ago
    An honest debater attacks the strongest points, not the weakest ones. All you've done is given the parent comment the experience to make all examples in a list roughly equally bad.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      The principle of charity has nothing to do with honesty. I agree that it's generally a good idea, but it is unrelated to being "an honest debater." Maybe you should apply it yourself and respond to my strongest points instead of my weakest ones.
      - pessimizer 11y ago
        1) Not replying exclusively to the weakest example given in a series of examples has a lot more to do with honesty than charity. 2) You only made one point, and that was the only one responded to.
        mikeash 11y ago
        1) How so? 2) My one point wasn't responded to at all.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  While I agree with the general sentiment here, I fail to see the relevance of the last three names. Even though I'm infinitely appreciative of his work with RECAP, in the end Swartz was just some guy that killed himself because he was too scared to go to court. Ellsberg had his charges dropped and is a free man. Levinson just broke the law for no apparent reason. (Snowden absolutely expected that email to be compromised)
- aaronem 11y ago
  You seem to suggest that a government which doesn't behave in accord with your wishes is illegitimate thereby. It's hardly unique these days, but one might hope nonetheless to see you stop short of treating it as something to be proud of.
mikeash 11y ago
The biggest obstacle to enacting fascist surveillance and control over western society is getting the relevant laws through the legislature. And I don't mean laws like "all communication must be monitored, but rather "criticism of the Supreme Leader is punishable by death." Without that, none of the rest gets you to fascism. With that, all of the rest could be built in short order. I think the paranoia over potential tyrannical uses of this stuff to be misplaced. If you want to avoid tyranny, you need to prevent your leadership from being taken over by a tyrant. That's not to say that ubiquitous surveillance and such is not a worry, just that the worry isn't that it will turn our countries into Nazi Germany 2.0.
- EGreg 11y ago
  It doesn't jump straight to that. The intermediate steps usually involve one or more of: 1) A political ideology (Nazism, Communism, Islamism) 2) A real external threat (Communism, Capitalism, Islamism) 3) Sanctions or economic depression (Weimar Germany, Russia today) The real external threat is essentially a sociopolitical system that propagates itself inside the turf of another sociopolitical system. This leads to far-right war hawks, and then center-right, issuing xenophobic statements. The step before "supporting supreme leaders" is usually "suppressing enemy ideologies". Like McCarthyism in USA or anti Muslim sentiment today. Or Iran's hatred of the USA and the Shah prior to their revolution. Or Soviet hatred of capitalist bourgeouis. Or Ukraine's hatred of communists. And so forth and so on. Once "the enemy" is identified, the crackdown begins, which leads to more clamps on civil liberties. Then you might want to read the poem attributed to Martin Niemoller: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I think this all agrees with what I'm saying. It's not the NSA that's the tyrannical worry, it's the crazy politicians saying that we should only accept Christian refugees. Regarding your poem, it's the "coming for" people that's the big problem, not merely the ability. If you don't want the government to "come for" people, you need to make sure the people in charge won't do that. It's not very useful to try to make it so they can't

by Drakim 11y ago

igravious 11y ago

Yes. Because Julian Assange is free to come and go as he pleases. And of course Edward Snowden is happily drinking cocktails in Hawaii. And Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was never detained at freedom-loving Heathrow airport. Chelsea Manning posts freely and regularly on her blog. See also Jeremy Hammond. Also Aaron Swartz. Also Daniel Elsberg. Also Lavabit. Also... Ok, sorry for the sarcasm. Maybe literally they don't physically attack your house with black helicopters. But they will bring the full force of the legal system on top of you backed up by threat and/or use of physical force. And the tendency you describe is I think more properly denoted "whataboutery"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery

mikeash 11y ago
David Miranda is alive and free. I won't defend what was done to him, but if that's on your list as among the worst anti-freedom things the government does to its enemies, we're doing great.
- jabgrabdthrow 11y ago
  An honest debater attacks the strongest points, not the weakest ones. All you've done is given the parent comment the experience to make all examples in a list roughly equally bad.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    The principle of charity has nothing to do with honesty. I agree that it's generally a good idea, but it is unrelated to being "an honest debater." Maybe you should apply it yourself and respond to my strongest points instead of my weakest ones.
    - pessimizer 11y ago
      1) Not replying exclusively to the weakest example given in a series of examples has a lot more to do with honesty than charity. 2) You only made one point, and that was the only one responded to.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        1) How so? 2) My one point wasn't responded to at all.
ryanlol 11y ago
While I agree with the general sentiment here, I fail to see the relevance of the last three names. Even though I'm infinitely appreciative of his work with RECAP, in the end Swartz was just some guy that killed himself because he was too scared to go to court. Ellsberg had his charges dropped and is a free man. Levinson just broke the law for no apparent reason. (Snowden absolutely expected that email to be compromised)
aaronem 11y ago
You seem to suggest that a government which doesn't behave in accord with your wishes is illegitimate thereby. It's hardly unique these days, but one might hope nonetheless to see you stop short of treating it as something to be proud of.

mikeash 11y ago

The biggest obstacle to enacting fascist surveillance and control over western society is getting the relevant laws through the legislature. And I don't mean laws like "all communication must be monitored, but rather "criticism of the Supreme Leader is punishable by death." Without that, none of the rest gets you to fascism. With that, all of the rest could be built in short order. I think the paranoia over potential tyrannical uses of this stuff to be misplaced. If you want to avoid tyranny, you need to prevent your leadership from being taken over by a tyrant. That's not to say that ubiquitous surveillance and such is not a worry, just that the worry isn't that it will turn our countries into Nazi Germany 2.0.

EGreg 11y ago
It doesn't jump straight to that. The intermediate steps usually involve one or more of: 1) A political ideology (Nazism, Communism, Islamism) 2) A real external threat (Communism, Capitalism, Islamism) 3) Sanctions or economic depression (Weimar Germany, Russia today) The real external threat is essentially a sociopolitical system that propagates itself inside the turf of another sociopolitical system. This leads to far-right war hawks, and then center-right, issuing xenophobic statements. The step before "supporting supreme leaders" is usually "suppressing enemy ideologies". Like McCarthyism in USA or anti Muslim sentiment today. Or Iran's hatred of the USA and the Shah prior to their revolution. Or Soviet hatred of capitalist bourgeouis. Or Ukraine's hatred of communists. And so forth and so on. Once "the enemy" is identified, the crackdown begins, which leads to more clamps on civil liberties. Then you might want to read the poem attributed to Martin Niemoller: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
- mikeash 11y ago
  I think this all agrees with what I'm saying. It's not the NSA that's the tyrannical worry, it's the crazy politicians saying that we should only accept Christian refugees. Regarding your poem, it's the "coming for" people that's the big problem, not merely the ability. If you don't want the government to "come for" people, you need to make sure the people in charge won't do that. It's not very useful to try to make it so they can't