[Ford Prefect]

Guys, what it really comes down to is that people's political philosophies are all born of different ages. Some fall more towards the Enlightenment, and others... errr... sort of the 600-ish region of the timeline.

[TrashMan]

Ah...yet again the "if you don't support this and this fully then you supprt tyranical regimes/police states/dictatorships"

I hardly belive a few cammers on the streets will result in soldiers busting down my door and dragging me to the police station...

@Janos - read the first statement in that quote. What's anti-democratic there?

[Ford Prefect]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Ah...yet again the "if you don't support this and this fully then you supprt tyranical regimes/police states/dictatorships"

Nobody consciously supports tyrannical regimes; they simply fail to acknowledge the phenomena that, time and time again throughout human history, lead to such regimes. People as a whole,  out of the desire to build a secure world for themselves, will always begin to make exceptions in times of apparent crisis, ("apparent" being an operative term in that little aphorism), and before you know it, you've created some variation on the timeless theme of the autocracy.

[TrashMan]

There is allways s line you don't step over.
I don't consider a few cammeras that line.

[StratComm]

We do.  Constant survalance is one of the fundamental aspects of an Orwellian authoritarian state, as it's an underlying requirement of many of the population-controlling systems that such a government entails.  If you don't agree, you don't agree, but you are leaving open the acceptance of something with far worse implications than you realize.

[aldo_14]

Exactly.  One of the fundamental aspects of all dystopias - real or imagined - is oppression through the use of surveillance, and as a result of paranoia (or the simple need to terrorise the populace into obidience with some pretext).

We're not just talking about a 'few' cameras here; we're talking of thousands.  More importantly, thousands that are linked; a complete database of your movements for the government.

Imagine what Hitler, or Stalin could have done with CCTV.  That's what we have to guard ourselves against; some of the worst dictatorships in history emerged to guard against some 'threat', and often by subverting democracy.  No-one - not the UK, not the USA, not Canada, etc - is immune to tyranny.  All we can do is guard against the slope of fear that leads to it.

[TrashMan]

You think it's bad. I think it allright.

Different people/states, different perspective.

Would US turn into a tyranical dictatorship with a cammera system? No...It has many laws and institutions that prevent that, so it would take far more then that.

[aldo_14]

I think you may be missing the point; the web of institutions and laws that protect any society are a tapestry of individual measures and rights, which act to support each other.  By eroding one right, we weaken the protections we have for the other rights; if we allow national CCTV surveillance, then we in turn weaken the arguements for out own privacy and protection from suspicion.

It's the classic slipperly slope arguement; except that this type of measure changes the slope, steepens it, makes it easier to fall downwards into totalitarianism.  It's not inevitable - nothing in life is - but it becomes more likely, because it's easier.  Would you give Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Jong-Il, Mao, etc CCTV?  Can we really know that 4,8,12,16 years down the line, we won't have one of them in power?  Because if we make the assumption that we won't, then it simply paves the way to carelessly discard the protections that have stopped our society - not just the US, but all free societies - from being the next Nazi Germany or Soviet Union.

Like Franklin said - if you discard the protections that guarentee your freedom, under the excuse of security, you will find that neither exist.  Because our freedom is our security.

[TrashMan]

All I can say is... MEH

When people get dragged from their beds at night, when polise/army bust down your door without any warrant or real proof, when you are not allowed to criticize your government - that's totalitarism.

If the nation is smart it will never come to that - that's what the diffent laws and institutions are there to secure.

On the other hand - would you give Stalin or Hitler and army? A nuclear missile? large and advanced police force? Or should we cancell those too?
The biggest freedom is to have no one to bother me at all

[vyper]

[q]
If the nation is smart it will never come to that - that's what the diffent laws and institutions are there to secure.[/q]

That's a pretty big IF to bet your freedom and future on.

[StratComm]

Stalin and Hitler had armies.  Stalin had Nukes.  Both had police forces that were far more powerful than anything we see in a contemporary setting.  And look what they did with them.  If anything, your examples disprove your point.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan
All I can say is... MEH

When people get dragged from their beds at night, when polise/army bust down your door without any warrant or real proof, when you are not allowed to criticize your government - that's totalitarism.

And how do you think that arrives?  Overnight?  Do you honestly thing dictatorships just pop out of thin air, somehow eradicating decades of protection?  Fear takes time, and it requires a freedom to act.  That fear, comes via a systematic erosion of civil rights and freedoms - not a sudden declaration of tyranny one night, as you seem to imply.

Originally posted by TrashMan

If the nation is smart it will never come to that - that's what the diffent laws and institutions are there to secure.

And yet you seek to weaken them?  You assume an institution cannot be corrupted - that's only true if the people act to prevent it.    We cannot assume an institution is inviolate to subversion; to do so is to abandon the checks and balances we rely on institutions for.

If we provide and legtimise a framework for facilitating oppression - as CCTV tracking is - we create a case for justifying other oppressive measures.  If we're happy to be observed in our everyday travels between places, are we happy for our purchases to be recorded?  Or for our telephone calls to be recorded?  Or cameras in our homes?

Because if we're innocent, we have nothing to fear.  Until the state invents the crime, that is.

