[clue-talk] surveillance cameras

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:31:04 -0600
Kevin Cullis wrote:


> http://www.khouse.org/articles/2007/691/

"Piracy was presumed to be one of the many risks that attended foreign
trade. If one could buy protection, even from the rogues themselves, how
was this so different from insuring a ship's cargo against a natural
calamity? So the logic ran: America's interests could be satisfied, and
its honor assuaged, if common ground could be found between the pirates
and their victims."

Interesting that the concept of insurance should pop up there. I'll also
note one of the tenets of basic economics: if you subsidise something,
you get more of it.

The problem here wasn't paying protection money by itself. It was in
paying it to the wrong people. Some would argue that it wasy being paid
by the wrong agent as well. Could not the merchants themselves have
organized a private navy -- in effect, their own insurance co-op, which
would use part of the premiums to finance an escort fleet? If you want to
argue that this would have raised the price of shipping to a prohibitive
level, I'll ask where it is that the U.S. got the funds it used to pay
this protection money. Tarrifs, perhaps? I actually don't know, but it
came from some place. Ultimately, it's always the consumers of goods who
finance the governments activities. The price gets passed on in one way
or another.

The right of self-defense is fundamental. Therefore, since the citizens
of the U.S. ceded certain authority to the govt. to act on their behalf,
the actions of Jefferson in this are entirely defensible. But let's ask
the question of whether Jefferson also combined this with an internal
course of action to spy on the letters of U.S. citizens, to determine
whether any of them were Barbary sympathizers. Sure, it was more
difficult in those times (or not, depending on what you're looking at),
but not completely impossible. 

> The real question is: is our Government really trying to create a  
> totalitarian system or is it really protecting our nation?

Those aren't mutually exclusive.

The real question is whether the government is exceeding the authority
and power ceded to it by the citizens of this country.

> So, regarding cameras, if the cameras are for protecting from evil  
> doers, then I'm all for it, but if the cameras are to protect the  
> government from it's problems and/or illegal activity, take them down.

"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would
do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."

 -- Lyndon Baines Johnson

Shocking, coming from Johnson, but you pick your plums where you find
them. (Blind pigs, etc.)

I'll add that you examine legislation, and government programs, in the
basis of the authority granted the govt. by the citizens to act on their
behalf. If it exceeds that, then it has become a rogue government, and
not one "Of the people, by the people, and for the people."

See also Frederic Bastiat: "The Law".

Also, the proliferation of surveillance cameras in England has had zero
effect on either the crime rate or the conviction rate.

Just my random thoughts on a Sunday morning, while waiting for an
available washing machine.

jed