Comment Re:It may be too late... (Score 1) 1272
Having recently read 1984, the principle of the story was that all of the loss of privacy was to ensure that people were not committing "crimethink" - aka thoughts that stood against the principles of Engsoc, i.e. Socialism to the extreme.
(Enough of the book report).. while I do agree with you that big business and wealthy politicians ultimately hold an undeniably gross level of power in the United States, we aren't headed for the "1984" society in the same sense. Perhaps your personal freedoms may be compromised, but "big business" is the epitome of capitalism, which you may recall, Engsoc is totally against. From the book (roughly paraphrased), Engsoc seeks to destroy wealth by wasting profits on meaningless wars. Big business is ALL ABOUT profits, thus there is somewhat of a contradiction here.
At any rate, being a law-abiding citizen, I would have no real problem with the privacy loss IF the government weren't corrupt. We all know that can never be the case. As you accurately state, the situation is depressing indeed... we have politicians in power that make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year - how can they possibly accurately represent the people who do make minimum wage? The answer is simple - they cannot. A large majority of politicians come from wealthy, politically-inclined families. Even the ones who worked their way up from lower class families, once they reach the office and have been in it for awhile, can no longer think on that level. It isn't possible to represent anyone if you have no clue how they live. This goes beyond party lines, too. Ultimately, and unfortunately, it seems to me that most politicians have one and only one end goal - staying in office, and staying in power.
(Enough of the book report).. while I do agree with you that big business and wealthy politicians ultimately hold an undeniably gross level of power in the United States, we aren't headed for the "1984" society in the same sense. Perhaps your personal freedoms may be compromised, but "big business" is the epitome of capitalism, which you may recall, Engsoc is totally against. From the book (roughly paraphrased), Engsoc seeks to destroy wealth by wasting profits on meaningless wars. Big business is ALL ABOUT profits, thus there is somewhat of a contradiction here.
At any rate, being a law-abiding citizen, I would have no real problem with the privacy loss IF the government weren't corrupt. We all know that can never be the case. As you accurately state, the situation is depressing indeed... we have politicians in power that make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year - how can they possibly accurately represent the people who do make minimum wage? The answer is simple - they cannot. A large majority of politicians come from wealthy, politically-inclined families. Even the ones who worked their way up from lower class families, once they reach the office and have been in it for awhile, can no longer think on that level. It isn't possible to represent anyone if you have no clue how they live. This goes beyond party lines, too. Ultimately, and unfortunately, it seems to me that most politicians have one and only one end goal - staying in office, and staying in power.
