4 ms·
That's a classic slippery slope, isn't it? How would you know and how would you stop it. Are you able to stop the surveillance, the secret courts, harassment of
by tobbyb 10y ago
That's a classic slippery slope, isn't it? How would you know and how would you stop it. Are you able to stop the surveillance, the secret courts, harassment of activists and whistle blowers, the double speak and duplicitous justifications today?
You won't even know were it not for Snowden at great cost to himself, not an easy decision when the first impulse is to put your head down. And 'allegations' would be met with 'tinfoil hat' you just used.
How will you then detect and stop it tomorrow? Wait for another Snowden? Another sacrifice? Is there some defined point at which the population just stands up and says no. Or is it just faith?
Our democratic systems allow us to say yes, but not no. There are huge flaws with accountability, choice and capture by vested interests that remain unsolved. And now we have creeping surveillance, self serving justifications and arbitrary governance processes to deal with. Few of us have the privilege to stand up and say no, too engrossed in day to day life.
There is no clear mechanism to say no beyond protest and we can see how repressively liberal western democracies are dealing with dissent and protest today, infiltrating and tracking activists, protests and general harassment, something unthinkable at the height of liberal posturing during the bulk of the cold war. Isn't it way beyond the point of faith.
- throwanem 10y ago> That's a classic slippery slope, isn't it? Korea spent thirty-five years occupied by imperial Japan, a regime never much noted for the softness of its grip, and after the war, was partitioned and the northern part given directly into the hands of the Soviet Union as a proto-Cold War quid pro quo. That's not so much what you could call a "slippery slope", as it is torture and brainwashing on a societal, rather than an individual, scale.