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I'm horrified at the amount of people calling him a douche and asshole in his blog comments for asserting his rights. I didn't think such submission to authorit

by poutine 16y ago

I'm horrified at the amount of people calling him a douche and asshole in his blog comments for asserting his rights. I didn't think such submission to authority had become such an American trait.

mattmaroon 16y ago
Funny, I feel the exact opposite. I'm horrified that people would consider this asserting his rights rather than being a douche. Asserting your rights is not moving to the back of the bus because your skin is the wrong color. Not just telling some customs guy who gets paid $12 an hour to answer questions mandated by Congress the answer to some insignificant questions is just being a douche.
- wrs 16y ago
  What is the "douche faction's" obsession with the pay of CBP officers? Is that somehow relevant to the discussion? He only dealt with the front-line officer for about two minutes anyway--in the back room he asked for a more-highly-paid superior and got one. So I'm assuming that makes you happier? BTW, do you have a citation for "mandated by Congress," or are you relying on the statement of the $12/hour officer for that?
  - mattmaroon 16y ago
    The point of the pay is to illustrate how far removed the person the author is being a douche to is from the people who make the policies. People in low level jobs like that are generally just trying to get through the day. Asserting that "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power" is douchebaggery in it's highest form, and it illustrates his mindset as that of man vs government. That statement alone, referring to decent people just trying to do their job as goons, qualifies the author as a douchebag. Also, how much power does a guy on a low-level government wage really feel they have? I'd bet anything they're told in their training that what they do is extremely important, that they are on the front lines in the war on terror. And they're also told that when someone refuses to cooperate (which, by the way, no terrorist would do) there's pretty much nothing they can do about it. They have what they feel is responsibility without power, which is a terrible situation for them to be in. I certainly don't know or care if those questions are mandated by Congress. (I don't find it hard to believe that they were though, or at least mandated by a group set up by Congress for that purpose.) It doesn't really matter. What I'm sure of is that they weren't mandated by the any of the people who questioned our author, especially if there are check boxes for them in some software. They probably weren't mandated by anyone who had ever met any of the author's victims, or even heard of them. And the people who mandated them will most likely never even hear of this guy or the handful of nutjobs like him.
    - argv_empty 16y ago
      The point of the pay is to illustrate how far removed the person the author is being a douche to is from the people who make the policies. People in low level jobs like that are generally just trying to get through the day. If it is not a legal requirement that they detain entrants who do not answer questions entrants are not required to answer, then someone who does so anyway does not get to use the "just doing my job" defense. Asserting that "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power" is douchebaggery in it's highest form Except this is precisely what distinguishes them from CBP non-goons.
      - mattmaroon 16y ago
        This is yet another reason why the pay is important. Low level jobs are process-oriented. They are designed to be carried out by average people. They are trained on what to do in various situations, of which this is probably one. I don't know about legal requirements, but I'd bet anything their training doesn't tell them to just say "have a nice day" when someone refuses to answer simple questions. The customs agents this guy dealt with were just doing what they were trained to do. That's all they can be expected to do, all they should do. It's unreasonable to treat them as goons for simply doing their job. They're real people, most of them probably decent ones (because really, most people are decent people) who have families to feed, mortgages to pay, cars to buy, etc. Assuming that they are not makes the author a douchebag (and one who reads way too much Orwell). There is not a distinction between goons and non-goons that can be made. He'd probably get similar results at any airport he went to because they all go through the same training program.
        dgordon 16y ago
        I don't think you can read too much Orwell, nor, in nonfiction, too much Solzhenitsyn or Milton Mayer.
        mattmaroon 16y ago
        Any Orwell other than Animal Farm is too much Orwell. Orwell's fundamental problem was that he didn't understand how organizations function, and how the whole differs from the sum of its parts. He saw only the trees and not the forest. He understood what motivated individuals well, and just extrapolated that out, which led to erroneous thinking. Aldous Huxley was quite the opposite, which is why his vision of government and society has in many ways materialized but his vision of the individual has not. There was a great post here a couple weeks back about the two that illustrated it.
tptacek 16y ago
As someone who used precisely this word to describe him, I'll say that it's his attitude and his worldview that any cooperation with law enforcement is fodder for a vast conspiracy to incarcerate him that motivated me. It is not an abrogation of your civil liberaties to answer a question. That said, I also recognize the value of what he did, and I'm glad there are douchebags like him out there, exactly like Colbert's "Douchebag of Liberty" segment about the guy who flips off patrol cops as a matter of policy. Thank you, douchebags of liberty.
- mattmaroon 16y ago
  The attitude and worldview I find more naive and paranoid than douche-baggish. What really made me think "what a tool" me was quote "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power." It's the fundamental (and obviously incorrect) assumption that they're some sort of thugs, rather than decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do, that makes the author a certified douche bag.
  - dgordon 16y ago
    "It's the fundamental (and obviously incorrect) assumption that they're some sort of thugs, rather than decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do, that makes the author a certified douche bag." I don't find that obviously incorrect. The banality of evil is probably the most important lesson in human nature of the twentieth century, and it makes many kinds of "decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do" look a lot closer to thugs -- or at best their enablers. Could he have done what he did in a less abrasive way? Probably so. But refusing to go along with even little infringements on human liberty is an essential part of eternal vigilance.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Can you explain how you managed to transit from "The banality of evil is probably the most important lesson" to "it's not obvious that the border police aren't thugs"? Are people thugs by default in your worldview? Or just all law enforcement officers?
hugh3 16y ago
Perhaps that's because where you see "asserting his rights" I just see an attention-seeking lawyer lording himself over low-paid fellow human beings with a dull and thankless task to perform. You can "assert your rights" all you want, and those include the right to be a douchebag. If I meet you at a bar and I say "Hi, how are you?" and you say "Screw you, I don't have to answer your questions!" you're well within your rights but still a douchebag. It's nice to know you have the legal right to do something stupid (burn a koran or stand on a street corner in Harlem with a sign that says "I hate niggers") but putting those legal rights to the test may still make you a douchebag. Also, I'm considering it from the point of view of the hundreds of people who were no doubt stuck behind him in the line while he threw his little hissy fit.
points 16y ago
He was being a dick for the sake of it. You don't answer an officials first question with "None of your business" unless you're being a dick, trying to get in trouble, or trying to pick a fight with them. Just tell them what they want to hear in wooly non-descriptive language. She only asked "Why were you in China" for god sake. Just answer "I like China". These moral crusader 'principle of the thing' types irritate the hell out of me.
arvinjoar 16y ago
I went to an American High School for a year and noticed that compared to Swedes, Americans tend to really respect authority. I was screamed at by a history teacher for calling him "Newell" when I should have said "Mr. Newell" (in Sweden we don't do this, so it's easy to forget). Swedes tend to be naïve when it comes to the government though, but that might be because compared to the USA the rate of corruption in Swedish government is low. But yeah, from experience I've found that Americans demand customer service from the private sector, but never from the public sector. What is up with that?

