kneeshooter

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Fear

I was at a conference today on e-Saftey (the old term "Internet Safety" not being sexy enough) and the first main speaker was from the National Crime Squad. Superficially he made a lot of sense, anecdotes about armoured Land Rovers during his service with the RUC and talking about the internet as "any public space". But then he started going off as police officers sometimes seem to - trying to shock us and, I realised after, instill a real sense of fear.

Fear about paedophiles; fear about babysitters; fear that we had to help the police and fear that we're probably all criminals in one way or another.

It was all faintly distasteful. Another copper I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Later it lightened up a bit later with the Juvenalian question "Quis custodes ipsos custodies?" which had been put up as "Quis custodiet ipod custodes?" - "Who's guarding the guard's ipod?".

I don't like fear. Instilling it is just rude.

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I made a T-shirt with "I'm not afraid" written on it because of this. Unfortunately I then wore it to a tai chi class where I had a panic attack. The point, however, still stands. I'm not afraid of the things people tell me to be disproportionately afraid of.

I quite like fear. In the right circumstances.

Like as a means of social control?

;)

Nathan, the Toxic Pixie

Control is involved, yes.

I dunno if the emergency services have a course on this. 'Instilling fear for fun and profit' perhaps? Whatever the reason, I have always found policemen and firemen who give talks patronisingly scaremongering.

Maybe they have experimental proof that frightening people is more effective than plain facts? Or maybe they just meet a disproportionately large amount of dead people, and it gets to them after a while.

I think you're probably right. People's jobs can give them an unrealistically skewed view of the world. Especially if they're dealing with some kind of extreme - like crime or, as you say, death.

Plus the police musty get frustrated that their jobs would be so much easier without all this civil rights crap ;)

(deleted comment)

Gotta love an armoured Landy!

Surely they're installing fear...
JmC
e-bastard

I disagree.
I know several you men who love me to instill fear in them.

I should have seen that one coming :-)

Insert appropriate comments about consenuality, circumstances and desire.

Is that better?

Much thank you.
I shall put the riding crop back in the wardrobe.

Damn ;-)

Behave.
Or I'll run a cold bath and threaten to drop the radio in it.

Is that supposed to be a fear thing? :-P

Only if you're afraid of electrocution.

It's one of those things that can be both good and bad surely?

I think a radio in a bath would be the latter though.

*shrugs*
He wanted to be terrified, I delivered.

No one would ever dare to claim any different.

We aim to please.

I'm scared that somebody on the other end of a CCTV camera will decide, on flimsy and arbitrary 'evidence', that I'm dodgy and, if I'm lucky, I'll get to spend hours in a police station followed by years trying to get my record expunged of an undeserved arrest and my fingerprints and DNA removed from the system. If I'm not lucky, I'll get shot.

I'm not scared of terrorists.

Somehow, I doubt that this is what the fearmongers have in mind.

Actually I'm scared of the opposite:-
Someone I know/like/love being stabbed/mugged/kidnapped etc in broad daylight and not enough CCTV being around to provide a culprit.
Smack them up everywhere I say.

Oh - and while I'm on the subject - if you put speed cameras up *everywhere* then the roads would be much safer as we wouldn't need to keep speeding up and slowing down...

Right-wing rant over...

No, if we just took away the licences of the morons who are unable to keep to the limits in the first place...

I suspect you've just branded as morons about 95% of all drivers...

IMO there are very few drivers who don't exceed a speed limit on a regular basis.

cooljules is keeping to all limits and is finding it very difficult, not only because of the stupid and inconsistant signing and altering of speed limits in this country but also because of the number of drivers running right up behind her and generally flashing and hooting to try and get her to increase her speed to above 30mph etc...

I don't have any problems at all and I don't see why anyone else should - but if 95% of drivers do indeed speed on a regular basis (and I suspect that figure is too high), then removing them from the road would indeed create a much safer environment.

It's not difficult to ignore the fools who try and intimidate you from behind, slow right down even more and let them overtake. Don't let them get to you, they'll be in the next pile-up, not you. And buy a tank, people don't try and intimidate tanks.

Of course if we took everyone's car away then the roads would be much safer for pedestrians :-)

Forget a tank - buy a cute car then everyone notices you - especially if you also use it to advertise your business at the same time :-)

You seem to think I have a problem with CCTV itself. I don't. As with armed police, I recognise that it can help in enforcing the law, but fear its misuse. I'd be much happier if I could be confident that the people watching were possessed of fully-functioning brains and senses of responsibility. Only last month two men were jailed for using CCTV to spy on a woman in her flat. And a few years ago a man was publicly branded a criminal, arrested and suspended from his job because he was caught on camera taking out money from a cashpoint around the time that a stolen credit card was used in it. CCTV wasn't the problem - a failure by the police to use the information sensibly was.

And I generally approve of speed cameras as well.

Who watches the watchers...

Usually the self-righteous do-good organizations.

They'll be first against the wall come the revolution :-)

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