Accountability. This is the one thing many people want when it comes to justice. I would say it was something the vast majority of people want. It is the one thing those in charge do not want. It is one thing those in charge want their enforcers to avoid. They have, in essence, created an atmosphere where the common folk are asked to live by one set of rules while the enforcers and those working for the elite live by another. There has been created an abused class and a privileged class and the divide between the two is becoming more obvious as time goes by.
Modern technology has provided ways to hold those who would claim authority over us accountable. It seems to me, however, that whenever the common folk attempt to hold accountable anyone with supposed authority they run into roadblocks. There have been numerous examples of this throughout history, even in the short history of the United States of America. I believe the proper moral stance on this should be that if something is wrong for the individual to do, then it is wrong for government agents to do. If a government agent is caught doing something wrong, then he should be held to the same standard and treated just the same as anyone who is not a government agent. If anything, police and judicial officials should be held to a higher standard of ethics.
We live in a society where more and more often we hear of police and other government officials abusing their power. Years ago, people scoffed at this notion. Even after such famous, well covered events as the Rodney King case people would claim that such happenings were isolated incidents. They would claim that most law enforcement officers were good people and such incidents were perpetrated by a few bad apples. Some even claimed that police are justified in beating people who have already been put to the ground because, somehow, they are still a threat. Nowadays, I hear of such beatings and misdeeds on almost a daily basis. Nowadays, such occurrences are no longer the exception, they are the rule.
A cursory search on Youtube for police brutality will turn up more than a few hits. Yet there are far too few prosecutions and even fewer convictions for the wrongs done by these abusive individuals. There are still far too many apologists defending these violent actions. Too many seem to have been brainwashed into believing that the police are all angelic persons who mean well and would never purposefully harm someone who didn't deserve it. Too many still seem to believe that it's just a "few bad apples" ruining it for the rest of the group. Well, it seems to me that it's more than just a few bad apples, that the entire barrel is rotten and if anything one would be lucky to find a single good apple in the entire group. Worse than that, it seems that the most corrupt rise to the top of the bureaucratic totem pole, thus corruption is rewarded and honesty punished.
It is more disturbing that those in "authority" would move to make it a crime to record or video their actions or the actions of their enforcers. Of course, one could ask if they are not doing anything wrong, why would they be afraid of being recorded or videoed, as indeed they would ask of you. Of course the common folk know that the main reason they are being videoed is as an excuse to collect revenue for victimless crimes. The reason the "authorities" don't want to be videoed is because they are doing wrong things. They are committing crimes with victims. They are hurting people, and they know it. They just don't want to admit it. They don't want to have to look at the evidence and see the harm they cause others and the violence they create. They want to tell themselves little stories about how good they are, how they're protecting society from the bad guys, and how anyone they harm got what they deserved.
The unblinking eye of the camera has become ubiquitous. It catches those who don't come to a complete stop before proceeding with a right turn on red as well as those who would put a man to the ground, handcuff him and then shoot him in the back of the head. Whereas those who haven't even necessarily endangered anyone by their driving habits will grumble as they pay their fines and move along to get along, those who have harassed, beaten, tasered, and even shot other human beings will use their power and the same intimidation techniques to prevent those who would hold them accountable from recording or even confiscate, steal or destroy video evidence.
That ability, however, is quickly fading. The seemingly obvious right the public should have to record public officials who are being paid with public dollars and are doing their public duties while in public is being honored by judges, surprisingly in a manner that seems to be not as reluctant as one might think. Could this be because the unjust nature of not allowing such crimes to be recorded is so obvious that even judges know that such laws would create unrest amongst the masses? Now if only those same judges in Illinois would allow the public to record video in their public courts where they do their public jobs taking public dollars then maybe we could hold them accountable for their legal chicanery and unjust practices.
Even if laws forbidding the recording of public officials while doing their public jobs were to be instituted and upheld by courts, technology would still try to hold them accountable for their crimes, misdeeds and unethical behaviors. Applications such as Qik which allow people to stream live video right to the Internet will see to that. The common folk are not quite as stupid as the privileged class would like to believe. As more people make the Internet their primary source of information and begin to understand just how real the tyranny has become, more people will demand an end to that tyranny. These same people will, hopefully, become inspired to look for ways to peacefully take power away from these unaccountable bureaucrats and empower the common folk. I believe that for the most part most people just want to be left alone to live their lives. When they are continuously harassed and not allowed to do so, they at least want to be able to gather evidence of those doing the harassing so they can hold them accountable.
People instinctively know right from wrong. They understand when someone has been railroaded or wrongfully treated by someone in authority. Yet sometimes they still have trouble reconciling in their minds that those people in authority are doing wrong. They have been brainwashed into believing that only decent people obtain positions of power and that they have the public's best interests at heart and would never do anything to harm an innocent person who was not hurting others. Video is showing these people that they are wrong in making such assumptions. Even if one at first denies that such evil has penetrated the institutions of justice, one cannot remain in denial forever as the preponderance of evidence shows the tyranny growing.
The police state is here. It has been recorded for your perusal. It is already on Youtube. You can deny it all you want, go and stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't affect you, or you can admit it and do nothing anyway as you go along to get along, or you can pick up a video recording device and go try to hold some corrupt officials accountable. Whatever the case, it seems to me that we're all being swept into an upcoming storm in one way or another. Hopefully we can come up on the other side freer, more independent, and not as afraid of the camera's unblinking eye.
My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there and make a donation to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled "The Ouijiers" by Matthew Wayne.
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