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The Criminalization of Everyday Life

tomdispatch.com

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Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#321

Post by richardjordan »

kunai wrote: post #316
richardjordan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the contrary I am indeed afraid of the increase in Islamic fundamentalism across the world because of the destabilizing influence. Also because of the detrimental effects it has on global development, scientific progress and human rights (particularly women's rights). With the latter I fear that the more entrenched it becomes the harder it is to roll back. Sharia is a terrible thing for global progress and its imp…

You practically proved his point. It doesn't matter whether fundamentalism is risky, it's not a practical threat and therefore is not anything to be afraid. Destabilizing influence? Give me examples. Historians have no phobia of fundamentalism because it doesn't matter in today's society. There is an incredibly fractional chance that Sharia will take hold. That's what the OP was saying. It's not a real threat.

It's already taken hold in countries spanning a very large number of people. It matters in Pakistan for example. Pakistan has nukes. There's a threat there to everyone.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#322

Post by shpxnvz »

ryanpardieck wrote: post #318
scarecrowbob wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But it seems like not the useful insight given a state the clearly has asymetrically greater power than the populace?" Is your assumption true? That is, leaving aside the fact that the police are ostensibly part of the populace, how would some police and a single APC pacify even a couple of blocks of citizens without the cooperation of those citizens? Personally, and I realize that this is opinion, I do not believe…

When the state has access to nukes and the populace doesn't, how can this statement not technically be true? It seems like the ability literally wipe cities off the face of the earth means that you have the permanent upper hand, in terms of power. Further, what you call "cooperation" I think would largely would be a lack of organization. The ability to organize can grant immense power, and when people talk about the…

> When the state has access to nukes and the populace doesn't, how can this statement not technically be true? It seems like the ability literally wipe cities off the face of the earth means that you have the permanent upper hand, in terms of power.

Because that's not a credible threat. Nuclear weapons are antithetical to the goals of a government in conflict with it's own people.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#323

Post by scarecrowbob »

ryanpardieck wrote: post #318
scarecrowbob wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But it seems like not the useful insight given a state the clearly has asymetrically greater power than the populace?" Is your assumption true? That is, leaving aside the fact that the police are ostensibly part of the populace, how would some police and a single APC pacify even a couple of blocks of citizens without the cooperation of those citizens? Personally, and I realize that this is opinion, I do not believe…

When the state has access to nukes and the populace doesn't, how can this statement not technically be true? It seems like the ability literally wipe cities off the face of the earth means that you have the permanent upper hand, in terms of power. Further, what you call "cooperation" I think would largely would be a lack of organization. The ability to organize can grant immense power, and when people talk about the…

"I don't think it's fair to assess power in terms of something like a body count, and to ignore the power granted by organization."

I generally agree, but my larger point is that it isn't a good idea to assess power in terms of firepower.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#324

Post by shpxnvz »

XorNot wrote: post #301
baddox wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I am getting a lot of stuff I do not consent to.

Well you're always free to leave. But you don't. And you keep on not voting, and then wonder why your government doesn't represent you. And you know, eventually on that track, you're no longer free to leave either. But you're indignation shall not brook political engagement! So that's...something.

> And you keep on not voting, and then wonder why your government doesn't represent you.

Yet everyone else does vote and then wonders why their government doesn't represent them. What exactly makes that a better choice?

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#325

Post by blah32497 »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #304
blah32497 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm gunna respond even though I'm getting downvoted b/c hopefully someone gets something out of this.. but keep it coming! =) ) There is nothing inherently evil in surveillance. In and of itself it's a neutral thing. It's what you do with it that is evil or good. First I'd say that I don't really see how the NAZIs gain power because of surveillance. Hitler didn't seize power because the SA had some intricate intelli…

The argument is not that surveillance is evil or causes totalitarianism, the argument is that given a legal system wherein anything one does can be interpreted as a crime and a panopticon, the laws will be selectively applied to individuals who have personal conflicts with government agents or ideological conflicts with the government itself; the extreme version of this being some future totalitarian government that…

A very good argument, but definitely not what the other folks were talking about.

