A Bill of Information Rights

[Andrew Lentvorski]

Todd Walton wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Andrew Lentvorski<bsder at allcaps.org> wrote:
>> I would bet that a whole lot of Iranian protesters believed that the Iranian
>> government really wouldn't beat them, shoot them, break into their
>> apartments, etc.  They were wrong.
> 
> Right... this is why there were protests for a solid week, and even up
> to two days ago, after the Iranian government really did start
> beating, shooting, and destroying the property of its citizens.
> 
> Don't project anti-conceptualism and sloth onto the Iranians.

Um, what?  In what way did I imply sloth?  Just because I said that they 
didn't believe they would be killed does not imply sloth.

And, I'll simply ignore the pseudo-intellectual word posturing ...

However, I would like to point out that you should go take a look at the 
quotes from current articles: People are depressed.  "They have stepped 
on our rights."  "What religion allows this?"  etc.

Those aren't the words of a people who truly believed that their 
government would kill them.

The protests ran while people could rationalize the deaths as "one-offs" 
that they could stand against.  Once it became systematic with soldiers, 
helicopters, and secret police the protests ended in a real hurry.  This 
is simple self-preservation.  It is *SMART*.  Once the opposition has 
shown that it is perfectly fine with wholesale slaughter, there is no 
useful result from gathering so that modern military hardware can simply 
mow you down in great numbers.

None of this detracts from what they did, marks them as stupid, or makes 
them cowards.

It does point out that the average person gravely underestimates the 
amount of power that he has in the face of government oppression.

This is no different whether that government is Iranian or American.

If you aren't one of the elite, your interactions with the government 
are limited in range from "neutral," at best, to "deep shit," at worst. 
  More people would do well to remember that protection from the 
government is more important than protection by the government.

There are reasons why some of us in this country get *very* upset about 
this whole "rights" thing that didn't seem to be too important to people 
for the last 8 years.

-a