Human Domestication

I saw this on a friend's facebook page. So I put the comment, "Right. Same goes for the trillions of pieces of paper it was violated for." Soon afterwards, one of my friend's friends posted a comment talking about "Oh please! This is ridiculous! No president would ever get away with it. Obama regularly violates the constitution. Then he starts talking about "meme-makers" and cautioned my friend against taking a "meme" as a viable source. I don't hate the comment poster, but I had to post again. Something that I thought might piss him off. You see, what I hate is the word "meme." I have a grudging respect for the word's originator for his command of the English language and his ability to hornswaggle so many people into believing he actually proves things with his slick sophistry, (and for getting them to buy his books and go to his appearances). I dislike him though. (Dawkins) I also hate the word "meme" for its usage for the purposes of impressing people. "Hey I'm going to use this word, then pretend I'm not just aching for you to allow me to prove my superiority by asking me what it means." It's a pretentious word like "whom" or "duvet" or "feces." "Rubric" is another one I hate. There are huge lists of these "power words" that people use to impress. People whose job is basically just that: impressing people with their words, not their actions. This guy used the word "meme" TWICE. "He must be punished," I thought.

So I posted the following as a follow-up comment: "This quote found after a legal search of Bush's private documents and recordings with the Intention of Obstructing Terrorism."

You see, PATRIOT in "Patriot Act" is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. That's why I capitalized the last three words in my second comment. It is my personal opinion that there should be another act drawn up to make it abundantly clear to the American public that the Patriot Act is part of a multi-trillion dollar fear campaign designed to use American taxes to bolster the already expensive defence against terrorists and sell the very expensive equipment needed to do so. The appropriate tools are people like two dicks, Cheney and Perle mentioned on this blog before who get into positions of power in government advisory councils and convince the stupid president to buy hundreds of mid air refueling planes from Boeing, their business partners, or develop biometric identification like eyeball scanning and buy it from Autonomy Corporation, which they have lots of stock in. The new act revealing the corruption of the Patriot Act would have an acronym too: It Doesn't Intercept or Obstruct Terrorism and would be called the IDIOT Act.

I do think the Patriot Act is a violation of privacy and the U.S. Constitution that COULD be used for good but probably won't be. It'll be abused. But in case you haven't figured it out, the joke was that the search of Bush's stuff was conducted legally BECAUSE of the Patriot Act that he instituted into law. His own shenanigans bit him in the ass. It would be sweetly ironic if it were so! So anyway, the guy then posts a rebuttal, apparently having taken me seriously, talkin' bout, "If this is a recording, a link would be appreciated." "I won't believe it until a reputable news source like CNN reports it." "It's all just trying to deflect criticism from Obama anyway."

I just left it at that. But it got me thinking. I wonder what the limits are with this act in the States. And what about Canada? Could somebody read my mail and listen in on my phone calls in Canada provided he/she could prove that his/her intention was to obstruct terrorism? Then about a million courtroom dramas flashed through my mind. Other Lawyer: So was it the perpetrator's intention to...?" Perry Mason: (slams fist on desk and rises to his feet) Objection, your honour! Conjecture! Judge: Sustained. Counsel, are you really asking the witness to testify as to another person's intentions? Other Lawyer: Sorry, your honour. I withdraw the question.

Where the hell was Perry Mason when they drew up this act? All you have to do to get away with invading someone's privacy under this act, from my understanding, is prove your intention was to obstruct terrorism. Well we can't prove intention can we? Law 101.

I'm not very concerned about invasion of my privacy because I don't have much of anything to hide. And I don't have a large enough ego to think anyone in government cares about my relatively meaningless day-to-day web surfing and phone calling. But I am concerned with the erosion of rights and liberties. It has already had some effect on my personal life. Just the other day I was trying to make trades in my Yahoo hockey pool and could not get onto the site without my password. I could not retrieve my password because I had also forgotten my Yahoo username. The only way I access the site is by logging in thru facebook. If THAT ever gets its security bolstered with extra passwords and such I won't be able to make trades and I will probably LOSE that hockey pool. THIS I am concerned about.

Pretty soon we will need eyeball scans, odour analyses, microchips surgically implanted in our wrists, tattoos, voice recognition and such to water our lawns with Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator. Brawndo's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave! That's from the movie Idiocracy. Love that flick! I already have enough trouble with all the usernames and passwords I am forced to remember. I just don't want any more security!

My previous post about the incredibly irresponsible health systems who are promoting flu shots without a list of ingredients is another example of what I'm talking about. I don't think we should be so afraid of the flu either. And from all the research I did, and the small amount of solid facts I was able to find on flu shots, Brawndo might as well be selling them as "The Flu Mutilator."

We still have the right to educate ourselves on most things and make informed decisions. This is a right worth protecting. Seems to me we are going backwards and letting other people make all kinds of decisions for us. More and more all the time.

I am trying to get an explanation about a shift I worked on Labour Day last year. I don't think I got paid the right amount, but because I can't get my username and password to work on the company website where we can access paystubs and schedules, I am not 100% sure. So I had to look up the laws. Well it gets complicated. If you work 30 days of the year preceding the stat. holiday you are entitled to stat. pay. I definitely qualified having worked full time for the same company for well over a year previous to that Labour Day. However, I was working in a hospital at the time doing irregular shifts. In THAT case you have to have worked 5 of the 9 previous Mondays if the stat. holiday falls on a Monday. I don't think I DID work 5/9. So I get nothing? That makes no kind of sense to me. Who are the people who came up with this decision? Every other person who worked that shift got double time and a half and I am supposed to accept my normal wage even though I was working full time and did just as much work as anyone else that shift. Why? Because that's the way it is.

I hate that phrase! "That's the way it is." And it occurs to me that nowadays we have to accept it as an explanation for something unfair more than we used to. I think this represents a violation of my reasonable rights and freedoms. Why do I have to pay the Boston Pizza guy a 5 buck delivery fee when I order food at work, a two-minute walk and 30-second drive from BP? And THEN I have to tip him too! Why do I have to pay service fees galore to my bank that is using my money to make more money? Shouldn't they pay me? Used to be called "interest." What ever happened to that? Who decided that we need a bank account to get a place to live and we need an address to get a passport, driver's licence, or a job? Why do we have to do personal taxes every year when the government already knows exactly what we will be claiming? Most of us. Why does anyone want to remove all junk food from schools? And while they're at it let's take away all those dangerous balls too! Turn the kids into cattle! What's next? Removing coffee from the workplace?

Well now I'm just babbling. But I see more crap, (not feces), like this all the time and to me it represents a kind of domestication of our species. I dunno, maybe in 50 or 100 years we'll all be Soma-eating, Brawndo-drinking, domesticated consumers who sit around batin' in front of our TVs. It might be better for all I know.