Thanks Glen very informative, Canada is also struggling with these issues and our logic is also being tested. But the writer is truly a remarkable individual the man must have been a lawyer.
However, I am not sure how we can find solutions to the situation. Your American Constitutional Rights are not Identical To ours. But they do substantially overlap. Now Our constitution was only recently repatriated and redefined and we watched as communities struggled to put in print what they wanted to see. Some experts warned that the rights being entrenched actually nibbled away or contradicted other rights within the same documents. Now it looks clearly like you guys just hit the wall the TSA was instructed to carry out specific duties that conflicted with established documented rights. The TSA was supposed to reduce fear among travelers. Well that conflict over which takes precedence was superbly enacted by your writer Matt. I compliment him. Now studying the game as was played it was clear that TSA dictates did not superceed your constitutional Rights and I compliment the Officers for finding a solution which though awkward was at least preserving the entrenched rights of the citizen. Zizek discussed the behavior of Yugoslavs especially police who imagined that their orders permitted them to exceed legitimate powers. That belief was so attractive it help recruit a large number of psychopaths to service. Pretty soon so many nuts were giving themselves extra power that the slaughter of innocents went unopposed. Zizek makes perhaps the best explanation of how normal people become transformed by the group into monsters. Conformity, which curiously also explains the passive attitude of millions during the Nazi regime. One disease two faces. Britain does not apparently have an entrenched bill of rights expressly to avoid just such a situation. They argue that some flexibility of rights is required to avoid constant testing and possible fracture. Our constitution has many extraordinary rights reflecting modern social structures and attempted to be very specific. To its detriment it is perhaps more fragile than the American constitution. Your example clearly demonstrates what lies in store for all nations that attempted entrenched bills of rights subsequent to the American system. Now attempts to alter bills of rights during unusual circumstances are not often successful. As you may recall Canada went through its own terrorist crisis years ago when Radicals kidnapped a Quebec provincial government official. Our Prime Minister declared the infamous WAR MEASURES ACT, it was meant to give authorities special powers to deal with a national threat or insurrection. It almost tore us apart as a Nation. Police in distant regions used the new powers to justify mass arrests of persons completely outside the scope of the problem. I myself was held at Gun Point in Toronto for a few minutes as a teenager. Hundreds of kilometers away from the problem. Police abuse of power cases filled the courts for years but generally the police were allowed to slide. Things returned to normal in short order and most of us forgot. The new constitution was supposed to solve such minor problems. But we fought hard over the new constitution and I believe it was enacted ultimately without approval of the parties involved. It is not finished. Now we are very unlikely ever to see a nation reneg on entrenched rights so the issue comes down to how to obtain a balance. Generally the Brits seem to have an easier time than either of us. But even their citizens are expecting something more along the American model. I listen to TEA Party proponents discuss your constitution and it sounds a lot like they want to do away with the terms while still preserving the empty carcass. Fine it is a populist movement and the apparatus of democracy will prevent them from ever carrying it out short of an armed insurrection. Canada is also protected by an enormous unelected democratic apparatus to prevent such populist movements from burning down our houses. But thankfully people like Mat document the conflicts methodically and they can now be studied. Both my experience and Mat's have some similarities though I admit I was not as professional and feebly excuse my sarcasm with the fact that I was also in extreme pain at the time. Nevertheless The officials temporarily averted a profoundly imminent disaster. It seems part of this situation has to do with the way the public has been driven to extremes of fear ahead of time. The use of fear in politics may be expedient but like Black Magic it comes back to bite you in the ass. Your public is being unreasonably and dangerously polarized as I fear is ours as well. Fear was used to justify the Canadian War Measures act and also your TSA. We should demonstrate perhaps using some of the concepts of Complexity that any civilian population bearing high levels of Fear will ultimately engender disastrous consequences which appear to require even more fear in order to control. It did not work the first time and why anyone believes more will solve the problem is beyond me. The psychological trap is believing that fear provides an authority with control never worked for the Soviets nor Hitler or Hussein. We know fear is self defeating yet we insist on using it to save time or effort. If complexity theory could demonstrate that fear when elevated in Agents results in extraordinarily bad decisions perhaps people will avoid using it. It is only a hopeful guess. Fear is a lot like alcohol it promises something and delivers the unexpected when used in excess. Honestly I do not wish any more guns to be pointed at my head nor at anyone elses'. But I will demonstrate my disapproval more politely next time. Thanks Glen. I hope more people are reading your link. It was forecast that the terrorists only had to make the Americans fearful and they would cause more damage to themselves than Al Quaeda could ever imagine. No real weapon was ever required to get Americans to hurt eachother. Unlike alcohol fear has another peculiar attribute , it seems to purposefully demand the elimination of reason and critics as a preliminary step toward rapid expansion. Fear appears to be well cognizant of it's enemies such as comedians and old geezers with big mouths. Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky Ph.D.(Civil Eng.), M.Sc.(Mech.Eng.), M.Sc.(Biology) 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg, Manitoba CANADA R2J 3R2 (204) 2548321 Phone/Fax [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: November 23, 2010 2:12 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] TSA, security technology, and opting out Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky wrote circa 10-11-20 04:39 PM: > If we do not object then we deserve what we get. Now I understand how the > Jews walked into the death camps without protest. That always struck me as > out of character. Now our entire society is incapable of protest. The > psychology of human degradation is very intriguing. More fodder: My TSA Encounter http://noblasters.com/post/1650102322/my-tsa-encounter -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
