Re:Don't Fly During Ramadan
by justin66 on Thursday August 22, 2013 @06:27PM
(#6260500)
> So you're anti-government and cynical.
No, you don't get to label me that easily. (why do you want to?) I believe there is a differentiation to be made between good government and bad government. Security services CAN be made to work.
> And groan, good old Orwell makes a cliched showing. Yes, we all read 1984 in grade school.
I was responding to a specific statement of yours which was pretty spectacularly stupid. I'm not saying YOU are stupid, and I think maybe you can get a handle on why it's so creepy and classically Orwellian. Let's examine it:
> Something triggered on a molecule or taggant that they couldn't easily exclude, so they tried to help him assist them in excluding it. He couldn't, so they had to exhaust all avenues.
"They tried to help him assist them in excluding it." They tried to help him assist them. Are you getting it yet? They were just trying to help him! Against his will they detained him and tried to compel him to do something, but they were just trying to help. To help HIM! To help him ASSIST them, why wouldn't he want to assist them? It'd be awfully suspicious if he didn't want to assist them. Every good person likes to help and to assist, am I right?
They tried to force him to solve a problem that they created with their own machine and they weren't going to let him go about his business until he did it. For his own good. In what sense is your take on that - the wording, at least - not Orwellian?
> Pulling it out as a trope to anything the government does (even where entirely rational and related to an actual threat, and overwhelming painless and transparent) is boorish internet pundit behavior.
Since there wasn't an actual threat, and the process wasn't painless, and since I certainly wouldn't and haven't "pulled it out as a trope to anything the government does" it's hard to understand what the heck you're talking about.
No, you don't get to label me that easily. (why do you want to?) I believe there is a differentiation to be made between good government and bad government. Security services CAN be made to work.
> And groan, good old Orwell makes a cliched showing. Yes, we all read 1984 in grade school.
I was responding to a specific statement of yours which was pretty spectacularly stupid. I'm not saying YOU are stupid, and I think maybe you can get a handle on why it's so creepy and classically Orwellian. Let's examine it:
> Something triggered on a molecule or taggant that they couldn't easily exclude, so they tried to help him assist them in excluding it. He couldn't, so they had to exhaust all avenues.
"They tried to help him assist them in excluding it." They tried to help him assist them. Are you getting it yet? They were just trying to help him! Against his will they detained him and tried to compel him to do something, but they were just trying to help. To help HIM! To help him ASSIST them, why wouldn't he want to assist them? It'd be awfully suspicious if he didn't want to assist them. Every good person likes to help and to assist, am I right?
They tried to force him to solve a problem that they created with their own machine and they weren't going to let him go about his business until he did it. For his own good. In what sense is your take on that - the wording, at least - not Orwellian?
> Pulling it out as a trope to anything the government does (even where entirely rational and related to an actual threat, and overwhelming painless and transparent) is boorish internet pundit behavior.
Since there wasn't an actual threat, and the process wasn't painless, and since I certainly wouldn't and haven't "pulled it out as a trope to anything the government does" it's hard to understand what the heck you're talking about.