The Creeping Theft of Freedom

By: Chris Tell at

We’re quickly heading into the abyss. I’m serious. I offer the story you’ll read below as a mere anecdote in a sea of troubles.

On return from a recent trip to Sri Lanka Mark and I traveled through Australia. Proceeding through the cattle stop that is “customs” we then met with the “security screeners”. These are the folks allegedly protecting us from attackers armed with nail clippers and toothpaste.

The first thing we saw was a giant sign that said refusing to undergo a body scan would result in detention. Mark, seeing this and having never been “body scanned” was immediately taken aback. Sure enough, he was singled out to be the random subject.

Fortunately he was prepared… “I’m sorry. I have a medical condition that precludes me from the scanner.” To which the security woman said, “Sure, OK no problem, come through here (metal detector) instead.”

I on the other hand, tired, unprepared and not thinking much about it had no such response. Instead I suggested, “Just go ahead and give me the pat down, I don’t  mind.”

I was told to dutifully sit down and wait for a “supervisor”. Fifteen minutes later the supervisor came over to “educate” me because, well, clearly I’m uneducated. I was handed an official document prepared by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport.

Flipping through it I was struck by the psychology being used. Now I’ve read a wee bit about psychology over the years, as it’s of interest to me. After all the financial markets are really just a collective aggregation of millions of people acting, and being acted upon. It’s psychology in a test tube.

This document was textbook “Good Cop, Bad Cop.”

  • On the first page the document told me that “Body scanners are safe”. Remember, anybody reading this would only ever be someone who was protesting the scan, so it’s only natural that a soft cuddly comforting approach was required. (Good cop)
  • The next page told me explicitly what to do when selected for a scan. This page provided the reader with the expectations. (Bad cop)
  • Page 3 reinforced the comforting approach. It was titled “” and explained how your genitals would not be displayed to the stumbling brain dead, thugs “protecting our borders”, and how as such your is “protected”. (good cop)

Now at this stage if you weren’t yet convinced by the harmlessness of subjecting yourself to this ridiculous charade called “security”, and in case you had any doubts as to what the “Bad Cop” had in mind, you were left with no doubt upon reading the final page, which I’ve placed below:

  • If you are selected to be screened by a body scanner and you refuse you will not be allowed to pass through the screening point for 24 hours. This will mean that you are unable to board your flight.

There you have it. You have choice… no, really you do. Just like democracy you have a choice. Whatever country you’re in take a look at your voting choices. My guess is you’re looking at death by moron, or death by idiot.

Why are they doing this? Why randomly? Why not everyone? It certainly isn’t for security! The answer is that introducing radical change always meets with resistance.

Imagine for a minute telling an entire line of people, “Hey you’re all getting body scanned whether you like it or not.” Now, if just a couple of people in that line don’t like the idea you will have the very real potential for outrage within minutes. One person yells, “F$%k that! Over my dead body, those things cause cancer.” Next, a mother of a young child thinks, “Y ikes I hope he’s not right…I don’t want to take the risk.” She digs her heels in and says, “I’m with you, you’re not radiating my child.” And on it goes…

Now at this point if the authorities push ahead they do so risking a full-blown riot.

This answers the question of random selection. Random selection means that consensus opinion cannot come to the fore. Now if someone protests there are ten other people scooting through without incident, nothing to see here, it’s not me, odds are good I won’t get chosen so I don’t care.

Why don’t those others speak up?

Because they don’t want to be singled out and they’re hoping they will not be selected. They are playing the lottery.

Furthermore the guy who is making noise about this is now treated as someone who is “making trouble”. A rabble rouser. What’s he hiding? the rest of the queue thinks. Why doesn’t he just comply? They say it’s safe.

The mother who protests in the crowd has no backing on her own, and she doesn’t want to upset her children. Instead she reviews her options and instead complies. It’s easier to just get through it and forget about it. Maybe it is safe..?

THIS, ladies and gentleman is how to turn an entire populace into slaves. Combine it with fear mongering, “Terrorists want to kill you because they hate your freedoms.” and you have a recipe for a genocidal outcome. How does one go from enforcing a body scan to running death camps? 

In increments. The boiling frog we’ve all heard so much about. 

Think I’m kidding. Hitler used EXACTLY these tactics and by the time the people woke up to the fact it was too late, way too late.

Familiarity begets slavery. Most people don’t even realise they are slaves. I’m a slave and I realise it. I do everything in my power to fight my masters and I hate every intrusion made, but I realise that in many small ways, and sometimes not so small, I am still a slave. I don’t know anyone that isn’t frankly.

The well-meaning yet pig-ignorant drone who was brought over to explain my “choices” is just “following orders”. This comes with a mother lode of ignorance. Ignorance because you can bet the farm that he hasn’t studied history, or much of anything for that matter, other than what he finds on his Facebook page or in the propaganda he’s forced to digest and spew forth. If he considers the morality of what he’s doing, which would be unusual, he may find that there is none.

That I view this behaviour with nothing but utter contempt, and the fact that citizens are treated like barnyard animals is beside the point. We are headed in the wrong direction. It will take a giant iceberg to change course.

After the Snowden revelations there was a glimmer of hope that the “Citizens” would be outraged and call for change…but look, my Twitter feed shows that Miley Cyrus just got knocked up. And tonight is the American Idol semi-final rounds… God help us.

– Chris



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