(04-25-2021, 08:12 PM)Karen252 Wrote: The world is an Orwellian nightmare now. The US is not a democracy. The government and illegal immigrants don't obey the law. You are on camera constantly, the Gestapo are everywhere, you must give your fingerprints to drive, you are being tracked by license plate readers, you'll be groped if you travel or go to a ball game, you must wear a microchip if you go to Disneyland, you cannot use the Internet if you don't have a phone and you can't get a phone without a facial scan, everything is illegal, the government is wiretapping you, you don't have free speech, you don't have religious rights, guns are banned, the government can steal your property, the government can extrajudicially assassinate you and torture you, cash is illegal, and you cannot escape because the border is closed.
https://archive.org/details/remarkablest...a/mode/2up
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
... and Foxy Loxy generously and cheerfully offered shelter from the falling sky to Chicken Licken, Ducky Lucky, and Turkey Lurkey... in his oven. This is a commonplace story taught in elementary school. I have taught elementary school as a substitute teacher, and I have read this fable several times.
Sometimes cynicism and pessimism have genuine merit, but optimists generally get the better results in life. At the least, optimists better know who the trustworthy people and institutions are, seek them out, and find them. They know that everything good has a price attached, that any valid achievement has effort attached, and that something that others offer that is too good to be true is neither good nor true. Do real work and pay an honest price, and you will do fine.
F--- the criminals. Leave fingerprints behind while doing a crime, and you will be caught. If you weren't at the scene of the crime, then your lie about never having been there will be exposed. As for the police scanning your license plate, it won't matter unless you are a suspected fugitive or you are driving a car reported stolen. San Jose, California introduced computers to police cars, and if a car came up stolen in the computer registry, whoever was driving the car was going to be busted. Auto insurance becomes less expensive because people have fewer claims of stolen cars and fewer accidents from joyriding. Stealing a car in an effort to flee law enforcement becomes futile. Then again, I am no buddy of the garden-variety criminal.
If the country library is any indication, practically anyone can use its Internet -- even if one is a fugitive driving a stolen car. Of course if the local cops read your license plate while you are at the library, you may be in a bad spot. Of course you cannot access pornography through the filter that the library has.
Need I go on?
The sky is not falling. Yes, there are predatory people who may not cook you as dinner, but they will certainly fleece you if you believe nonsense that makes you a mark for a con-man.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.