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Are Americans Feer Today Than In 1980??
- Thread starter rhinefire
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We are more monitored so no, but we have greater means of communication so yes. How is that for a conundrum?
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I don't believe we are really "more monitored" than 1980 in relation to available equipment for each time. We were almost certainly being "monitored" back then too, the only difference is that technology has reached a point where the monitoring can be done much more easily today, especially with cell phones and internet, things that didn't exist in 1980. But I'm sure the intent to monitor still existed back then and, if given the same technology to do so, likely would have happened the same. Now, I'd say that much further back, there were most likely some points in our history where less monitoring would have happened, even if given the same equipment/abilities we have today, although some monitoring of some specific targets still likely would have gone on. I think most governments want to know what their citizens (or merely those in their country) are doing or saying.
It doesn't make it right for governments to do this, but it is naive to believe that most governments wouldn't do it, even governments of the past. The fact that 1984, along with other books that envisioned societies, even our own, which monitored their people so closely shows that the people back then believed that their government wanted to spy on its people, and probably was spying on the people, even if they didn't, at that time, have the best ability to do so.
Basically, I think the only reason that we are "more monitored" today is the available technology. However, I also think our technology plays a key role in why so many people are now aware of the monitoring and we are able to address it. People are able to better make the monitoring known.
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34 years, just consider the first, technical capabilities and second the quantitative application, that is tech. is everywhere. Add to surveillance the outrageous number of new laws signed every year since 1980. You should google how many city, state and federal laws have been created in the last 34 years. It will shock you.
MaggieD
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The availability of knowledge and truth is greater today than at any other time in history. We've never been freer.
mak2
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In 1976 the safest place for me to stash my pot was in my locker in the high school. I had never ever heard of the police searching a locker, by the time they got a search warrant it would be gone anyway, and my Mom might find it at home. Now days I believe some political groups in US even want to make it so I have to carry my papers when I go out. Yea, things have changed a bit.
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yes we also have never been more regulated.
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The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, Paris, May 27, 1788
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YOU may have been a kid and thought all that, but I was stopped in 76 and asked for ID in several states and not while I was driving. I was taking a group of YMCA kids on a bicentennial tour of the nation. In some places it is required you carry your ID. Sort of available on request.
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govt has gained a lot of ground in the last 34 years.... liberty has gained a little bit here and there, for select groups.
I say we were freer in 1980 than we are today.
since 1980, Congress has passed over 200,000 laws...the many hundreds of federal agencies have enacted an untold amount of policies and regulations.
we are the most regulated and controlled that we've ever been.