Originally posted by TrashMan

On the other hand - would you give Stalin or Hitler and army? A nuclear missile? large and advanced police force? Or should we cancell those too?

Nuclear missile - yes.

Army and police; a false analogy.  You see, there is a difference between police (and army; you can take that as implicit when i use police) and complete CCTV surveillance.  Police, as we know them, have a series of checks and balancies to prevent abuse.

Under Hitler, and Stalin - and indeed any dictatorship - those checks and balances are removed and those institutions given the power to oppress.  

So I would not remove the police or army from those dictators.  But I would remove their ability to erode the protections the people have against those organizations.  Like with CCTV; I would not ban CCTV in private residences (as controlled by the private individual or organization), or even in busy public areas where they can be proven to facilitate response to crime (i.e. city centres at night).  But I would remove the ability to have complete CCTV surveillance and tracking of individuals, and the ability to long term track individuals by storing their data.

Originally posted by TrashMan

The biggest freedom is to have no one to bother me at all

Criminals are not the only people able to bother you.  the difference between them and the police, is that we control the polices ability and opportunity to do so.  We provide legal barriers and rules that criminalize, rather than encourage - as in tyrannies - that interference from the state.  We build legislation that protects us from these excesses, damaging even when in good faith. That acts to prevent us slowly sliding into dictatorship, and that allows the individual person to be represented, and be able to have a say without fearing the knock on the door at 2am.

You, it would seem, seek to erode that control.

You recognise, I presume from your quoted post, that society has a series of institutions designed to protect us from the threat of tyranny.  And yet you've consistently ignored or  - even worse - denigrated two of the highest, more important examples of those protections.  You ignore the US Constitution - one of the finest declarations of human rights in history, even if no longer so strictly followed by the US Government - and even worse, dismiss the United Nations Convention on Human Rights (the supreme legislation designed to protect humanity from tyranny) as the work of 'dorks in suits'.

Again, it's a question of our freedoms being preserved by checks and balances.  Checks and balances you would be happy to remove, for the promise of security, even when the only true guarentee of that security would be to remove your freedom in exchange.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
Guys, what it really comes down to is that people's political philosophies are all born of different ages. Some fall more towards the Enlightenment, and others... errr... sort of the 600-ish region of the timeline.

So true... in most political discussions I wind up reminicising: "Good 'ol boy Ben would sort 'em out. Same with Locke."

Chompsky is pretty good these days, but he's pretty demonized by self-appointed "conservatives." Anarcho-syndicallism could be made to work in the right conditions. (starts plotting scheme to make a dyson sphere using Van Neumann machines)

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
When people get dragged from their beds at night, when polise/army bust down your door without any warrant or real proof, when you are not allowed to criticize your government - that's totalitarism.

Like this you mean?

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by StratComm
Stalin and Hitler had armies.  Stalin had Nukes.  Both had police forces that were far more powerful than anything we see in a contemporary setting.  And look what they did with them.  If anything, your examples disprove your point.

No it doesn't.

My point is that many things can be used againt the people if a dictator comes to power. Should we remove all of them?

EDIT:
Just to add one thing - I'm not trying to convince you my way is the only one and the best one - I'm saying you're way isn't the only one. And my convictions are firm - you won't be able to talk me out of them.

I do belive in human rights and freedom and all that jaz - the difference between us is where we draw the line. I draw it a few inches from where you would, but that would hardly ruin my or any other country..

[StratComm]

Originally posted by TrashMan


No it doesn't.

My point is that many things can be used againt the people if a dictator comes to power. Should we remove all of them?

Yes it does, as you're providing examples of how existing systems, seemingly benign or even necessary to a free state, can and have been subverted to enforce an authoritatian one.  Adding an unnecessary system with similar potential for abuse is just asking for it to be abused, as it has even less potential to help the people than the military or police (nukes being an exception, though the thought that we shouldn't work to rid the world of them shows a lack of understanding of their danger).  In case you missed it, we ARE talking about adding a system that doesn't really exist yet, as opposed to "removing" actual branches of government that serve a demonstratable purpose.  And thanks for focusing yet again on the "weakest*" response since your last post and failing to address the others

* weakest in the sense that you seem to see a flaw in reasoning, when, in fact, it's a flaw in your own line of reasoning from before.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Ace
So true... in most political discussions I wind up reminicising: "Good 'ol boy Ben would sort 'em out. Same with Locke."

And Jefferson.

Say what you want about Amerca today, but we had some truly awesome people to start us off.

[TrashMan]

No, it's simply the fact that I feel I said all that needed to be said and made my position on the subject very clear - thus no further posting or clarifications from my part are required.

*signing off*

[StratComm]

Except that you edited you previous post, so what I was responding to isn't obvious.  Let me fix that.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally posted by Ace
Chompsky is pretty good these days, but he's pretty demonized by self-appointed "conservatives." Anarcho-syndicallism could be made to work in the right conditions. (starts plotting scheme to make a dyson sphere using Van Neumann machines)

I don't pay as much attention to Chomsky's politics as his linguistic theories. In that area the man is a genius. He single-handedly discredited a prevailing theory of cognitive science when he was a graduate student.