This is a small matter, but to me it has ominous portents
My local city council now want to put tags on our rubbish bins. Because mine were not tagged as they were not out when the taggers came round of foot to tag them , and this as I am very frugal in my production of trash, I got a note informing me of the necessity of said electronic tag - no tag no rubbish pickup.
Affronted by this I phoned the number offered number on the flyer stuck in my mail box. The reason, as the appointed bureaucrat informed me on the phone, is to save money, and the excuse is the dislocation due to the earthquakes in my town whereby people have moved house and the council owned rubbish bins are being abandoned or taken with those shifting, thus doubling up their numbers in places people have moved to. Or remaining unused.
This is all very plausible, of course, for government infringement on liberty is always plausible and health safety security or fiscal responsibility are always the reasons.
But to my knowledge none of us were told beforehand and it is heavy handed. Thus an electronic tag was attached to an appurtenance of my household without my consent, nor to that of my neighbours.
It smacks of surveillance to me. You see when surveillance is done this does not increase security.
It destroys trust. Those doing it do not trust the populace. And those surveilled if they know it, cease to trust the authorities. All in all it is an exercise in control simply because they can. Of course they regard their reasons as invincibly sound, for bureaucrats have destroyed their consciences in order to obey orders - the Nuremberg defence which, if their behaviour were valid is only ever specious when the other fellow invokes it.
Affronted by this I phoned the number offered number on the flyer stuck in my mail box. The reason, as the appointed bureaucrat informed me on the phone, is to save money, and the excuse is the dislocation due to the earthquakes in my town whereby people have moved house and the council owned rubbish bins are being abandoned or taken with those shifting, thus doubling up their numbers in places people have moved to. Or remaining unused.
This is all very plausible, of course, for government infringement on liberty is always plausible and health safety security or fiscal responsibility are always the reasons.
But to my knowledge none of us were told beforehand and it is heavy handed. Thus an electronic tag was attached to an appurtenance of my household without my consent, nor to that of my neighbours.
It smacks of surveillance to me. You see when surveillance is done this does not increase security.
It destroys trust. Those doing it do not trust the populace. And those surveilled if they know it, cease to trust the authorities. All in all it is an exercise in control simply because they can. Of course they regard their reasons as invincibly sound, for bureaucrats have destroyed their consciences in order to obey orders - the Nuremberg defence which, if their behaviour were valid is only ever specious when the other fellow invokes it.
Of course this is a small thing, tagging trash bins. I know this
But it is a step on the way to a total surveillance society and there is no good faith reason for it.
Needless to say there is no point in complaining, for there is nothing so invincibly arrogant as a petty bureaucrat, who thinks he is God in his or her own sphere
And when the time comes we will be expected to submit to being tagged with the mark of the Beast as meekly
Now that is what chills me to the bone.
At my age, 58 I have a reasonable hope of being dead before it happens. But one never knows
But it is a step on the way to a total surveillance society and there is no good faith reason for it.
Needless to say there is no point in complaining, for there is nothing so invincibly arrogant as a petty bureaucrat, who thinks he is God in his or her own sphere
And when the time comes we will be expected to submit to being tagged with the mark of the Beast as meekly
Now that is what chills me to the bone.
At my age, 58 I have a reasonable hope of being dead before it happens. But one never knows
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