09-09-2007, 04:11 AM
Quote: The cowardly sorts are going to gripe, piss, bitch, and moan about how he should have just shut up and took it, or that he is a jerk, or how wrong he is, but that is only because they are cowards. It galls them because they lack enough personal convictions or the stones to do it for themselves and they want to draw attention away from that fact by demonising the sheep that stood out.
Heh. Well the problem is that way too many people are constantly trying to show their stones but wind up showing they're assholes.
Maybe you can't tell the difference anymore. (Your sense of smell is probably next to nothing because of your Amazing Superpower. [For those of you who don't know, Doc produces more methane than is medically possible.])
As for the coward part, well. It sounds more than vaguely familiar. It sounds very familiar. In fact, add a more jingoistic tone and it's very recognizable. You are at the level of an America First-er, the people who would say "Those who say anything against the war are cowards, cut-and-runners, and traitors". These Firsters would be pathetic except there are so damn many of them, and go up so high in the administration. In reality, the more brave souls are the ones who have spoken against the war from the beginning, or those who said, when we botched it, that we botched it. The cowards are the ones that don't speak up, or just follow the jingoists.
When I allow the bag to be checked, it is not timidity. It is a willful cooperation to serve a shared purpose - to reduce shoplifting. After reading this thread, I now know more about it, and would now say the purpose is to reduce theft, a slight difference. Anyway, to many, timidity and willful cooperation are the same -- but the difference, as you allude, is whether there's conviction involved. I have convictions -- and many of them are that much more is achieved by people working together toward common goals rather than Look Out For Number One. The problem with Look Out For Number One people is usually they are too full of Number Two.
So, why am I for this search, while I am against the government, or anyone, checking what I get from the library, or do on the internet, or reading my email, or bugging my house etc etc ?? A fair question, a good question, and one that has me performing some self-inspection (which helps me relax while I think HAW HAW *snort*) I guess to me the difference is that checking the bag is a very specific test (not casting a wide net) and more importantly, the checker doesn't care who I am. It's either good bag or bad bag, it's not OMG look what you're buying you are certainly a p0rn0graph3r. Also, buying at that store is voluntary.
To me, there's very little difference between the bag check and the automatic sensors at the library. (I know we've had posts comparing auto vs. manual checks.) One time I was leaving my local county library, with a full backpack, and the alarms went off. Did I go, NO WAY YOU'RE LOOKING IN MY BAG and head for the car? Or, frightened of the librarians, did I wait there until they had their way with me?? (Tempting, because I have a Thing for librarians.) What I did was go back to the desk with the attitude, let's figure out why the alarm is going off. I looked in my bag, and guessed that the likely culprit was the book I had in there from my college library. I pulled that out, walked it over to the sensors, and yep, the book set them off. I showed them the book, and they saw it was not a county book (and they probably also decided it wasn't stolen from the college library either). I put the book back in, and walked out, setting off the alarm for the third time, which they ignored. It was in this way I was able to steal 10 books from the county library . . . just kidding. So the auto thing is only as good as the people enforcing it, so it's back to manual. (By the way I feel anyone who steals from a library deserves to be cast into a lake of outdated periodicals, and to spend eternity reading the tripe written for IT managers.)
-V
Traveler's Library Volunteer
The Forsaken Inn