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[SalmonGod]

Slept for 10 hours today.

Pros:  Sleep is healthy.  I probably needed it.
Cons:  I'm back at work now, and literally feel like I was just here 5 minutes ago.  The morale penalty leaves me feeling just as tired as if I'd slept 6 hours, and the amount of willpower it's going to take to work through that without getting in trouble is going to leave me feeling worse by the end of the day.

Remind me again why working class adults haven't risen up and overthrown this bullshit, to be replaced with a standard of life experience that's actually worth living?

Because the Justice department has guns.

Given that:  remind me again why it isn't widely recognized that we live as slaves?

[Scelly9]

Propaganda.

[misko27]

Slept for 10 hours today.

Pros:  Sleep is healthy.  I probably needed it.
Cons:  I'm back at work now, and literally feel like I was just here 5 minutes ago.  The morale penalty leaves me feeling just as tired as if I'd slept 6 hours, and the amount of willpower it's going to take to work through that without getting in trouble is going to leave me feeling worse by the end of the day.

Remind me again why working class adults haven't risen up and overthrown this bullshit, to be replaced with a standard of life experience that's actually worth living?

Because the Justice department has guns.

Alot of people have guns though. In places more then 50% have guns.
 
It's the mandate of democracy. It gives the government legitamacy.

[Sirus]

Slept for 10 hours today.

Pros:  Sleep is healthy.  I probably needed it.
Cons:  I'm back at work now, and literally feel like I was just here 5 minutes ago.  The morale penalty leaves me feeling just as tired as if I'd slept 6 hours, and the amount of willpower it's going to take to work through that without getting in trouble is going to leave me feeling worse by the end of the day.

Remind me again why working class adults haven't risen up and overthrown this bullshit, to be replaced with a standard of life experience that's actually worth living?

Because the Justice department has guns.

Given that:  remind me again why it isn't widely recognized that we live as slaves?

Spoiler: Riiiiiiiiiiiight (click to show/hide)

Slaves. Totally.

[SalmonGod]

Propaganda.

Right.  Now I remember.

[Hanslanda]

Slept for 10 hours today.

Pros:  Sleep is healthy.  I probably needed it.
Cons:  I'm back at work now, and literally feel like I was just here 5 minutes ago.  The morale penalty leaves me feeling just as tired as if I'd slept 6 hours, and the amount of willpower it's going to take to work through that without getting in trouble is going to leave me feeling worse by the end of the day.

Remind me again why working class adults haven't risen up and overthrown this bullshit, to be replaced with a standard of life experience that's actually worth living?

Because the Justice department has guns.

Alot of people have guns though. In places more then 50% have guns.
 
It's the mandate of democracy. It gives the government legitamacy.

Citizens have hunting weaponry and pistols for self defense. The government has assault rifles and other assorted weapons of war. Having weaponry =/= being capable of changing things with violence.

[Max White]

The justice department doesn't have guns, the working class people they hire to carry out their orders do.
This is a part of the human condition I just don't understand. When you are the guy in the black uniform carrying a machine gun, and you look at a crowd of people who live in horrible conditions and have decided that enough is enough, how do you justify to yourself shooting at them? Is it really possible for people to dismiss slaughter as 'Just doing their job'? As if getting paid to do something absolves you of making the choice?

Then again I'm more likely to be the guy protesting, not the guy shooting, so it could just be cognitive bias on my behalf refusing to see something that doesn't align with my morality. People are prone to that, and I am a person.

[Hanslanda]

That's exactly what they would do. They would dismiss the humanity of the crowd and open fire. Or they wouldn't and be executed/fired/etc by their higher ups. But the Nuremburg Trials proved that 'it's my job' is not an adequate legal defense. But then we're back to legalities.

I personally wouldn't fire on the crowd. I'd rather die than just start murdering people. But then again, I'm pretty at peace with death as a concept and eventuality, so I'd choose death in a disturbingly high percentage of hypothetical situations.

[Sirus]

More likely, any hypothetical mass protest would be met with "less lethal" weapons, like rubber bullets and tear gas. Despite what certain Bay Watchers like to claim, law enforcement personnel are not a faceless mass of psychopathic serial killers who gun down children for fun.

I had a point somewhere, but I think I lost it while making my example as absurd as possible.

[Hanslanda]

I had a point once. I think it was on a skewer, or maybe a shishkebab. I have trouble remembering.

[misko27]

Its quite simple really. "It's a job", "Not my problem". "ehh, change is hard"
 
It's really general aloofness. As I've pointed out efore, if say, every signle person is Syria, military,  plitical leaders, everyone, decided Asssad is no longer the President, he pretty much is now a hobo by collective opinion. By definition, a leader with no followes is nothing. But the problem is, even when there are protests and such, people are so loyal and stuck in there ways that even if someone physically locked him out of the palace gates, he's still in control. Because you think he is. It's all perception, and legitamacy. The Militias of Libya have decided they don't give a rats ass what the government thinks, and they are, therefore, completely unchecked.
 