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

I think what you need to fight then is the absurd amount of laws on the books. I don't think we're close to the point you're describing. Sure cops overlook J-walking and driving 5 mph over the speed limit, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things. I think if the government found out ever law I'd broke... I'd probably have to pay a large amount of fines for all the stuff I've torrented, and maybe quite a few speeding tickets. But you've got to understand that if everyone that speeded and torrented was caught, the system of punishment would have to be completely different. The punishment - right or wrong - is scaled inversely to the chance that you will get caught. As an example: If they saw each time you went over 65 mph, you'd probably be dinged 5 bucks, not 100+.

In a sense it would make the system a lot more fair.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#326

Post by beachstartup »

aestra wrote: post #296
textminer wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Nebraska.

Right, you can't say every State has a Senate. Every State has a legislative branch of government whose setup varies by State Constitution. For example, Nebraska has a unicameral legislature while New York and California have a Senate and Assembly while Texas has a Senate and House of Representatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Senator

> A state senator is a member of a state's Senate, the upper house in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a legislator in Nebraska's one house State Legislature.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#327

Post by ikusalic »

tokenadult wrote: post #86
afterburner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of Western countries that are less screwed up than the US.

For example? What's involved for a citizen of the United States who would like to settle in one of those countries permanently?

How about Germany. I'm in Berlin, although I even thought about moving to USA in the past (I also had a few decent job offers in Vally). As a side note: I'm not German.

USA looks increasingly like a place that must exist and I'll need to visit from time to time, but I'd prefer for all the conferences and everything else to be somewhere else if possible...

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#328

Post by jgg »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #5

When I read something like this, I always think back to when I would see some tinfoil-hat type ranting on Usenet 20 years ago about the growing surveillance/police state in America. It was generally eye-rolling or unintentionally hilarious stuff. What's depressing is that it's starting to look like they were right.

The problem is that when the batshit-crazy people are crazy, they're really batshit, and the official story is a more comfortable option for anyone. Most people do not utilize true, rational thought, so to them the world is a false dichotomy: either the government is telling the truth, or the first person to formulate a new, completely-unproven conspiracy is correct. It's really just herd-like behaviour. Many of those assholes on Usenet you're referencing were really just spewing mindless garbage with no evidence, just like the lovely pro-Government trolls that infest this site do now.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#329

Post by scarecrowbob »

ryanpardieck wrote: post #320
eseehausen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"the rest will cower" This is one aspect of sort of complicity with power that's being discussed. Sometimes, people decide en masse that a certain way of life is worth dying for, so we know there are other responses to armed pacification. Not that this is always a bad thing. It's pretty great that most of us obey the state's injunction to not wantonly kill each other.

I find it extremely distasteful to describe backing down in the face of slaughter as "complicity." If that's the sort of thinking that follows naturally from the model of power dynamics being discussed here, then I think the model is likely intensely flawed.

On one hand, you are correct that it's an ethical problem.

But on the other hand I think it's more salient to understand that, say, the students shot down at Kent State were murdered and the general population of the country was on the side of the National Guard.... that's the kind of complicity that most people live under, the same complicity that believes people executed by police for non-compliance deserve their fates.

On one hand, it probably really is a good thing that we are generally aligned toward lawfulness, but at the same time it does make us complicit when the people charged with upholding that law use it towards criminal ends-- which is quite common in the US.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#330

Post by baddox »

XorNot wrote: post #301
baddox wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I am getting a lot of stuff I do not consent to.

Well you're always free to leave. But you don't. And you keep on not voting, and then wonder why your government doesn't represent you. And you know, eventually on that track, you're no longer free to leave either. But you're indignation shall not brook political engagement! So that's...something.

I am not consoled by the fact that I am free to leave my own property.
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