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Who owns your visage?*******************************
Question: Does not my "visage" belong to me? As ugly as I am, it’s me…and I OWN my looks… right? I mean… it is an unalienable right, granted by the creator, it seems to me.
Question: Does not my "visage" belong to me? As ugly as I am, it’s me…and I OWN my looks… right? I mean… it is an unalienable right, granted by the creator, it seems to me.
OK, if you believe, as I do, that you have a right, a sole right, to your visage, that is, what others see when they look specifically at you, then why in hell is there not a law on the books that makes it illegal for someone, anyone, to take a photograph of you without your permission?
Have you ever stopped to consider how many times a day your photograph is taken, without your permission, without your even being aware of it? Dare I say… hundreds? I had one commenter, sometime back, who estimated his photo was taken over 300 times a day!
Pull up to a big box store and get out of your car and smile! You’re on "Candid Camera!” At a big box store near me I counted 22 cameras pointed at various parts of the parking area. That was just on the outside. I had not even entered the store yet! Inside, the ceiling is full of those dark colored bubbles with cameras in them covering every nook and cranny of the building.
Drive up to an ATM machine and WHAMMO! You photo is taken and you even become a movie star as the digital recording device whirrs away, someplace, recording your brief appearance in front of it’s lens.
Pull up to an intersection and checkout the posts on the four corners. Chances are very good that at least one post has a video camera grinding away taking a mini movie or photograph of you, and your car, and your car’s licensed plate. Run through that light before it changes to green and your can rest assured your photo has been taken, breaking the law" and you will son receive a ticket in the mail. Forget your constitutional right to confront your accuser in a court of law! Why, that is just a phrase from an old piece of paper called “the constitution” which nobody has even read these days. You’ll be charged and fined and never see your accuser.
Now these are just some examples of how our God-iven right to privacy is invaded, every day, in the US. And now they want to make it worse. Police departments, all over the country, are trying to obtain spy planes, those unmanned drones, to fly above their city streets watching us below.
Now, maybe it’s just me, but all this spying on me just invokes resentment of the government. It is an insult! I see it as a presumption of guilt! That’s right, I interpret spying upon me as the government presuming I am guilty, already, of breaking the law. I don’t like it. In fact, I detest it!
This “unauthorized spying" didn’t begin with the onset of the GWT (Global War on Terror). Oh, no, It has been around far longer. The 9-11 incident only provided the government, and law enforcement agencies, all the excuse they needed to REALLY get into your business. And they have taken advantage of it… big time!
The US government, and all the little governments, have grown entirely too strong. Law and order is a wonderful thing… but not at the sacrifice of freedom for those law abiding citizens of a government. Somewhere, along the line, the phrase "consent of the governed” has been forgotten, or swept under the rug, or shunted off into a dark corner, out of sight and out of mind. As a result we are being herded, as sheep, from the moment our feet touch the floor in the mornings until we retire at night… and even while we sleep.
Even as Founding Father John Adams was loathe to “shake off the chains of Great Britain, only to take on the chains of France”, we modern Americans have replaced those British chains with American chains. So what have we gained? More importantly… what have we lost? Think about that next time you see all those cameras watching every move you make.
Longstreet
Have you ever stopped to consider how many times a day your photograph is taken, without your permission, without your even being aware of it? Dare I say… hundreds? I had one commenter, sometime back, who estimated his photo was taken over 300 times a day!
Pull up to a big box store and get out of your car and smile! You’re on "Candid Camera!” At a big box store near me I counted 22 cameras pointed at various parts of the parking area. That was just on the outside. I had not even entered the store yet! Inside, the ceiling is full of those dark colored bubbles with cameras in them covering every nook and cranny of the building.
Drive up to an ATM machine and WHAMMO! You photo is taken and you even become a movie star as the digital recording device whirrs away, someplace, recording your brief appearance in front of it’s lens.
Pull up to an intersection and checkout the posts on the four corners. Chances are very good that at least one post has a video camera grinding away taking a mini movie or photograph of you, and your car, and your car’s licensed plate. Run through that light before it changes to green and your can rest assured your photo has been taken, breaking the law" and you will son receive a ticket in the mail. Forget your constitutional right to confront your accuser in a court of law! Why, that is just a phrase from an old piece of paper called “the constitution” which nobody has even read these days. You’ll be charged and fined and never see your accuser.
Now these are just some examples of how our God-iven right to privacy is invaded, every day, in the US. And now they want to make it worse. Police departments, all over the country, are trying to obtain spy planes, those unmanned drones, to fly above their city streets watching us below.
Now, maybe it’s just me, but all this spying on me just invokes resentment of the government. It is an insult! I see it as a presumption of guilt! That’s right, I interpret spying upon me as the government presuming I am guilty, already, of breaking the law. I don’t like it. In fact, I detest it!
This “unauthorized spying" didn’t begin with the onset of the GWT (Global War on Terror). Oh, no, It has been around far longer. The 9-11 incident only provided the government, and law enforcement agencies, all the excuse they needed to REALLY get into your business. And they have taken advantage of it… big time!
The US government, and all the little governments, have grown entirely too strong. Law and order is a wonderful thing… but not at the sacrifice of freedom for those law abiding citizens of a government. Somewhere, along the line, the phrase "consent of the governed” has been forgotten, or swept under the rug, or shunted off into a dark corner, out of sight and out of mind. As a result we are being herded, as sheep, from the moment our feet touch the floor in the mornings until we retire at night… and even while we sleep.
Even as Founding Father John Adams was loathe to “shake off the chains of Great Britain, only to take on the chains of France”, we modern Americans have replaced those British chains with American chains. So what have we gained? More importantly… what have we lost? Think about that next time you see all those cameras watching every move you make.
Longstreet
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1 comment:
You know, I know some Amish people, and I am not in any way picking on them but, The Amish people do not pose for pictures because they believe that photographs violate the biblical teaching against making graven images. Also, they are concerned that pictures will promote self-pride. They may put their hands or hats over their faces, look away or take evasive action to avoid having their picture taken. Maybe with all the pictures being take the world over, no wonder there is so much evil that in order to feel save we need to continue to take more thus multiplying that evil.
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