Once you break past the norms of society you can do anything. But they are there for a reason. Humans naturally just do what their told. Max White, no one "Thinks" it though like you do. Your passionate. This is their job. Think about that, you accept a ton of shit though your job. Do you flip off your employer? No, because you're scrwed if you do. What if everyone flips off your boss? Then he's screwed, but a event like that will not happen under normal circumstances.

Think of it like this. If someone locked obama out of the Oval office and sat in his chair demanding bills to sign, is he president? No. Because people remain loyal to the president. And the people says Obama is president, even if a milkman takes over the whitehouse. When you win elections, it is because the people recognize it as the ceremony of choosing the Prez. If they recognized, say, America's top Model, then that's how we decide.
 
And when I say people, I mean EVERYONE. If NO ONE, no one at ALL, listens to the government, it is nothing. It is a particularly powerful corporation at best. Consider this, in 1920s, when the Radicalist Freikorps, the Weimar republic greatest weapon against Communism, decided they had had enough of listening to them, the Government declared a General Strike. Because they were the LEGITAMATE government, and Germans are very order-following, everyone complied, and the plotters were forced to flee out of sheer frustration.
 
TL;DR If, right now, everyone in the US decided Hans should be president, and Is president, there is nothing in heaven or hell anyone can do to stop him. He is, for all intents and purposes, the President. Sure, he may not be in the White house, but he is, now president. Because, despite what it seems like, it's all just words. Contracts, words. Laws, are words. If people decided there was no constitution anymore, there isn't. It all relies on people doing it simply because it is. And they do. It's human nature. It's hard to think, that there really is only a government by mutual agreement.

[Max White]

I understand political theory and types of perceived power, what I don't understand is what I guess would come under mob mentality? When people stop being people who make their own choices and instead just follow a social norm without thinking.
I don't flip off my employer because I don't want to. There is significant incentive for me to get along with him. I find it hard to believe that a job is significant incentive for some people to shoot into a crowd, and yet apparently it is for some people.

[SalmonGod]

More likely, any hypothetical mass protest would be met with "less lethal" weapons, like rubber bullets and tear gas. Despite what certain Bay Watchers like to claim, law enforcement personnel are not a faceless mass of psychopathic serial killers who gun down children for fun.

I had a point somewhere, but I think I lost it while making my example as absurd as possible.

1.  I personally don't see much difference.  If the protesters are motivated by issues of survival (living conditions likely to result in early, preventable deaths for most of them), shutting down the protest by "less lethal" means isn't all that much better than gunning them down.  The result isn't too much different.  It only looks more humane to a casual observer.

2.  Just because it isn't common practice for protesters to be gunned down here doesn't mean it hasn't been in the past, that it doesn't still happen in some places, that protesters aren't sometimes still threatened with such action (see the peaceful foreclosure protest I posted a while back that was shut down by a militarized SWAT team in Colorado), or that we might see such things happening here again in the future should any movement become threatening enough to the status quo.

3.  Slavery:  Not defined by scars.  Slavery is being forced to work primarily for the benefit of someone other than yourself, under threat of consequences.  Consequences for chattel slaves were typically immediate and brutal, because there was no attempt to maintain an illusion of those people not being property.  They were also viewed as an expensive/non-disposable investment, which meant that the best option for rebellious slaves was to try and force them into submission.  Wage slaves are plentiful and disposable.  Rebellious wage slaves are simply exiled to die of starvation or exposure in some place out of sight, and easily replaced.

[Sirus]

On consideration, I really don't feel like getting into an argument about this. My viewpoints are somewhat opposed to yours and I doubt either of us can be convinced, so I'm gonna bow out before a flame war erupts.

[misko27]

I understand political theory and types of perceived power, what I don't understand is what I guess would come under mob mentality? When people stop being people who make their own choices and instead just follow a social norm without thinking.
I don't flip off my employer because I don't want to. There is significant incentive for me to get along with him. I find it hard to believe that a job is significant incentive for some people to shoot into a crowd, and yet apparently it is for some people.

Your problem is your thinking about it. it's pretty damn basic that Humans do what you're told. These people work for a military, they are expected to shoot people. When it comes down to it, it's their job, and any loyalty whatsoever they feel to the system, versus you. In fact, its not even that. It's a almost assumed understanding that you shoudl support the government. You? You are as faceless to them as they are to you. The collapse of order is bad.
 
Morals almost never even come into play. It's a job. Your not even killing people almost. Your shooting mook protesters, who are angry and entitled about some-such thing or the other. it's repetative. You're more focused on, say, what they will do to you. Protesters are already bucking the system, whos to say they won't attack you?
 
And this is only rationalization. It's just a job. Odds are the thought will never run though your mind. In war, you spend most of your time thinking about how YOU might die, not about the other guy. That's not even a factor in the considerations.
 
Also, A devils advocate, so don't jump me.