m0ntyblack

Well, as any family get-together goes over the holidays, several political discussions came to pass. Several of them were big and rowdy, a couple more discreet and well-pointed. Anyway, the one which I'd like to bring your attention to is a certain small one between my aunt and myself. My aunt is conservative/independant, while I am liberal/independant, and we both have a great deal of respect for the other so our discussions are always relevant to the point and we never press too far (we both know that sometimes you're just preaching to the choir or talking to yourself).

Basically the argument was over the Patriot Act and the reductions of civil liberties. I stated that any reduction of liberty was a bad thing, and she stated that it wasn't necessarily bad if it could be used against our enemies. At length, it was her statement, "well, if you don't do anything criminal, than you don't have anything to fear, do you?" that got me. Oh, I immediately came back with all the Orwellian misgivings about, "what if someone starts using the information gained for their own ends, etc." and she said that the government had failsafes so that would never happen, etc. But it was that statement about only criminals having to fear the new private information laws that had me deep in thought for the next few days.

I used to be a criminal (ie, used to smoke the pot, drink underage, etc.), and had an appropriate amount of respect (fear) of authority... I since have become clean, but was it my residual fear of authority that made me so uncomfortable with allowing the government an unreserved eye into my life?

Then I was over at a friend's house recently and his daughter was watching some science show on TV and they had the Frog Experiment on and something clicked.

For those of you unfamiliar with the frog experiement, it goes something like this: Put a frog in a pot of boiling water, frog jumps out, put a frog in a cool pot of water and slowly warm it up to boiling, the frog will boil to death.

I don't think it's my previous criminal background giving me these misgivings, rather I think I (like many others) am just a sensitive frog, and I don't like my water getting ANY warmer at all.

Anyway, your thoughts: Is the reduction of civil liberty like the frog experiment, or is it a necessity that will only happen now, and will protect and save many lives?


MB