OT - 10 steps to fascist police state

Matt Barrow wrote:
"Steve Foley" wrote in message
...
Is that warm, dry sand, or cold, wet sand?

"Don Tabor" wrote in message
...

Or you could stick your head in the sand and hope that those of us
who are paying attention will take care of you.

The funniest stuff I saw on TV the past few years (this was at
relatives home,we pulled our cable in 2000) was Jay Leno asking
questions to people on the street.

Example!

Leno: "Who is the Vice President?"
Clueless ditz: "Um...I dunno".

I'm sure Ms. Clueless, though, has an opinion.

Thing is, it was over and over. And other surveys bear him out.

There was a game show on the aire a few years ago did the same thing. It was
really funny to watch until I started thinking about the fact that those
idiot's votes counted as much as mine did.

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

There was a game show on the aire a few years ago did the same thing.
It was really funny to watch until I started thinking about the fact
that those idiot's votes counted as much as mine did.

And look what it got us........

"Jose" wrote in message
...
I don't even know (or care) who "Cho" is. Why? Because I choose what I
watch. Do you? If you don't, that is a problem. But if you do, then
why do you want to choose what =I= and everybody else watches?
Settle down. Nobody said anything about choosing for you.

Uh.... that's not quite the case. You said:
Should stick with the status quo where pictures of Cho draw viewers,
which equates to higher ratings...

The status quo comes about because we, collectively, are choosing it.


"GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) - A 15-year-old boy charged with attempted aggravated
murder after a shooting shattered some windows at a high school told police
he was influenced by a television documentary on the 1999 Columbine
shootings in Colorado."
http://www.katu.com/news/6982432.html

I'm just sayin'...

Why do we know the names and faces of Clebold, Harris, Malvo, Muhammed, Cho,
Whitman, Manson, Bundy.... but we'd have to do an internet lookup to
recall the name of the Holocaust-survivor professor who gave his life
protecting his VT students?

-c

But millions of people have already "handed over the keys to their brains"
and, the fact is, showing the faces of murderers prompts copycats. There
would be no "copycat killers" if they weren't handed a role model by
somebody selling them ads.

Earlier this month a kid in Oregon fired a rifle into a high school. Later
he said he was inspired by a documentary about Columbine. That's what I'm
getting at: Kids who idolize symbolic antiheroes will emulate them to
capture the same 15 minutes of fame.

I see it the other way around. People are responsible for their own
actions. If they have handed over the keys to their brains, they are
responsible for the result. (Despite the fact that we have to live with
it). But handing over the keys to our brains is exactly what you seem
to be proposing.

Your theme seems to be that we can't do it (properly) ourselves, because
we are making "bad" choices. Who is going to decide what's a bad
choice? Government? The Pope? The PTA? The League of Parents of
Small Children? Gatt himself? We already have too much meddling in our
private lives by the superstitious, the power hungry, the righteous, the
misguided, and the stupid.

The scariest video I've ever seen was a short clip about kidnapping. A
car drives up to a kid and asks where Mulberry street is. The kid goes
up to the car to answer, and inside of a few seconds the back door
opens, somebody snatches the kid, and the car drives away.

What was scary was not that kidnapping is so easy, but rather, the
message which followed, which was that kids should run screaming if
somebody drives up and asks directions. It turns kids into assholes who
are so disconnected from society and so mistrusting of those around that
they will grow up into people who would think nothing of firing a rifle
into a crowd at school.

That was twenty years ago. Those kids have grown up now.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:

The scariest video I've ever seen was a short clip about kidnapping. A car
drives up to a kid and asks where Mulberry street is. The kid
goes up to the car to answer, and inside of a few seconds the back
door opens, somebody snatches the kid, and the car drives away.

What was scary was not that kidnapping is so easy, but rather, the
message which followed, which was that kids should run screaming if
somebody drives up and asks directions. It turns kids into assholes
who are so disconnected from society and so mistrusting of those
around that they will grow up into people who would think nothing of
firing a rifle into a crowd at school.

That was twenty years ago. Those kids have grown up now.

Jose

My wife was in Junior League a few years back and they do a project for 5
year old kids called Safety Town. They work with them on every thing from
how to cross the street to how to not talk to strangers. Near the end of
this WEEK of training I was asked to walk into the play ground looking for
my dog that I lost and see if the kids can put what they learned about not
talking with or going away with strangers to practical use.

I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to walk off with me.
Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were watching the kids from
inside the building.

Near the end of
this WEEK of training I was asked to walk into the play ground looking for
my dog that I lost and see if the kids can put what they learned about not
talking with or going away with strangers to practical use.

I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to walk off with me.
Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were watching the kids from
inside the building.

What would you have them do? Refuse to talk to you and run screaming?
What kind of adults would they turn into?

We get the kind of society we create.

Yes, there are dangers, yes children need to be taught how to
discriminate between good people and bad people (even grownups have a
hard time with that), and yes, "my child" is different. But there is a
real societal cost to this kind of training, which could easily be far
worse, and far harder to undo (because it's a far longer term), than
watching movies without purple dinosaurs.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...

My wife was in Junior League a few years back and they do a project for 5
year old kids called Safety Town. They work with them on every thing from
how to cross the street to how to not talk to strangers. Near the end of
this WEEK of training I was asked to walk into the play ground looking for
my dog that I lost and see if the kids can put what they learned about not
talking with or going away with strangers to practical use.

I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to walk off with
me. Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were watching the kids
from inside the building.

Scary!

Similarly, as adults we have received years of education and experience in
history and political science but are still willing to trust those we know
are liars because they are the tallest or the most photogenic. Our leaders
should have more qualifications that a simple 'least worst'.

Reminds me of Pogo, "We have seen the enemy and it is us."

"Jose" wrote in message
. net...

I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to walk off with
me. Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were watching the kids
from inside the building.

What would you have them do? Refuse to talk to you and run screaming?

Say "Hang on. I need to go ask permission to go with you."

Is this difficult to grasp?

What kind of adults would they turn into?

Ones that teach their kids to get permission before wandering off with
strangers?

We get the kind of society we create.

Ones that teach their kids to get permission before wandering off with
strangers?

-c

Jose wrote:
Near the end of
this WEEK of training I was asked to walk into the play ground
looking for my dog that I lost and see if the kids can put what they
learned about not talking with or going away with strangers to
practical use. I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to
walk off
with me. Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were
watching the kids from inside the building.

What would you have them do? Refuse to talk to you and run screaming?
What kind of adults would they turn into?

We get the kind of society we create.

Yes, there are dangers, yes children need to be taught how to
discriminate between good people and bad people (even grownups have a
hard time with that), and yes, "my child" is different. But there is
a real societal cost to this kind of training, which could easily be
far worse, and far harder to undo (because it's a far longer term),
than watching movies without purple dinosaurs.

Jose


I guess I didn't make myself clear. These kids after being taught safety for
a week were willing to not just talk to me but walk away from the play
ground into the parking lot where I could have easily stuck them in a car an
driven away.

And to answer your questions I would want them to go to an adult they knew
and tell them that a stranger was trying to get them to go to the parking
lot with them.

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:28:42 GMT, Jose
wrote in :

I was able to get every single one of the 30 or so kids to walk off with me.
Scared the crap out of me and the parents that were watching the kids from
inside the building.

What would you have them do?

Five year olds should be supervised by a parent. Anything less is
irresponsible.