Shut the FUGH UP!

"There are no stupid questions."

By the time I was 13, and I'm just guessing because it was so long ago, I understood that there really are stupid questions.

Examples:

"Why do wet sidewalks cause rain?"
"Why am I hungry when I ate three days ago?"
"Who do I talk to about making the day longer?"

Of course I understand the spirit behind the statement, but the truth is that there can be stupid questions.

Instead of elaborating on that one point, I'm going to assume that people who read my blog understand what I'm getting at.

Here is what got me so riled up.

I used to not have a really well planned answer to the stupid way that some people would respond to how we are quickly becoming a police state.

Then someone comes along and does a brilliant job of explaining it.

Here it is:

Nearly every week, I hear someone shrug off privacy issues with a claim that they're not worried because they have "nothing to hide" from the government.

Let's put a cork in it, once and for all.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, love him or hate him, offered attendees at his October TED talk a bulletproof argument (as far as I can tell) against the "nothing to hide" argument.

He said:

"Over the last 16 months, as I've debated this issue around the world, every single time somebody has said to me, 'I don't really worry about invasions of privacy because I don't have anything to hide,' I always say the same thing to them.

I get out a pen. I write down my email address. I say, 'Here's my email address. What I want you to do when you get home is email me the passwords to all of your email accounts, not just the nice, respectable work one in your name, but all of them, because I want to be able to just troll through what it is you're doing online, read what I want to read and publish whatever I find interesting. After all, if you're not a bad person, if you're doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.'

Not a single person has taken me up on that offer. I check that email account religiously all the time. It's a very desolate place."

Throwing out that poor attempt of an excuse that you have "nothing to hide" just doesn't work. It never has, and it never will. It's lazy, naive, and borderline idiotic. Everyone has something to hide. 

Even if it's just your password. 

Do you remember that time you had that sexy webcam session with your then-partner? So does the NSA. How about that drunken email you sent to your work colleague, which you apologized for and was swept under the rug, and was forgotten about the next day? The NSA remembers. What about that phone call you made last year, which you don't remember the full details of, but you told that person something about work you really shouldn't have? It's fine because the NSA does.

Read this

Meet the shadowy tech brokers that deliver your data to the NSA

• Read more

Everyone has something they are embarrassed, ashamed, or frightened of. Everyone has secrets.

Now, I want you to think of this.

Let's pretend that that the government is now controlled by people who hate you and everything you stand for.  Everything you believe in.

Let's take some extremes.  And you better sit up and pay attention because history is littered with examples of governments coming into power who killed people by the millions who didn't want to go along with their policies.

Please google Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin.

Now, you think it can't happen in the good old USA?  Shut the FUGH up!

If you are a homosexual, do you want the Fred Phelps types to have control of the government? Of course not.

But now I'm going to say something that you better just back up and think about.

What if I want to open up a restaurant, and I hang a sign, hell, multiple signs, and my signs say that I reserve the right to refuse service to you for any reason.

You walk into my business and you have nasty tattoos and you stink. You are loud and you use very foul and vulgar language. Maybe you are spouting bigoted propaganda against black people, or maybe you are making lewd gestures toward women who are present in my business. You are offensive to most of my client base and if I let you stay there, a lot of my customers will get up and leave and I will suffer a loss of business.  I should be able to say, "Sorry, but you are going to have to leave and no, I'm not serving you."

I should have the right to do business as I see fit, and I should have the right to do business with who I want to.  Most McDonald's restaurants still have signs on the door that say, "No shoes, No shirt, No service."  Most people are very glad for that standard. Why should McDonald's be allowed to discriminate against me if I'm homeless and don't have a shirt or shoes?

Now it is time to expand your mind.

What if I don't want to serve you or do business with you because you are a big, and very vocal supporter of the minimum wage law, or you are trying to make the minimum wage $14.00 an hour?
What if I, who thinks that abortion is murder, don't want to serve you because you are very proud to give money to the local abortion clinic? What if I say I will not cater your party because I know that you are a veal producer and I don't think that's a proper way to treat animals?

