[PLUG-TALK] Cell Phone spyware

[Aaron Burt]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:26:01AM -0700, Russell Johnson wrote:
> 
> On Jul 30, 2012, at 10:04 AM, Aaron Burt <aaron at bavariati.org> wrote:
> 
> > The government IS the people.
> 
> According to everything I've read, it should be exactly the opposite. The
> people should be the government. That is not what you said, and what you
> said is not the same thing. 

Clearly, that depends on what your definition of "is" is. ;)

Restated: we are the government(s).  It is not just ours, it is *us*.
We willingly pay for its actions and for its army of people to implement
policy, and every 2-6 years we choose people to delegate day-to-day
decisions to.

Right now, we're faced with a successful campaign to convince us that our
government doesn't belong to us.  Lots of folks benefit from that:
* Elected officials like voter apathy.
* A bunch of assholes want to loot our treasury in the name of "protecting"
  us with privatization.
* Media demagogues can play "us vs. them" with an enemy that won't ever go
  away (which is great for their broadcasters, too.)
* Politicians have an eternal "problem" to fix and/or pinata to beat.
  After the fall of the USSR, they tried drugs, terrorism, and gawd help
  me, gay men in love.  Can't beat a whack-a-mole like The Gubmint.

> Our form of government, "by the people" means the people are the
> government. What we have now is the government trying to run peoples
> lives and interfering in every little thing. 

"The Government [has been] trying to run people's lives" for longer than
you or I have been alive, so color me skeptical.

How does "what we have now" compare to Prohibition, Japanese and German
Internments, the WWII command economy, or the experience of being anything
other than a well-off white male at any time in US history?

Yes, I'm aware of the erosion of our 4th Amendment and Habeas Corpus rights
under the previous Administration, maintained by our current one.  At least
our current Administration has been friendler to the 2nd Amendment.

I dearly wish there was a way to make a government whose decisions were
always, and in retrospect, both the best for individual liberty and also
the most efficient, in every single citizen's opinion.

and also a pony,
  Aaron