Quote:
Originally Posted by pepak
1) Every single limitation of our freedoms is "just one, very minor" thing. Harmless in itself. But if we can accept "turning off gadgets on take-off for no good reason at all", why not other tiny, negligible thing? And another? And another? Where will it stop? (Yes, I may be too sensitive to these things. But as I have lived in a totalitarian country, I do have a first-hand experience on how these tiny things tend to accummulate...)
2) I for one see a vast difference between "being polite" and "doing whatever someone tells me to do".
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I've lived long enough to have seen what you are talking about. And I sometimes worry (but not much though) about my fellow Americans. More than I do any legal emigrants.
But I can't agree about #2.
Two months ago I was in a store shopping. An announcement was made to leave the store. My best guess was that it was a drunk ex-employee or kids playing a prank. Who else would be so stupid as to call in a bomb threat?
So I left my cart, half full of food, and went home. Was it real? No. But I didn't know. The store management didn't know. And the police I didn't know at the time of the call.
Like wise, if the management of a theater turns on the lights and asks everyone to leave they don't want to explain to 200
individuals why they want you to leave.
There may be a small fire in the office with almost no chance of it spreading. You may not smell the smoke. Do you stand there and object to
"doing whatever someone tells me to do"?
Suppose the
small fire
in the office turns out to be from a much larger fire
under the office".
I have made the biggest fool of myself whenever I "know that I'm right".
P.S. - What "totalitarian country" did you live in, New York City, New Jersey, or Washington DC?
