Not So Nifty

[the_gneech]

Grrrroowwwlllll...

This kind of crap is why I wish the U.S. had a decent libertarian party, instead of The Immoral Mobsters vs. The Reactionary Police State.

And don't tell me it's some kind of "Bush vs. Gore" nonsense, because a Gore administration would be doing exactly this same crap right now. It's all about control; whether the tyrants on the left or the tyrants on the right have it, they both agree on that one aspect.

There are two phrases I keep remembering as things progress in this country. I don't know who said them, but whoever it was knew what they were talking about:

Those who give up liberty for security, end up with neither.

...and...

The last act of any democracy will be to elect a dictator.

Sigh.

-The Gneech

Comments

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Judith Krug, the American Library Association's director for intellectual freedom, tells worried librarians who call that they should keep only the records they need and should discard records that would reveal which patron checked out a book and for how long.

Glad to see at least some people aren't laying down to lick the boot when commanded... Crap like this just pisses me off to no ends, it really does. *shakes head*

By the time this is all over, the ~4000 lives lost in the 9/11 attacks will probably be just a footnote on a long list of casualties that atrocity caused.

Not nifty.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

It's midnight in America.

My wife, misseli, is studying to be a librarian. She's trying to specialize in First Amendment issues. And she's very, VERY sharp about this whole mess.

If you need any question answered about this, leave a note in her journal.

[chastmastr.livejournal.com]

*hug*

a couple of words come to mind...

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

Weimar Republic and Hitler...

yah know

[softpaw.livejournal.com]

this wouldn't work in Arkansas, back in aahhh 90 91 something like that a law was passed that made it so that you COULDNT look it up to see who checked out what book anymore, cause someone did that for some beauty queen and found out she only checked out ONE book ever.

I was a library assistant and spent a good part of my JR year blacking out names from the checkout cards in the books, was interesting at times..I did the WHOLE biography section *small school* and since the HS I graduated from was the same one as both my parents and there family I'd find books THEY checked ou

About record keeping...

[jbadger.livejournal.com]

Someone I know that lives in DC is always worried about the nature of over record keeping, and how if teh records are there they can get misused.
At the time I thought all these ramblings were a stretch -- these kind of things do not happen here.

Thinking about some of the records that are kept on me in mydailly life though..
Shopping. I have a couple of those shopping cards -- they keep records of the foods I buy and my shopping habbits
Roadway Tolls. Even though E-ZPass has rules to protect the records -- court orders can open those records at any time and find out where I travel.
Cameras on roads -- video is said to be kept now 3 years by some agencies.
Cameras in stores. Video face Ident software.
The list goes on and on.
Yes I am worried about all of this now.
I try not to use the shopping cards anymore unless it will save me more then a dollar.

I know about this practice...

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Meep! *Hides his Republican Party membership card from The Gneech*

They tried this in Colorado after the shootings at Columbine to attach other people to the Neo-Nazi movement or something. It wasn't at Denver Public Library. It was at The Tattered Cover (http://www.tatteredcover.com), Denver's largest bookstore.

Officials entered the store demanding the records of certain individuals they thought to be Neo-Nazi terrorists, and the owner refused to allow this. She stood on a federal law that said they had no right to do so.

Denver citizens and the community of independent bookstores in Colorado rallied behind the owner of the Tattered Cover and supported her, because they also believe this should not happen.

It escalated over three years and finally went to the State Supreme Court. The ruling was given 2-1 that the owner was correct, and that the federal law prohibited such blatant misuse of records.

The law she stood behind?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

There is precedense against such actions by the FBI. Should they be challenged, the FBI must back down. We must not allow them to take away "our sacred honor and our freedom."

Ah, for the days of Lincoln's presidency.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

I'll add in another thought, though I'm afraid I don't know it's origin, or even if it's a quotation of someone or not:

"Liberals are prepared to sacrifice freedoms for equality.
Conservatives are prepared to sacrifice freedoms for
security."

I can't honestly say I'm all that crazy about having my freedoms taken away, but I don't want to live in a monarchy, or see any of our cities under a mushroom cloud.

There is a middle road here somewhere between the two
extremes of losing our freedom and losing our lives.
Hopefully, once things have calmed down a bit, we will
regain our equilibrium enough to take down what I hope
are temporary measures to ensure our safety.

It is actually a *good* thing that these discussions
come up, and that both the left and right wing loonies
speak their minds, so that the sensible people in the
middle will keep the screams coming from the wings in
mind.

We're travelling down a white water river, and the people on the right hand side of the boat are shouting warnings, while the left hand does the same. As long as we keep *all* the warnings in mind, and do not surrender to either side, we should be able to keep to the middle of the channel, away from the rocks on both sides.

One day, the waters will run calm again, and sanity will prevail.

Scott

sigh...

[murrrmaiyd.livejournal.com]

It's not so much each individual thing that bugs me as much as it is how all of these little things add up. I've heard so many little freedoms given away, so many little new powers given to authorities, that I'm beginning to think they're just trying to gain the total control that they want without making it obvious. They're taking advantage of the atmosphere of fear that recent events have caused to just tighten the screws.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but that's the way I see it.

Mur

Well,

[merryjest.livejournal.com]

I did sort of say something like this might happen during this administration, even before the attacks. Of course at that time I got rather flamed..... hehehe.

[chastmastr.livejournal.com]

I hope you won't dislike me for being more liberal than libertarian... though I heartily agree with you that the current situation, re our civil liberties, is terrifying. (I.e., I suspect that Gore would not have acted as badly as this, and I don't at all see liberal Democrats as "Immoral Mobsters.")

Have you read Noam Chomsky's stuff? You might like him (or not).

Still want to see Cardcaptor Sakura with you -- I've avoided your essay on it, actually, because I don't want to read spoilers by accident! :)

Still have not seen Sakura's Never-Ending Day.

Going to see Minority Report tonight!

HUGS!