Moar Doom

[tyrannosaurus vex]

RIGHT NOW, there is an asshole sitting behind a big desk in Washington DC who has absolute power over your life. He can, with a lazy misguided stroke of his pen, sentence you to interminable imprisonment or worse. He can send a squad of goons to root through your stuff. He can send a lynch mob to deal with you if you're rocking to boat. He can nationalize your "local" National Guard and order a battalion of tanks to swarm your neighborhood. He can suspend legal government in favor of martial law. He can, without the approval of anyone but the voices in his head, say the magic words "state of emergency" and dissolve every last so-called "right" you think you have.

There is a corrupt system of bureaucracy running amok in the synapses of your country. The power it holds over you might never be wielded in such blatant displays of outright totalitarian bullshit, but that power exists nonetheless and it's out of your hands. There are, literally, millions of brainwashed gun-toting killing machines doing nothing but waiting for orders to storm your town and turn your neighborhood grocery store into an "enemy combatant processing center." There are entire fleets of planes and trains and boats idling somewhere, waiting for the green light to lock you up and cart you away. There are fully-functioning gulags operating in the silence of media blackout right now, and the only thing their prison blocks are missing is you.

Even if you have nothing to hide, even if you're a good doggie who'd never bark at a superior, even if you are an anonymous nobody with nothing to gain and everything to lose from even wanting to know why all of this is true; even if you are afraid of what might happen to your mind if you let yourself in on this; you should take the time to understand one simple fact. It may be that no one will ever come knocking on your door (or blasting through it) to take you and your family away from your "freedom;" but the fact remains that they might, and they can if they want to. And there is absolutely no one who is even going to try to stop them. If that day comes, there is no court who will ever hear your case. There are no citizens' groups who can act fast enough even to slow them down. You are on your own, and if you think waving a flag in their faces as they come swarming into your living room is going to ward them off like waving a cross at a vampire, you're going to be a casualty.

Normally, this is where you'd expect to see a paragraph begin with, "So let's do this..." But this rant contains no such paragraph.

[Doktor Loki]

I like it.

[Triple Zero]

nice!

i especially like the third paragraph.

the last line, however true, is a bit anticlimactic compared to the rest of the writing, though. not because of its meaning but it kind of lacks the "punch in the face" style of the paragraphs before.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

yeah i know, i just hit a block

[Triple Zero]

they showed up at your door, didn't they.

[Cainad (dec.)]

nice!

i especially like the third paragraph.

the last line, however true, is a bit anticlimactic compared to the rest of the writing, though. not because of its meaning but it kind of lacks the "punch in the face" style of the paragraphs before.

That's because it's meta-style writing, which clashes with the preceding rant. Let us see what a change in diction can accomplish...

RIGHT NOW, there is an asshole sitting behind a big desk in Washington DC who has absolute power over your life. He can, with a lazy misguided stroke of his pen, sentence you to interminable imprisonment or worse. He can send a squad of goons to root through your stuff. He can send a lynch mob to deal with you if you're rocking to boat. He can nationalize your "local" National Guard and order a battalion of tanks to swarm your neighborhood. He can suspend legal government in favor of martial law. He can, without the approval of anyone but the voices in his head, say the magic words "state of emergency" and dissolve every last so-called "right" you think you have.

There is a corrupt system of bureaucracy running amok in the synapses of your country. The power it holds over you might never be wielded in such blatant displays of outright totalitarian bullshit, but that power exists nonetheless and it's out of your hands. There are, literally, millions of brainwashed gun-toting killing machines doing nothing but waiting for orders to storm your town and turn your neighborhood grocery store into an "enemy combatant processing center." There are entire fleets of planes and trains and boats idling somewhere, waiting for the green light to lock you up and cart you away. There are fully-functioning gulags operating in the silence of media blackout right now, and the only thing their prison blocks are missing is you.

Even if you have nothing to hide, even if you're a good doggie who'd never bark at a superior, even if you are an anonymous nobody with nothing to gain and everything to lose from even wanting to know why all of this is true; even if you are afraid of what might happen to your mind if you let yourself in on this; you should take the time to understand one simple fact. It may be that no one will ever come knocking on your door (or blasting through it) to take you and your family away from your "freedom;" but the fact remains that they might, and they can if they want to. And there is absolutely no one who is even going to try to stop them. If that day comes, there is no court who will ever hear your case. There are no citizens' groups who can act fast enough even to slow them down. You are on your own, and if you think waving a flag in their faces as they come swarming into your living room is going to ward them off like waving a cross at a vampire, you're going to be a casualty.

Normally, this is the part where we tell you, "So let's do this..." But we aren't sure what to do, either. There is no help.

Last line has been chewed and spat out. It should be softer and more pliable now.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

approved.

[Cramulus]

There are no citizens' groups who can act fast enough even to slow them down. You are on your own, and if you think waving a flag in their faces as they come swarming into your living room is going to ward them off like waving a cross at a vampire, you're going to be a casualty.

I force myself to be relieved over what little control I have over this.

I was flying internationally, last week. I was forced to take off my shoes and discard any quantity of liquids over three ounces, and I was chuckling at the abject absurdity caused by the intersection of national panic and bureaucracy. And at that moment I realized that with one poorly-timed bomb joke, I could be put on a LIST. And on that list, I'd get The Full Treatment^TM every time I tried to board a plane for the rest of my life.

But there's no way to fight it. I can't hope to change anything by writing to a senator or holding up a sign or whatever. So in a way it's not something I have to worry about. One of the major challenges of bureaucracy is achieving a homeostasis with the absurdity. You've gotta just not let it get under your skin.

And if you DO have to fight the system, I second Cain's recommendation in his recent rant on tragedy. Don't fight the Gods, you can't win. Change is better achieved through small subtle steps.

I think it's our responsibility to respond to the absurdity of bureaucracy like sane citizens. BE shocked and outraged, but don't rock the boat too much, right? KYFMS.  Or is that too moderate?

I dunno anymore.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I dunno anymore.

Neither do we. There is no help.











Okay, so maybe I like that phrase a little too much. It's overly emo and fatalistic, but I saw it while playing the Mass Plague Victim Grave Tetris clone on the Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail computer game. Underneath the score there was a little frame labeled 'Help', and the only thing written in it was "There is no help." (in quotes). Silly, perhaps, but it was a quirky little mindfuck.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

there are options.

but nobody seems ready to take the steps necessary.

sure, everybody's pissed off about the coming totalitarian state, but we're all just a little bit too enamored with the promise of the cut and dry, convenient, prepackaged life it will bring.

see, this time, they got the Police State formula right. They don't advertise their power with jackboots and checkpoints. They've built their tyranny around what most people would be doing anyway, so there's little or no resistance. Why bother with a revolution when in the end, all you're really fighting for is convenience anyway?

[Cramulus]

there are options.

but nobody seems ready to take the steps necessary.

sure, everybody's pissed off about the coming totalitarian state, but we're all just a little bit too enamored with the promise of the cut and dry, convenient, prepackaged life it will bring.

see, this time, they got the Police State formula right. They don't advertise their power with jackboots and checkpoints. They've built their tyranny around what most people would be doing anyway, so there's little or no resistance. Why bother with a revolution when in the end, all you're really fighting for is convenience anyway?