by poutine 16y ago

I'm horrified at the amount of people calling him a douche and asshole in his blog comments for asserting his rights. I didn't think such submission to authority had become such an American trait.

mattmaroon 16y ago

Funny, I feel the exact opposite. I'm horrified that people would consider this asserting his rights rather than being a douche. Asserting your rights is not moving to the back of the bus because your skin is the wrong color. Not just telling some customs guy who gets paid $12 an hour to answer questions mandated by Congress the answer to some insignificant questions is just being a douche.

wrs 16y ago
What is the "douche faction's" obsession with the pay of CBP officers? Is that somehow relevant to the discussion? He only dealt with the front-line officer for about two minutes anyway--in the back room he asked for a more-highly-paid superior and got one. So I'm assuming that makes you happier? BTW, do you have a citation for "mandated by Congress," or are you relying on the statement of the $12/hour officer for that?
- mattmaroon 16y ago
  The point of the pay is to illustrate how far removed the person the author is being a douche to is from the people who make the policies. People in low level jobs like that are generally just trying to get through the day. Asserting that "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power" is douchebaggery in it's highest form, and it illustrates his mindset as that of man vs government. That statement alone, referring to decent people just trying to do their job as goons, qualifies the author as a douchebag. Also, how much power does a guy on a low-level government wage really feel they have? I'd bet anything they're told in their training that what they do is extremely important, that they are on the front lines in the war on terror. And they're also told that when someone refuses to cooperate (which, by the way, no terrorist would do) there's pretty much nothing they can do about it. They have what they feel is responsibility without power, which is a terrible situation for them to be in. I certainly don't know or care if those questions are mandated by Congress. (I don't find it hard to believe that they were though, or at least mandated by a group set up by Congress for that purpose.) It doesn't really matter. What I'm sure of is that they weren't mandated by the any of the people who questioned our author, especially if there are check boxes for them in some software. They probably weren't mandated by anyone who had ever met any of the author's victims, or even heard of them. And the people who mandated them will most likely never even hear of this guy or the handful of nutjobs like him.
  - argv_empty 16y ago
    The point of the pay is to illustrate how far removed the person the author is being a douche to is from the people who make the policies. People in low level jobs like that are generally just trying to get through the day. If it is not a legal requirement that they detain entrants who do not answer questions entrants are not required to answer, then someone who does so anyway does not get to use the "just doing my job" defense. Asserting that "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power" is douchebaggery in it's highest form Except this is precisely what distinguishes them from CBP non-goons.
    - mattmaroon 16y ago
      This is yet another reason why the pay is important. Low level jobs are process-oriented. They are designed to be carried out by average people. They are trained on what to do in various situations, of which this is probably one. I don't know about legal requirements, but I'd bet anything their training doesn't tell them to just say "have a nice day" when someone refuses to answer simple questions. The customs agents this guy dealt with were just doing what they were trained to do. That's all they can be expected to do, all they should do. It's unreasonable to treat them as goons for simply doing their job. They're real people, most of them probably decent ones (because really, most people are decent people) who have families to feed, mortgages to pay, cars to buy, etc. Assuming that they are not makes the author a douchebag (and one who reads way too much Orwell). There is not a distinction between goons and non-goons that can be made. He'd probably get similar results at any airport he went to because they all go through the same training program.
      - dgordon 16y ago
        I don't think you can read too much Orwell, nor, in nonfiction, too much Solzhenitsyn or Milton Mayer.
        mattmaroon 16y ago
        Any Orwell other than Animal Farm is too much Orwell. Orwell's fundamental problem was that he didn't understand how organizations function, and how the whole differs from the sum of its parts. He saw only the trees and not the forest. He understood what motivated individuals well, and just extrapolated that out, which led to erroneous thinking. Aldous Huxley was quite the opposite, which is why his vision of government and society has in many ways materialized but his vision of the individual has not. There was a great post here a couple weeks back about the two that illustrated it.

