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{"id":45429,"date":"2013-06-22T00:06:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T07:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=45429"},"modified":"2014-12-29T22:54:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T05:54:05","slug":"another-straw-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2013\/06\/another-straw-in-the-wind.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Straw in the Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

NYC Expands Surveillance Net to Fight Crime As Well As Terror\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

As we continue our morph into a militarized police state, increasingly the state will treat all lawbreaking of any kind as an act of war against the State and not merely as crime.\u00a0So we are already instructed that \u201cthe battlefield in the War on Terror is everywhere\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0citizens are now subject to the same kind of spying, jailing and killing as the rest of the world\u2019s population. At present, only custom and societal pressure keeps the state from transitioning from killing people with swarthy skin and funny Arabic names to killing people claimed to be, say, child rapists or murderers or drug barons.\u00a0 Soon it will occur to the State to define \u201cterror\u201d as any action that upsets the civil order.\u00a0Soon after, the argument will be made, \u201cWhat?\u00a0\u00a0You want to waste money defending that creep who (we are pretty sure) wasted that cop\/raped that kid\/sold meth to high schoolers?\u00a0 If you ask me that drone strike was money well spent!\u201d\u00a0That\u2019s the wonderfully elastic thing about Terror[TM] and our Holy War on it and it\u00a0will, for a long time, be used to shout down protest about any\u00a0act of state lawlessness as unpatriotic and as \u201csiding with the Terrorists[TM].\u201d\u00a0 And a supine media, fretting about not getting invited to the White House Press Corps Dinner, will acquiesce, even when the state is spying on and interfering with its normal operations<\/a>\u00a0and totally not-suspicious-or-anything stuff like the death of Michael Hastings happens<\/a>.\u00a0 The imperative of state-run media will be continue to be profits and perks, not to report news.<\/p>\n

Eventually, it will occur to the police state that\u00a0in the struggle to keep us safe from The Terrorists[TM]), not just infinite jail time, and murder, but torture will be permissible against domestic criminal suspects and not merely against swarthy foreigners with Arabic names.\u00a0 After all, domestic criminals can do heinous things too (or *may* have done them).\u00a0 They can build ticking time bombs.\u00a0 So if we are going to torture foreigners on the off chance one of them knows something, why not use the same techniques in the War on Terror (meaning, by then, \u201ccivil disorder\u201d) right here at home?<\/p>\n

And since\u00a0it\u2019s not *really* torture but just \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d and our noble goal is not vengeance or oppression or anything like that, but simply the swift and efficient harvesting of information, why not do what is most efficient and subject the loved ones of suspects to\u00a0these harmless\u00a0techniques since that is usually the best way to persuade suspects to talk?\u00a0 Or do you want The Terrorists[TM] to win and innocent people to suffer and perhaps die?\u00a0 What kind of self-righteous Ivory Tower pantywaist are you?<\/p>\n

I wonder how long it will take before the prolife movement and\u00a0Christians who labored to defend\u00a0torture get targeted and numbered among The Terrorists[TM]?<\/p>\n

Or, alternatively, we could repent, believe the good news, and become disciples of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 That\u2019s always on the table too.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"