Quote:
Originally Posted by Gman
The CLEO's got their MRAPs and all manner of militaria with the GWOT and its subsequent spending fervor coming home stateside, but they apparently didn't get the memo written in the blood of many Americans, Iraqis, etc.: the common man will have no choice but to become an enemy when you make him one.
It starts with individuals, but eventually will spread to society at large.
When one is pushed into the shadows, they adjust to the dark. That's not a place any competent authority wants a person to be. In the dark, lines get blurred and what was legal yesterday is illegal today. Well, if you're gonna be a criminal, then just be a criminal.
As a young Specialist, I was once tasked with observing an interrogation of an individual whose yard contained a buried cache of weapons and explosives. Under Saddam he was probably a nobody. Just another lower-middle class Iraqi. But then the Americans came. By our very presence and the propaganda opportunity that afforded AQI, we made an enemy. The interrogator was following the script: presenting the evidence against him, asking for names and locations of resistance leadership and members, etc. He wouldn't give a single name. The interrogator took a break and told me he knew for a fact that the guy was guilty, because everyone in Samarra knew at least some of the local resistance leadership -- they were named repeatedly on the radio, on posters, etc. They reconvened. Interrogator started listing known names. Dude's eyes got wide. And then, the script continued, "Tell us everything you know, or we will send you to Abu Ghraib or maybe even Guantanamo." And the prisoner replied in Arabic. The interpreter, who had been rather macho until this point sat back with a look of almost shock. Interrogator asks what he said, and the terp says, "He said that 'when you are already wet, you aren't afraid of the rain'." In other words: I'm caught. You'll do what you want, but I'm not going down like a clothesline in a tornado.
That line, 'when you are already wet, you aren't afraid of the rain', has stuck with me since that night.
The problem is those currently "in charge" don't understand that they are creating a city, state, and a nation of people who can only have so many water balloons, buckets, and hoses aimed at them before they no longer care about getting wet. The rain will be nothing. In fact, they will thrive in it because they're now used to the dark, the cold, and the wet.
This law is a hose to aim at whomever -- sure, some are lit fuses that need to be put out, but many will be kleenex: flammable in potential, but with no intention to be aflame. When they dry out, God help anyone who tries to wet them again. Pretty soon TPTB will find they have done at least the following once all these "safety" measures come to a conjoined bearing of fruit:
* Created a subset of society that, otherwise, would never have been a criminal element.
* Accidentally facilitated, encouraged, and lost the war on the black market (which will expand).
* The encouragement of analog, old school methods of communication that no NSA server farm in Utah can EVER penetrate because you cannot wiretap a hushed face to face conversation.
* The good ole boy network will thrive, and the black market gun trade will take on a "cell" character that is impossible to penetrate with undercover agents. They will instead have to turn brother on brother, cousin on cousin, and childhood friend on childhood friend. And they have no idea where to start looking.
* The opening of entry for foreign elements, be they foreign .gov or cartels, or whatever, to supply a need which hurts a now-common enemy: TPTB.
* Etc. -- just look at history and connect the dots. "[9] What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. [10] Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. " - Ecclesiastes 1
Will the sky fall from the false dome which TPTB intend to tell us is reality in a year or 5? Not likely. Probably would take a significant event to shift such things up that quickly. But in 10, 15, 20 years? Probably more likely.
There's only two ways to stop it that I can see:
1) Don't do the dumb. Recognize that one cannot legislate away man's fallen nature. Bad people will do bad things, regardless of the law(s). It's no reason to punish the innocent. Simply punish the guilty when they present themselves.
2) Lull the populace bit by bit. Have step-by-step "compromise" that today's generation would see as a grab and tomorrow's generation will see as a win. In other words, boil the frog slowly.
They're too stupid to see the brilliance in #1. They'll go for #2. And then they will find out how utterly retarded that was.
