Look, I'm not defending what he said, but he has a point. It's one thing for companies to publicly oppose this shit, but how effective is this opposition when you really get down to it? At the end of the day, is their opposition having any real effect, or are they pissing in the wind? I suspect it's some of the former and most of the latter.

But he's absolutely right that, when you get down to it, this is a societal issue. Unless you have a really large segment of society shouting very loudly that this behavior is unacceptable and must cease, then nothing will get done to stop it. We have to come to a clear consensus about what kind of country we want to live in, and I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but there are lots of people out there who believe that the government should have free reign to do whatever it wants in order to make them feel safe as they fall asleep at night. They either don't think there are any real tradeoffs, or they simply don't care what those tradeoffs are, as long as they feel safe. And those people vote. And then there are the ones who are only outraged when it's the other party in power when these abuses are uncovered. You can see that factor in play both now and back in 2005, when more or less the same shenanigans were uncovered.

Again, I completely disagree with this guy's cynicism, but there's some truth in it.

actions · 2013-Sep-18 5:42 pm ·

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