The daily parade of videos exposing physical abuse by state agents (primarily local police forces) has sovereign individuals everywhere voicing righteous outrage. But I don’t think enough attention has been given to a less visible abuse that continues the evolution of state tyranny from mere annoyance to outright shackling.This article about ankle bracelet monitors extols the virtues and supposed effectiveness of government putting DWI “violators” in electronic leg irons:
“The bracelet measures alcohol consumption by reading vapors given off in perspiration. It samples a person's sweat every 30 minutes, then transmits the readings to the company daily.”
I find this spooky and even terrifying that state agents literally monitor the creation and movement of your bodily fluids in order to coerce avoidance from what they consider an illicit activity- drinking alcohol. There is also the ridiculous, unspoken assumption that just because an individual imbibes alcohol, he will drink to intoxication AND then drive an automobile.
This monitoring becomes even spookier with the revelation that there is still another, complementing device that state agents prefer- a GPS monitor:
"If we did get a reading that they are drinking, we'd know exactly where they were so we could go out and get them if we wanted to."
Does that mean merely sending a couple LEOs to pick you up and cage you or can it mean (at least in the future) sending the latest drone aircraft technology your way to turn your carcass into toast?
There seems to be virtually no limit on the amount of abuse the state is willing to perpetrate on its subjects, and nearly no limit to the abuse the public is willing to endure. The tyranny has surpassed merely verbal restrictions on our lives, the violation of which results being caged like an animal. Now, the more “humane” and “cost effective” approach is to literally being physically restrained and controlled like a dog on a leash.
What next? Will there be ankle bracelets that monitor brain activity to assure your masters that you are not thinking corrupting “anti-government” thoughts or considering subversive activities? Will new, more sophisticated monitors record what your eyes view- books read, television programs watched, people you talk to and associate with?
Rest assured that ambitious and creative government employees and contractors are feverishly working (supported and enriched by your stolen tax dollars) at finding new ways to effectively curb “inappropriate” behavior and create even more compliant and obedient subjects.
4 comments:
You're right, the future is absolutely terrifying. The surveillance state grows more and more powerful, and of course people accept the bondage, because after all the government's only after bad guys, and if you're not a bad guy, you have nothing to fear, right?
But where will it end? Is there hope? I don't know. As much as I hate most of these Tea Party Fascists, at least it's nice to see a significant number of conservatives again hating the government and distrusting everything it does. Even though many of their conspiracy theories are wacky, at least they're vigilant. Now if we could just get the right and the left to hate the government at the same time, well, hell, freedom might actually have a shot.
I’m afraid the right and left only hate the government when it’s controlled by the opposition. Both stand behind the philosophy of coercion and violence to create and enforce their world view. Both abhor the concepts of self-government and individual sovereignty. Both are infected with the disease of nationalism.
They are merely different denominations of the same statist religion. In isolated occasions when the two sides make an uneasy alliance, it never seems to benefit liberty, only more state enslavement and war. The best result we seem to get is “Tyranny Light.”
I don’t foresee these two political institutions ever “hating’ government enough to abolish it. Institutions never move to abolish themselves. That change will only come through individual realization, conversion, and resistance- one person at a time.
The good thing is that technology is always on the verge of failing. There is always a way to beat it.
The insane urge to control people- that is what is harder to beat. It needs to be exposed as the mental illness it really is. Seriously, those with that urge are not "right" or right. They are a danger to peaceable folks everywhere.
Kent- overriding and/or confusing the technology is definitely an alternative I hadn’t considered. This particular technology shouldn’t be too difficult to neutralize.
How about it? Any enterprising engineers out there think they can “beat the bracelet?”
Post a Comment