{"id":150,"date":"2004-06-27T17:26:54","date_gmt":"2004-06-27T21:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=150"},"modified":"2013-03-22T21:06:08","modified_gmt":"2013-03-23T01:06:08","slug":"what-ive-been-talking-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/06\/27\/what-ive-been-talking-about\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’ve Been Talking About!"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The Englishman William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, made an eloquent contrast of authority and power 200 years ago in Parliament: “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.” If society has regressed to where power alone is sufficient for government action, we have a police state.<\/strong> If power alone is sufficient, our lives are in jeopardy if we pique a police officer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have added the emphasis to this quote. My hope is that this will make you think for a moment about the way we live today; the idea that your home, no matter how small or run-down, is YOURS, and that without due process of law, even the “king” (or in our case, any representative of our federal or state government) may not enter. Think about that… and how that may no longer be true these days.<\/p>\n

*sigh* What times are these that I have lived to see… where freedom is surrendered because of fear and ignorance… where abuse of power is exercised by those who claim to be “protecting” us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.” If society has regressed to where power alone is sufficient for government action, we have a police state. If power alone is sufficient, our lives are in jeopardy if we pique a police officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[385,63],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics","tag-quotes","post_format-post-format-quote","entry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-2q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1065,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/16\/on-surveillance\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":0},"title":"On Surveillance","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Surveillance is power. When\u00a0surveillance become ubiquitous, we place utmost faith and trust in those performing surveillance to use that power justly. And as we all know... power corrupts. If we wish to become a surveillance society, we must have checks and balances on surveillance, just as we do with other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3107,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/06\/03\/citizen-surveillance\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":1},"title":"Citizen Surveillance","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Thoughtful comments on the idea of citizens keeping tabs on their police & government, instead of only the other way around.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1040,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/02\/06\/effects-of-real-id\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":2},"title":"Effects of REAL ID","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"C|NET News has a great writeup on what the effects of REAL ID are going to be to people in different states - depending on whether your state has complied or not. There are some SERIOUS problems here of course - for example, you may not be able to go\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6230,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/03\/executive-fiat\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":3},"title":"Executive Fiat","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Presidential power has been slowly but steadily increasing, and especially so in recent years, but now it's gotten dangerous - and I worry that we've passed a tipping point and the \"checks and balances\" of our government are no longer able to compensate.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/06\/18\/necessary-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":4},"title":"“Necessary” Security","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Again from the radio today, was the phrase \"necessary\" security, and how now, with 9-11 so \"far\" in our past, we regard \"necessary\" security measures as an extreme inconvenience. The question is, what exactly IS necessary security?","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3043,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/04\/22\/lessons-we-still-havent-learned-from-1984\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":5},"title":"Lessons we still haven’t learned from 1984","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking at George Orwell's novel '1984' and seeing some uncomfortable parallels to our modern world.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/05\/1984-was-not-supposed-to-be-an-instruction-manual-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}