This was something I starting writing a few weeks back and never got back to it. My point is always how this stuff gets by us. We allow it to get by us. Any time they try telling us it's basically for our own good you know it's nonsense. They want more of your "rights." But like George Carlin once observed, "They're not really 'rights' if they can be taken away. They're 'privileges.'" Truth.

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I know... I'm a glutton for punishment.  Every time I see The Berkeley Voice I tell myself to not read the headline.  If I do end up reading the headline I will usually have to read the article, it's usually provocative.

That morning would be no different, as the headline read, "City Council shoots down drone ban."  And right off the bat they are giving you the usual nonsense about how "could be useful in crime fighting and during a disaster to locate fire and earthquake victims"... stop it.  This is how it always begins.  This is how they get into your kitchen!  They lull you to sleep with "it's for your own good."  Meanwhile, they take more and more of your privacy and rights away in the process... and everyone seems content with that reality, too.  It's insane thinking to allow this sort of thing to persist. 

Especially if you're going to complain about it!

Gotta love this quote: "The 'intent' is not to say we are a 'No Drone Zone,' but we should express our concern about the proliferation of drones and allow them in 'limited circumstances' that can be 'beneficial' in public safety."  That from city councilman Jesse Arreguin.  And he's on our side!?  Great!  Wonderful!  Yahtzee!

And this quote: "The proposal by the city's 'Peace and Justice Commission'"... what?!  That phrasing is a joke, right? "Peace and Justice Commission"???  Thou doest protest too much! 

Even more disturbing, "Nationwide, the use of drones by law enforcement is growing.  The Department of Homeland Security uses them to fly over domestic ports and the nation's borders.  The FBI also uses them domestically.  The FAA, which gives two-year certificates to fly drones weighing up to 25 pounds below 400 feet, said 12 law-enforcement agencies in the eight states obtained licenses to use them from 2006 through 2011.  7 percent of the applications to fly them nationwide came from law-enforcement agencies, said FAA spokesman Les Dorr."

My friend Luis went from, "Oh, there's no drones flying around America!  That's just misinformation put out by the Right-Wing Nuts!," to, "Oh, well, yeah!  They have them at the ports and borders, sure.  Just not over the cities."

Yet.

And there it is, too.  For all the world to see.  Reading how someone stating something that was not true turn that something into rationalization, conformity, and compliance.  There is the "slippery slope."  This is how all this sh*t gets in everyone.  It starts out not even happening.  I must be out of my mind to suggest such a thing.  And turns into, "Oh, that?  You didn't mention (add variable here) that part of it!"  But the actuality is he was the one who mentioned it.  Not me.  He mentioned it.  He said there were "no drones flying around America!"  Now, this could just be me being pedantic.  I've been accused of this before.  But given the updated information about drones, I do not think I am acting overly butler-like.  I think I am dead spot on.  

I imagine these drones will come right before the buses and trains.  Around this time the streets will be remarkably clean -- no "homeless."  Where did all those people go?  That's what those buses and trains were for.  They will be carted off -- for their own good, of course -- to various F.E.M.A camps.  They will be called "Salvation Camps," or something equally nauseating.  "Freedom Camps," maybe.  There it is again: irony.  It will come under the guise of National Security or Public Health and Safety.  The Lie never comes straight at us.  It comes from all angles or "asymmetrical" and will be buzzing around about 400 foot above your and my head. 

Coming to a Reality very shortly, allegedly.

The next time someone compliments you on your Rhodesian Ridge-Back and does so under no pretension or desire to acquire anything from you (not that you have anything I would want, lady ) you should take the compliment with a smile as you slither by and not have a look of "f*ck off ."

-James Richard Armstrong II

Authors Bio:
I'm a homeless student, writer, and activist... currently panhandling my way through school (and life.).