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Little Acts of Civil Disobedience
Jun/22/08 19:50
On the same day as my quest for chalk, I
committed two small acts of civil
disobedience.
First act: I had just purchased about $50 worth of stuff from Fry's (which is a huge signal of self-restraint on my part) and there's the guy waiting by the door with highlighter in hand. Three people are queued waiting to show their Day Pass at the door so that they can get back into the Free World. I refuse to be a part of this rampant act of unnecessary (and completely unwarranted) act of detention. Did I steal anything? No. And even if I did, I haven't actually stolen it until I leave the store with it, and even then you have no right to detain me (if you're a security guard) unless you witness me performing a felony, which shoplifting is not. So, you want to see my receipt? Take down my license plate number, call the cops and report that you were witness to a crime (which you weren't because I didn't steal anything) and file a case with them. They'll say, what's the crime? And you'll say, not showing a receipt and the cops will laugh at you. They'll laugh at you just like I do as I walk out the store to my car.
Second act: I'm going to get an oil change. She asks for my name, then my address, and I say, "Look, this is just an oil change. I'm not giving you all my personal information." And she points at the computer screen (like the computer is the fucking boss) and says, "My system won't let me finish this transaction until I enter your information." I say, "OK. 123 Wonder Ave., Las Vegas, NV, 89114." Just then, a manager comes walking by and he says, "Sir, our computers require a real address." Now I know that's a bluff. You think their computer system is going to check that address against a database? No. So I say, "OK, tell me your address so I can have a real address." He says, "I'm not going to give you my address." I just smiled and shook my head. He turned to the cashier and said, "Just put in something." Score one for anonymous oil changes.
And I hear you saying, "Why do you even bother? It's not worth the trouble!" Yeah, that's the problem. Everyone just goes along and accepts "the way things are" or "the computer won't unless I..." and that makes the problem worse. More and more of our freedoms disappear slowly until we wake up and we can't go from state to state without showing a national ID card. Or without applying for travel papers that document your reasons for traveling and how long you'll be staying in the next state over when you go to visit your mom for the weekend. And they'll get so bogged down trying to analyze all that information for terrorist patterns, that it will take 4-6 weeks for them to issue the papers you need to go to Thanksgiving dinner at mom's house.
When I was in elementary school, the Iron Curtain was in place, the Berlin Wall was guarded by lots of gun-wielding guards and Soviets had to apply for traveling papers to go from city to city. And we thought that was horrible and sad and a symbol of everything wrong with Communism. Now, our government has tools the KGB and the Communist Party would have killed for, and all we can say is, "Well, everything's different after 9/11. This is a different world now." Yes, it's different. It's worse because the people who are really causing harm are doing it with good intentions and with your permission. But here's the rub: relying on the government to protect you makes you more vulnerable to attack.
I'll emphasis my point by starting another paragraph. Relying on the government to protect you makes you more vulnerable to attack.
If you rely on some entity outside yourself to protect you, you let your guard down. You relax. You don't pay attention. You don't take care of your body or take any self-defense class, because we can rely on the government, right? Did you happen to forget that this is the same government that "helped out" after Katrina? They thought the Iraq war was a good idea? That can't even make a decent road anymore? Can't educate your kids beyond what used to be a fourth-grade education (but is now called a high school graduate)? These people are incompetent. The tools they have for detecting terrorism are blunt and ham-shaped. The amount of data they have to mine is mind-boggling, which makes finding true threats exponentially more difficult, and you're telling me that if they gather more data, watch more people and have more power that somehow they'll be better at it?
Wake.
Up.
And next time you're walking out of that box store filled with Chinese widgets and sub-grade food, breeze right out the door guilt-free and excited to be leaving with your newly-purchased goods while the rest of the unquestioning, obedient, fearful citizens stand in line and act as another symbol of a dying free America.
First act: I had just purchased about $50 worth of stuff from Fry's (which is a huge signal of self-restraint on my part) and there's the guy waiting by the door with highlighter in hand. Three people are queued waiting to show their Day Pass at the door so that they can get back into the Free World. I refuse to be a part of this rampant act of unnecessary (and completely unwarranted) act of detention. Did I steal anything? No. And even if I did, I haven't actually stolen it until I leave the store with it, and even then you have no right to detain me (if you're a security guard) unless you witness me performing a felony, which shoplifting is not. So, you want to see my receipt? Take down my license plate number, call the cops and report that you were witness to a crime (which you weren't because I didn't steal anything) and file a case with them. They'll say, what's the crime? And you'll say, not showing a receipt and the cops will laugh at you. They'll laugh at you just like I do as I walk out the store to my car.
Second act: I'm going to get an oil change. She asks for my name, then my address, and I say, "Look, this is just an oil change. I'm not giving you all my personal information." And she points at the computer screen (like the computer is the fucking boss) and says, "My system won't let me finish this transaction until I enter your information." I say, "OK. 123 Wonder Ave., Las Vegas, NV, 89114." Just then, a manager comes walking by and he says, "Sir, our computers require a real address." Now I know that's a bluff. You think their computer system is going to check that address against a database? No. So I say, "OK, tell me your address so I can have a real address." He says, "I'm not going to give you my address." I just smiled and shook my head. He turned to the cashier and said, "Just put in something." Score one for anonymous oil changes.
And I hear you saying, "Why do you even bother? It's not worth the trouble!" Yeah, that's the problem. Everyone just goes along and accepts "the way things are" or "the computer won't unless I..." and that makes the problem worse. More and more of our freedoms disappear slowly until we wake up and we can't go from state to state without showing a national ID card. Or without applying for travel papers that document your reasons for traveling and how long you'll be staying in the next state over when you go to visit your mom for the weekend. And they'll get so bogged down trying to analyze all that information for terrorist patterns, that it will take 4-6 weeks for them to issue the papers you need to go to Thanksgiving dinner at mom's house.
When I was in elementary school, the Iron Curtain was in place, the Berlin Wall was guarded by lots of gun-wielding guards and Soviets had to apply for traveling papers to go from city to city. And we thought that was horrible and sad and a symbol of everything wrong with Communism. Now, our government has tools the KGB and the Communist Party would have killed for, and all we can say is, "Well, everything's different after 9/11. This is a different world now." Yes, it's different. It's worse because the people who are really causing harm are doing it with good intentions and with your permission. But here's the rub: relying on the government to protect you makes you more vulnerable to attack.
I'll emphasis my point by starting another paragraph. Relying on the government to protect you makes you more vulnerable to attack.
If you rely on some entity outside yourself to protect you, you let your guard down. You relax. You don't pay attention. You don't take care of your body or take any self-defense class, because we can rely on the government, right? Did you happen to forget that this is the same government that "helped out" after Katrina? They thought the Iraq war was a good idea? That can't even make a decent road anymore? Can't educate your kids beyond what used to be a fourth-grade education (but is now called a high school graduate)? These people are incompetent. The tools they have for detecting terrorism are blunt and ham-shaped. The amount of data they have to mine is mind-boggling, which makes finding true threats exponentially more difficult, and you're telling me that if they gather more data, watch more people and have more power that somehow they'll be better at it?
Wake.
Up.
And next time you're walking out of that box store filled with Chinese widgets and sub-grade food, breeze right out the door guilt-free and excited to be leaving with your newly-purchased goods while the rest of the unquestioning, obedient, fearful citizens stand in line and act as another symbol of a dying free America.
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