In a truly free society, somebody is going to be offended. But the really cool thing about being in a really free society is that I don't have to pay somebody to offend me. I just want to be left alone to live my life and conduct business with who I want to conduct business with.  If I make bad choices about who to do business with, the market will quickly teach me the error of my ways.  A white racist who hates homosexuals can open up a dry cleaning business in downtown Atlanta, but as soon as word gets around what he believes, not only may he be headed to bankruptcy court, but he might even find his business being vandalized on a regular basis.

The same guy might open up the very same business in a rural town in Michigan or Alabama and do just fine.

In a free society, I should have the right to patronize that guy's business, or never do business with that guy.

It's a two way street.  Nobody should be able to tell me who I can or cannot do business with.  Period. Let me be a little more specific.  Just as I should be completely free of any government interference in who I want to hang out with, or where I go to church or a synagogue or a mosque, I should be free to NOT go to those places.  If I want to boycott Walmart or Citgo or McDonald's for any reason or no reason at all, I should be left alone to do that.  If I want to only hang out with people who like classical music, that's my business.  Oh, but let's talk about real freedom.

If I go to the trouble of saving up my money or getting enough like minded investors to open up a restaurant, and I, or we, as the case may be decide that we will cater to smokers.  This would never happen with me personally, because I don't smoke and don't want to be around it, but we are talking about freedom here.  I should have the freedom to open my business, and I can post signs (or not) that explain that this is a smoking friendly business.  Then you, as a possible consumer can decide if you want to patronize this business.  Nobody puts a gun to your head and makes you come in and be subject to noxious second hand smoke.

Now if I set up this business in a place where 90% of the population doesn't smoke, I'm pretty likely to fail, unless, of course, I have a very wealthy clientele that just loves paying me to be able to eat and smoke to their heart's desire.  An actual free market will decide whether the business thrives or fails.  That's how it should be.

In a truly free society, I can stick a sign up that says, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, at any time."

Let's say you are a divorced, middle aged, white, English speaking man.  According to the demographic data, you damned sure can't claim that I'm a racist, or that I'm discriminating against you because of some protected class status (Oh crap, that's another area that I could write a whole post on), but you tell me that you are a proud, progressive Democrat.  I should be able to just tell you flat out, to get the hell out of my establishment (because it is MY establishment, I am paying the bills, I own it, it's MINE to do with what I want.) So, because you choose to identify yourself as a proud progressive democrat, I can say, "Get out, and stay out.  We don't want your kind here."

If you are not a fan of the movie "Serenity," based on the show "Firefly," let me share what I think is the best scene of the movie.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the whole crew of Serenity have landed on a remote planet where the "government" has conducted an experiment of giving the population a drug that has two very bad results.  The government was trying to produce Utopia.  The drug produces one of two reactions based on the person's DNA.  In person "A", the drug produces total lethargy.  The subject just lays down and waits to die.  There is nothing to live for.  No purpose in life. In person "B" the subject becomes a cannabalistic animal that eats or destroys everything in it's path. DNA is something so complex that not even the most gifted doctors or physicists can possibly understand. God is kinda protective of His patent rights.  Sorry if that seems like too little information.  Watch the movie.  After the crew discovers this completely failed concept of the government and realizes the extreme evil of this whole idea,

Captain Mel makes the statement.

this is my statement.

No more runnin',  I intend to misbehave.

In other words, FUGH you, I will not go quietly into the night

If you want to live as a slave to government.  Go ahead.  But I'm tired of this crap. I will not just sit by and let this crap happen.

I've got more to say on this.  It's going to be a multipart long post.  If people get a lot out of this, I think that's wonderful, but I'm really doing this as a mental exercise to polish and refine my thoughts and how to argue the point.