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If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

jacquesmattheij.com

71–80 of 321 posts

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#71
If you are a real freedom fighter you should support the idea of destroying records full stop. There is no actual middle ground. It just needs to go, but of course it is very hard because it is obviously valuable user data.

It sucks and I am not sure what a good man should do.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#72
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun

> Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun You're doing it wrong. If you want to paraphrase one of the two affirmations in that quote, you need to write something like: "Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have anything to shoot at". The second part of that structure is showing a use case for that freedom (speaking, publishing, shooting). Simple possession is not en…

Okay then:

"I don't care about the freedom to bear arms because I have nothing to protect"

I agree that fending off a modern army with rifles is a pipe dream which causes political blindness (although this disparity just illustrates how thoroughly the second amendment has already been trampled). But there are plenty of smaller scale immediate situations where one might really wish they had a gun - eg bears while camping.

Also the whole premise around these sayings is ultimately flawed. When we are forced into coming up with justifications for natural rights (thought, communication, using tools, being left alone, etc), we're fighting a losing war.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#73
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does persecution have to reach epic proportions before it becomes safe to acknowledge it?

To imply that Christians or gun owners are in the least bit persecuted in the US is stretching the meaning of the word to include "People expressing different opinions to me". Just because legislation that you do not agree with is implemented (Checks on individuals before they can buy a gun, or rights of homosexuals to get married for example) this is not persecuting a group. To imply so is disingenuous.

I've both bought a gun and gotten married. It definitely took much more government paperwork and time to buy the gun.

However, I'm not sure the bureaucracy surrounding either really comes close to "persecution".

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#74
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun

What I don't understand about the want to have freedom to bare arms (aside from moral arguments about what high levels of gun ownership does to society, but let's not go there) is that the only time I can imagine needing a gun in life is during a time of civil war or some similar sort of uprising. It would not make any difference to me what the law was in this regard if lawlessness had already broken out and I feared…

By then it would almost certainly be too late.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#75
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun

What I don't understand about the want to have freedom to bare arms (aside from moral arguments about what high levels of gun ownership does to society, but let's not go there) is that the only time I can imagine needing a gun in life is during a time of civil war or some similar sort of uprising. It would not make any difference to me what the law was in this regard if lawlessness had already broken out and I feared…

What I don't understand about it is that the right to bear arms was rooted in the desire to allow citizens to arm themselves against an oppressive government so they could organize an effective overthrow if the need ever arose again (after the revolutionary war). Today, the government's military is so advanced that they'd quickly squash any kind of uprising even if you somehow managed to obtain every legally purchased firearm in the country. The right to privacy and encrypted communication would go a lot farther in that respect than the right to bear arms, putting aside self defense arguments, yet you don't hear much about that from the right wing groups touting this argument in favor of gun rights.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#77
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun

What I don't understand about the want to have freedom to bare arms (aside from moral arguments about what high levels of gun ownership does to society, but let's not go there) is that the only time I can imagine needing a gun in life is during a time of civil war or some similar sort of uprising. It would not make any difference to me what the law was in this regard if lawlessness had already broken out and I feared…

Or when someone breaks into your apartment and the police have an average response time of, what, 10 minutes or so? How about when you pull over to assist a crashed motorcyclist and it turns out he's a DUI-case and attempts to car-jack you? How about when you see someone waltz into your neighbors backyard and kick in the door? All things that have happened to either myself, or a coworker in the past year. Is it unreasonable to have a firearm for those needs? I'm not Dirty Harry over here, and I'd rather not have to draw, let alone use a firearm, but I'm not also naive enough to think that the police can save me from all of the bad things that might happen. In a nation with as many firearms as people, the cat's out of the bag.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#78

Something that people in silicon valley just don't get is that that the above argument also applies to tech corporations like Google who collect personal data for living and then say "trust us, we'll do no evil". The industry is upset about Snowden because it cost them sales in China, but for the most part while it talks the talk it doesn't walk the walk. * If we're going to talk about WWII a good example would be IB…

I agree, but the government can collect your data by force, and there's discussions to increase that force (banning of encryption), so in my mind that makes it a more pressing issue.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand about the want to have freedom to bare arms (aside from moral arguments about what high levels of gun ownership does to society, but let's not go there) is that the only time I can imagine needing a gun in life is during a time of civil war or some similar sort of uprising. It would not make any difference to me what the law was in this regard if lawlessness had already broken out and I feared…

What I don't understand about it is that the right to bear arms was rooted in the desire to allow citizens to arm themselves against an oppressive government so they could organize an effective overthrow if the need ever arose again (after the revolutionary war). Today, the government's military is so advanced that they'd quickly squash any kind of uprising even if you somehow managed to obtain every legally purchase…

That argument always presumes it is the entire military against civilians. One would think if things got that bad, there would be some manner of defections from the military into the rebelling side.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#80

Something that people in silicon valley just don't get is that that the above argument also applies to tech corporations like Google who collect personal data for living and then say "trust us, we'll do no evil". The industry is upset about Snowden because it cost them sales in China, but for the most part while it talks the talk it doesn't walk the walk. * If we're going to talk about WWII a good example would be IB…

"...tech corporations like Google who collect personal data for living" I agree. The largest and potentially most-revealing information about you is captured by technology companies like Google and Facebook. The Amsterdam registry recorded "Name, Date of birth, Address, Marital Status, Parents, Profession, Religion, Previous Addresses and Date of Death" Create a Google account and you are asked to provide: Name, Gend…

They also are really insidious about how they get you to sign up more of your data.

View a YouTube link on a fresh Android phone it puts you on the sign-in screen, hit back the video plays, they make it look like you have to sign in to watch the video hence make it easier to follow what you watch.

Run Chrome for the first on an android phone, the sign-in button is bigger and clearer, the skip button is small and greyed out.

Chrome history can only be suspended, accidentally enable it and it's on forever again, no warning.

Login from one google account and then accidentally login in from another and it tries to join them (this is so bad I new hit incognito mode before signing into anything google makes).

All of these things in isolation seem relatively minor but the goal is clearly an all encompassing pervasive monitoring of everything you do (so much so that my next phone will not be Android, I'm seriously considering a dumb phone and using my tablet).

I don't trust Google and tbh as a company I don't like them very much.

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