tptacek 16y ago

As someone who used precisely this word to describe him, I'll say that it's his attitude and his worldview that any cooperation with law enforcement is fodder for a vast conspiracy to incarcerate him that motivated me. It is not an abrogation of your civil liberaties to answer a question. That said, I also recognize the value of what he did, and I'm glad there are douchebags like him out there, exactly like Colbert's "Douchebag of Liberty" segment about the guy who flips off patrol cops as a matter of policy. Thank you, douchebags of liberty.

mattmaroon 16y ago
The attitude and worldview I find more naive and paranoid than douche-baggish. What really made me think "what a tool" me was quote "The CBP goons want U.S. citizens to answer their questions as a ritualistic bow to their power." It's the fundamental (and obviously incorrect) assumption that they're some sort of thugs, rather than decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do, that makes the author a certified douche bag.
- dgordon 16y ago
  "It's the fundamental (and obviously incorrect) assumption that they're some sort of thugs, rather than decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do, that makes the author a certified douche bag." I don't find that obviously incorrect. The banality of evil is probably the most important lesson in human nature of the twentieth century, and it makes many kinds of "decent people just trying to do the job they are paid and trained to do" look a lot closer to thugs -- or at best their enablers. Could he have done what he did in a less abrasive way? Probably so. But refusing to go along with even little infringements on human liberty is an essential part of eternal vigilance.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Can you explain how you managed to transit from "The banality of evil is probably the most important lesson" to "it's not obvious that the border police aren't thugs"? Are people thugs by default in your worldview? Or just all law enforcement officers?

hugh3 16y ago

Perhaps that's because where you see "asserting his rights" I just see an attention-seeking lawyer lording himself over low-paid fellow human beings with a dull and thankless task to perform. You can "assert your rights" all you want, and those include the right to be a douchebag. If I meet you at a bar and I say "Hi, how are you?" and you say "Screw you, I don't have to answer your questions!" you're well within your rights but still a douchebag. It's nice to know you have the legal right to do something stupid (burn a koran or stand on a street corner in Harlem with a sign that says "I hate niggers") but putting those legal rights to the test may still make you a douchebag. Also, I'm considering it from the point of view of the hundreds of people who were no doubt stuck behind him in the line while he threw his little hissy fit.

points 16y ago

He was being a dick for the sake of it. You don't answer an officials first question with "None of your business" unless you're being a dick, trying to get in trouble, or trying to pick a fight with them. Just tell them what they want to hear in wooly non-descriptive language. She only asked "Why were you in China" for god sake. Just answer "I like China". These moral crusader 'principle of the thing' types irritate the hell out of me.

arvinjoar 16y ago

I went to an American High School for a year and noticed that compared to Swedes, Americans tend to really respect authority. I was screamed at by a history teacher for calling him "Newell" when I should have said "Mr. Newell" (in Sweden we don't do this, so it's easy to forget). Swedes tend to be naïve when it comes to the government though, but that might be because compared to the USA the rate of corruption in Swedish government is low. But yeah, from experience I've found that Americans demand customer service from the private sector, but never from the public sector. What is up with that?