Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Stifling Effect Of Living In A Surveillance State Like The USA
American Thinker ^ | 9 Aug, 2023 | Vince Coyner

Posted on 08/09/2023 5:04:21 AM PDT by MtnClimber

It doesn’t matter whether you know the government is specifically spying on you. It’s damaging enough to believe that it might be.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” Writing in 1928, John Shedd wasn’t really talking about ships. He was talking about life. And in American life, we no longer feel safe even in the harbor.

Years ago, my girlfriend and I went to see a movie. What we saw, I’ve no idea, but I do know we had a terrible time, and it had nothing to do with what was on the screen and everything to do with what was going on in the theater. People were yelling at the screen, talking to each other, and smoking. My girlfriend mentioned the smoking, and I said that if that was the only problem we encountered, we’d be lucky, as I’d recently witnessed a bloody knife fight between two girls over a baby-daddy in a nearby theater.

I mention this because when you think your life may be in jeopardy, it’s hard to enjoy entertainment, and enjoyment is the whole point of movies. Movies require your buy-in for success, you must turn off reality and connect with the characters.

SNIP

Just as movies require your buy-in and focus for success, so too does life. And that’s a problem with 21st-century America and the always-on-everywhere swamp. The danger is not so much that Big Brother is watching and trying to control our every move. He/it doesn’t have to. Our knowing that the state could be watching or listening is enough. It’s called the “Chilling Effect—basically, the government doing something that chills citizens’ willingness to exercise their constitutional rights for fear of reprisals.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: bananarepublic; bigbrother; fisacourts; patriotact; policestate; spying; surveillance; thanksbush

1 posted on 08/09/2023 5:04:21 AM PDT by MtnClimber
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I bet that the government does not have ANTIFA or BLM under surveillance.


2 posted on 08/09/2023 5:04:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“I am perpetual, I keep the country clean”


3 posted on 08/09/2023 5:04:56 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“I bet that the government does not have ANTIFA or BLM under surveillance.”

They do. They just don’t use what they know against them.

But it’s important that they be able to yank the choke chain on their violent supporters should their brown shirts ever get too uppity.


4 posted on 08/09/2023 5:08:21 AM PDT by ModelBreaker (l)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
"I bet that the government does not have ANTIFA or BLM under surveillance."

You're correct because ANTIFA and BLM are part of the current government and so have handlers in the CIA and make regular reporting through official channels.
5 posted on 08/09/2023 5:10:16 AM PDT by The Louiswu (PEDO JOE MUST GO!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

The specter of the DC Gulag has shut down any organized grassroots opposition to the DC Junta. I assume we are interacting with members of Wray’s goon squad every day on patriotic sites like FR.


6 posted on 08/09/2023 5:15:21 AM PDT by hardspunned (Former DC GOP globalist stooge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

They need to go to a better neighborhood for a movie theater.


7 posted on 08/09/2023 5:26:21 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants ( "It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled."- Mark Twain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

It’s what happens when the ghetto cannibals take over society. Yes, I am looking directly at you Obama. This is your thugs that you placed all over Washington DC. The USA really is a banana republic.


8 posted on 08/09/2023 5:31:31 AM PDT by Flavious_Maximus (Tony Fauci will be put on death row and die of COVID!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
Movies require your buy-in for success, you must turn off reality and connect with the characters. If you can’t do that, you can’t enjoy the movie. If you’re worried that someone’s going to pull a gun or set the place on fire, you’re going to be too busy scanning for danger to become engaged with what’s on the screen. You’d end up doing little more than wasting your time and money.

Which drove the home theater industry. Why subject yourself to the antics of the monkeys in a movie theater?

9 posted on 08/09/2023 5:41:47 AM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hardspunned

I assume we are interacting with members of Wray’s goon squad every day

Oh, no! That can’t Bee!


10 posted on 08/09/2023 5:41:55 AM PDT by drSteve78 (Je suis Deplorable. Even more so)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
The reality is that citizens silencing themselves is a far bigger problem than the government censoring them.

People have been silencing themselves for a long time. The tipping point was with political correctness. That’s when the state reached critical mass to rapidly reduce and/or eliminate our rights and liberties. The only way to reclaim our freedoms is to exercise them per the Constitution. If we all do that then government cannot arrest all of us. It will take significant courage to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction.

Make free speech in public a daily practice. You’ll be surprised how many people agree with you. But yeah, there will be whack jobs that don’t, but that’s the point. They need to see you fearless. It will scare the hell out of them. They are not used to being challenged.

When you fear tyrants there will be tyranny. When tyrants fear you, there will be freedom. Quite simply, tyrants are totally insecure and know deep inside their ideas do not have popular support. They know they have to use force to achieve their objectives. They count on your fear to get their way. The only way to change that is to scare the hell out of them.

You will find it empowering.

11 posted on 08/09/2023 5:42:28 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA (The Delay Trump’s trial, delay. Elect Trump President. Trump pardons himself. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

They don’t have to. They are running them.


12 posted on 08/09/2023 5:47:15 AM PDT by nhbob1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Blood of Tyrants

Exactly. He was describing how black moviegoers typically act. Whites are generally well-behaved in theaters, toddlers being an occasional exception.


13 posted on 08/09/2023 5:54:58 AM PDT by Blurb2350 (posted from my 1500-watt blow dryer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Blurb2350

"Can't go to a movie the first week it comes out! Why? 'Cause n____s are shooting at the screen. What kind of ignorant s___ is that? 'Hey, this is a good movie, this is so good I gotta bust a cap in here!'"

14 posted on 08/09/2023 5:58:09 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Blurb2350

Being well-behaved is racist. /s


15 posted on 08/09/2023 6:09:37 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants ( "It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled."- Mark Twain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

As valid as any points may be, that he is trying to make - I can’t get by my skepticism of a person who once took a date to a clearly trash-culture dump of a movie complex where he had seen a knife-fight ‘recently’.

That kind of judgement is difficult to overlook, even years later.


16 posted on 08/09/2023 6:21:52 AM PDT by larrytown (A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. Then they graduate...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I bet they do. First, many of them are likely on the payroll. Second, they’re useful idiots, and the government trusts them only to do their bidding - they wouldn’t invite them to dinner and prolly have bugged their phones.


17 posted on 08/09/2023 6:23:03 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity’s waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

In the USA, today, you can wake up one day and find out that your bank accounts have been “frozen.” (Seized). This is what they call debanking. Essentially you are a non-person. This can be done to you without explanation - perhaps you “liked” something that a “LGBTXYZ” said was offensive. Perhaps you bought a gun.

The government knows about this, and actively promotes it. Banks are highly regulated in the USA. They do nothing without the approval of the government. Therefore the government is doing the debanking.

This is illegal, wrong and unconstitutional. No one is trying to do anything about it, even those useless Republicans.


18 posted on 08/09/2023 8:37:43 AM PDT by I want the USA back ( My pronouns: Haha, heehee, hoho, hoo hoo. No one is assigned sex at birth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Antifa and BLM are surveillance. The members are in the domestic Stasi, and will be involved in foot and vehicular surveillance on regular Americans. They are basically assets of not government, but whatever really runs our government.

See my tag line.


19 posted on 08/09/2023 10:01:42 PM PDT by AnonymousConservative (DO NOT send me sensitive information - http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/surveillance)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson