Is this all that unusual?


Earlier, in a Little Falls library...
This is a particular piece of idiocy that really should make you think.

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

After the two men made made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user's choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library's work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men.

Even if you overlook the particular idiocy of the men in question, there are other idiocies to examine here.

First of course is the decision to call a county agency Homeland Security, and the "bright idea" of creating a Federal agency to oversee "Homeland Security" in the first place. I keep thinking I'm in an old movie every time I hear that phrase.

Second is the county's lack of training and questionable screening process. Not to mention discipline. These men are still working for the county?

But most telling to me is the fact that these men weren't laughed out of the library. Think about it, if it had been nearly anything else, no one would have taken the obviously deluded men seriously, official hats or no. Can you imagine if the official idiots had demanded that the library patrons stop looking at recipes? Or cars? Or world maps? Or musical theatre? Or any of the other millions of topics that people use the internet for every single day?

But no, we give them one hot word, something that is supposedly illegal or at least morally questionable, and people start getting nervous around "authority figures."

In cheap hats.

Cheap hats that make them "official."

Welcome to the world of thought crime.

Regardless of how you feel about porn (and I am not going to go into that subject in this entry), the plain truth is that these two deluded idiots actually believed that they had the power and obligation to control what other people thought.

Now the REALLY SCARY thing is that there are other officials who do legally have the power and obligation to control what other people think.

They also have silly hats.

And guns.

And people believe that they do.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - February 20, 2006 at 05:08 AM  Tag


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