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If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Everyone, including police, form threat models in their ow

If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Everyone, including police, form threat models in their own minds all the time. Ever avoided the hoodied skinhead hiding his hands in his pockets in a dark alley? Threat model. The model isn't grounds for prosecution, but it is reasonable grounds to adjust your response.

pjc50 11y ago
If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Because we know this will be implemented in a partisan way. "Dissent" implies that there is a single politics from which everything different must be considered suspect. Simply using the word implies totalitarianism. You can see this in the US where the white people talking about the violent overthrow of the government somehow aren't considered terrorists and are relatively unmolested even if they actually occupy Federal land and buildings, but a nonwhite kid holding a toy gun gets shot in a playground. Edit: just to drive the point home, does the threat model include a database of gun owners? Do we think gun ownership might be correlated with crime? Or is it illegal to investigate that as it is for the CDC?
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  How does "dissent" imply totalitarianism? If someone was to believe that women should not be allowed to vote today in the USA, they would be dissenters. Does that mean the USA is totalitarian? As far as I can tell, they're relatively unmolested because: http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo
jMyles 11y ago
> political dissent is correlated to violence In some important ways, this is already a non-sequitur. First, let's stipulate that dissent is positively correlated to violence, although I don't know how exactly you'd measure that. I suspect that, for reasonable measurements, it's not and that in fact it's negatively correlated. But let's stipulate. To use the example of the current political configuration of the United States: the government is ruthlessly violent, not only within its borders but around the world. So, which is more strongly "correlated" to violence, support for the government or dissent? If you hobnob with government officials, does this make you more closely connected to violence than if you associate with dissenters?

pjc50 11y ago

If political dissent is correlated to violence, why shouldn't it be a parameter in the threat model? Because we know this will be implemented in a partisan way. "Dissent" implies that there is a single politics from which everything different must be considered suspect. Simply using the word implies totalitarianism. You can see this in the US where the white people talking about the violent overthrow of the government somehow aren't considered terrorists and are relatively unmolested even if they actually occupy Federal land and buildings, but a nonwhite kid holding a toy gun gets shot in a playground. Edit: just to drive the point home, does the threat model include a database of gun owners? Do we think gun ownership might be correlated with crime? Or is it illegal to investigate that as it is for the CDC?

sliverstorm 11y ago
How does "dissent" imply totalitarianism? If someone was to believe that women should not be allowed to vote today in the USA, they would be dissenters. Does that mean the USA is totalitarian? As far as I can tell, they're relatively unmolested because: http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo http://imgur.com/AYNRxlo

jMyles 11y ago

> political dissent is correlated to violence In some important ways, this is already a non-sequitur. First, let's stipulate that dissent is positively correlated to violence, although I don't know how exactly you'd measure that. I suspect that, for reasonable measurements, it's not and that in fact it's negatively correlated. But let's stipulate. To use the example of the current political configuration of the United States: the government is ruthlessly violent, not only within its borders but around the world. So, which is more strongly "correlated" to violence, support for the government or dissent? If you hobnob with government officials, does this make you more closely connected to violence than if you associate with dissenters?