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For a country that staged a revolution over a tea tax modern Americans sure seem to love having their rights trampled.
by DarmokTanagra 2mo ago
For a country that staged a revolution over a tea tax modern Americans sure seem to love having their rights trampled.
- bpodgursky 2mo agoOver a tea tax without representation. Very common to forget that part!
- troyvit 2mo agoYep. We asked for the nightmare we've brought upon ourselves
- DarmokTanagra 2mo agoDo 84 year olds on life support count as representation?
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoAccording to voting turnout: yes. That's the thing the 70+ year old voterbase learned from their peak working year. And yet there are still so many working class people who try to profess how "voting is useless, it doesn't change anything".
- DarmokTanagra 2mo agoIn American style representative democracy there certainly are places where voting is useless depending on your political affiliation.
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoUseless because everyone around you genuinely thinks differently from you? Or useless because said 70+ yo retired asset owners with more means to vote without more than the working class? Big difference in issue. You can't gerrymander a local bill so those kinds of votes are arguably more important than nationals. And you'd be surprised how big a difference a visit with a few dozen of your peers can make to a townhall meeting. That's something we seem to forget until our backs are truly to a wall.
- bpodgursky 2mo agoOnly if you are too stubborn to register as the dominant party and vote in the primary.
- DarmokTanagra 2mo ago"Voting works, you just need to compromise your beliefs and pretend to be someone that hates everything you believe in to participate!" Hallmark of a healthy democracy.
- bpodgursky 2mo agoI think that's an exaggeration, everyone does this in a FPTP system. I've never voted for a candidate in any party I particularly liked, you just pick the closest.
- crossroadsguy 2mo agoLike it's common to forget, or not mention more trivial aspects like land something something, and that a whole lot were literally wealthy men from just one place, merchants (smugglers someone said?), some people owed someone else? nope?, slavery etc? Don't think so :D
- ergocoder 2mo agoBecause many people agree with having cameras to help reduce/monitor crimes. From their views, the right isn't trampled. It's a win
- knollimar 2mo agoThe whole "government can't spy on you, but can pay a corporation to do it" is crazy. From requesting data from big tech to this, it's just wild. It feels like some juvenile "I can't kill you but I can pay this guy $200k to make you go away"
- ergocoder 2mo agoThese are public areas. It's not spying. Almost every house in my neighborhood has 1-2 cameras pointing around their houses. When there's an issue, my neighbors share the footages with the group, and that's so useful. And I live in a very very democrat state/city. Also, we should definitely address the privacy and access control issue with Flock. Removing the cameras isn't the right solution.
- croon 2mo agoIf it is/can be used to track citizens arbitrarily regardless of crime, it is spying, regardless where the cameras are. You might be right that the issues could be solved without removing the cameras, but they definitely will be solved by removing the cameras.
- ergocoder 2mo ago> they definitely will be solved by removing the cameras We'll see.
- krunck 2mo agoGovernment uses the private sector to get around the constitution, the private sector uses government to get around regulation. Working as it was designed to.
- alex43578 2mo agoWhat right does a Flock camera violate?
- eternauta3k 2mo agoNot American, but 1. I don't think Texas was around during the Tea Party, and 2. Property is also a right, so this is just about how much privacy you are willing to sacrifice for how much property.
- alex43578 2mo agoI've yet to hear a convincing connection between driving down a public road and having privacy - in fact, the outside of a registered motor vehicle on a public road is about as non-private as you can expect. You already have a unique plate tied to the registered owner of the car, and a range of court cases have held you can be stopped, ordered out of the car, questioned (by both police and immigration enforcement), etc.
- awolf 2mo agoIt's not about your vehicle being seen in public at a single point in time, it's the fact that this system captures everyone's patterns of life. School, doctor, shooting range, church, play, protest. When, when, how often. All tracked and packaged up in a commercial database, without warrant or justification. If you happened upon me on a public street, I'd say "that I'm here on this street now is not private information". If you installed sensors across the entire city with 2-5 block resolution and could tell me everywhere I have been in the last 30 days (and hence where I'm liable to be tomorrow), I'd say "you are grossly violating my right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search - this is wrong".
- alex43578 2mo agoIs the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? They've built a more comprehensive pattern of life on you than a few points in the city you may have driven past. All that is subject to search and all of it is being sold now to random people. The panic over Flock is silly unless you're already living in a hut in the woods, because it's not capturing 5% of what you describe. But, I guarantee your phone provider, Meta, and email provider do know all those things.
- worldsavior 2mo agoWeird how people view "Americans" as different species. Never have I seen someone say "Europeans", "Germans"... "These Americans", "Modern Americans".
- DarmokTanagra 2mo agoThe term is "nationality", it describes a person's legal bond and citizenship tied to a specific country, usually gained by birth or naturalization. If you have never heard of that before then someone failed you during your education.
- drawfloat 2mo agoYou've never seen someone refer to Europeans or Germans..?
- Ylpertnodi 2mo agoJust wait until you see someone of a different color!
- dfxm12 2mo agoLots of people in different places are pushing back on these things. Texas has a gubernatorial election coming up in November. We'll see if Texans are ok with surveillance or actually want to punish the people responsible and restore some sense of freedom.