I never thought I'd have this thoughts in the US. Never.
You need to read more books. Start with something about coal mine strikes, or the general history of the labor rights movement.
The reality is, nobody is going to shoot you and your friends in the head for marching around chanting about NSA surveillance. They won't even point firehoses at you, or sic dogs on you. You are freer than Americans have been at virtually any other point in our country's history.
Indeed. Labor history in the US is riddled with some very scary things.
To add to that, I'd also recommend Eight Hours For What We Will. It's an excellent look at another aspect of labor history--the history of working class leisure. Very fascinating and insightful.
Thomas, have you ever done work for the NSA?
Don't be a tool.
I'm not trying to be, I'm simply trying to gain an understanding of whether your statements may come from a place of bias. I am sorry if it came off offensive.
Even if his comments were as an NSA employee, the comments still stand.
And it's really not that hard to look up a user's profile to see where they work if they put that sort of information there.
It wasn't your question that was offensive, but his rude response.
Well, yes, no, or no comment?
I recall you checking me on a similar point once upon a time.
Edit: for what it's worth, I agree with your observation that things aren't as bad as, say, they were with the Pinkertons breaking strikes up.
Do be a tool.
Today at noon, I hope to see tptacek-class crypto experts at our Seattle Westlake Mall, I hope to see some crypto hackavists providing popular personal security advice and tools.
A readable introduction to the bits of US history that high-school textbooks delicately gloss over is Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Includes not only an intro to labor history, but also to civil rights history, and American Indian war-of-extermination history, and of course the charming US imperial history of the 20th century. (Not that any other country's imperial history is much prettier.)
>> The reality is, nobody is going to shoot you and your friends in the head for marching around chanting about NSA surveillance.
Wow are you naive. You sound like a plant. These FBI documents reveal just how free we really are today. I know right. Trust us, we're from the government.
http://rt.com/usa/fbi-assassination-ows-sniper-227/ http://rt.com/usa/fbi-assassination-ows-sniper-227/
"Freer"? The number of citizens in prison has vastly accelerated in the last 20 years [1]. This alone is proof that we are not freer. No need to shoot someone in the head when you can throw them in jail for a joke on facebook [2], and best of all, hand the bill back to taxpayers.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...
[2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129617/teen-jailed-for-facebook-comment-reportedly-beat-up-behind-bars http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129...
That kid doesn't deserve what happened to him. That being said, what do you think the response should be for publicly threatening to kill school children? Remember, threats of violence have never been protected speech.
Along these lines (and without disagreeing with most of the grandparent post), I think it's good to look outside US borders as well as within them.
For example, a frequent objection to the government of today is its willingness to engage in drone strikes. It's true that these represent a significant change in battle, since US is risking only some flying hardware but no longer a pilot. It's also true that whenever we attack someone elsewhere we risk creating a new enemy who wishes to avenge the first target.
On the other hand, this has to be viewed in the context of diminishing casualties over time. Drone strikes are far more discriminating than cruise missile attacks, which were the preferred means of retaliation 20-30 years ago; and cruise missile strikes are in turn more discriminating than tactics like carpet bombing of 40-50 years ago. It's instructive to compare this with America's first outing on the international stage, the Spanish-American war (1895-98), which was rapidly followed by the Philippine-American war (1899-1902), when the newly-acquired territory of the Philippines promptly rebelled. The latter conflict was truly horrific, with the US engaging in what would be indisputably classed as genocide today. Moral low points of the 'war on terror' have involved US soldiers photographed in mocking poses with prisoners of war or dead bodies. Back then, veterans were proud to pose atop the massed bones of thousands, in scenes as gruesome as anything from WW2. If you can overlook the messy design and are interested in the history, this is about the most comprehensive resource online: http://moviephilippines.blogspot.com/2013/04/documentary-philippine-american-war.html http://moviephilippines.blogspot.com/2013/04/documentary-phi... ...but given that these events took place over a century ago, books are still a better resource (which was how I learned about it).
My point here is not to say there's 'nothing to see here,' but to warn against a kind of historical revisionism that paints the past in idealistic terms as some sort of Eden from which we have since fallen, because appeals to the idea of a noble past to which we must turn back can be leveraged to resurrect injustice as easily as ideals.
I strongly recommend looking for the Penguin Classics edition of the Federalist Papers, which contains an outstanding introduction of ~70 pages by historian Isaac Kramnick which delineates the factors and factions that gave birth to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The actual positions of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists still echo through American politics today, and it's worth remembering that the (many) opponents of the Constitution considered it a tyrannical imposition on what had up to then been a confederacy of free States. Whether that change in the form of government made Americans more or less free remains a matter of intense dispute.
> They won't even point firehoses at you, or sic dogs on you.
The'll just round you up like cattle in big orange nets and arrest you. Guess that's a little better though.
You can also look at recent history and see the progression in the last 10 years. Although I believe you're right nobody will shoot you in the head tomorrow, we don't know how worse this is going to get in the next 10 or 20 years.
With due respect, I believe this is exactly the wrong interpretation of our present circumstances in the context of history. In the events you cite (and for most of this country's history prior to now), people actually had the power to organize and effect change, which at the time, could only ever be met with brute force by the powers-that-be.
The government didn't have the capability of near-omniscience, down to the level of an individual. They couldn't video-surveil entire cities in real time. They couldn't execute military action at massive scale. They didn't operate in a climate of such overwhelming political apathy that allowing military forces to operate domestically, seize people off the street, and throw them in a hole, forever, generates little more than an online petition and a few calls to Congress.
In short, we are orders of magnitude less free than we have ever been, simply by virtue of the incomprehensible power of the federal government. Just because they have not deigned to exercise it on a large scale (up till now), doesn't mean they can't, or won't. It just means they haven't needed to (yet). As is the case on many topics, I believe Frank Zappa summed it up best:
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
> You need to read more books. Start with something about coal mine strikes, or the general history of the labor rights movement.
The reality is, nobody is going to shoot you and your friends in the head for marching around chanting about NSA surveillance.
Hmmm. That feels a little condescending. I could be wrong.
At any rate, I didn't say that they'd shoot, firehose or otherwise physically interface with you in any way. There are far more effective ways to cause pain in the modern age than to actually touch someone. For example, the IRS could harass the shit out of you for the next ten years. That'd be life changing. Or how about your boss and co-workers get phone calls asking about your "suspicious activities".
Yet again, here's the link from another thread on HN:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352432/free-justin-carter-now-charles-c-w-cooke http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352432/free-justin-car...
How about them apples? They might not shoot you, but they can sure as hell ruin your life.
My point is that the regime we seem to be constructing --a system where we are all naked and exposed in front of our government at many levels-- is one where we become their property to do with as they wish. They gather data on you at every level and can then turn your own life against you.
The point is that our government should not have the power to do this. Period.
You need to read more books. Start with something about coal mine strikes, or the general history of the labor rights movement.
Or look at the LGBT history. For example, the modern gay rights movement in USA, started with the Stonewall riots in 1969. At the time cross-dressing or drag was illegal, you have to wear enough items of "gender appropriate" clothing, if you're a man wearing make up, you were arrested! Dancing with members of the same sex was illegal and an arrestable offence. So much for their constitutional rights.