Shut Up, Little Person, and Obey

The effectiveness of the tools the Wealthy and Powerful use to keep the peasants in line wax and wane with authoritarianism itself. So it does not bode well that we see at least three new tools on display, ranging from the insulting to the embarrassing to the horrifically painful.

First, Digby on Punishing the Poor for the Crimes of the Rich:

This discussion reminds me of the old perennial "why are we in Iraq?" The Very Serious people always had different reasons, but they supported the same conclusion: we just needed to be there. I don't know if this comes from faith based ideology, herd instinct or conspiracy. It could also be class/social bias (village syndrome) or simple careerism. Whatever it is, it's a problem.

Krugman thinks the economic elite are for for monetary tightening because they are biased against easy money and will find any basis they can to justify that. The question then becomes, why would anyone have an bias against easy money unless they are attaching a moral value to it? There can be no scientific basis for rejecting it. It's just another tool in the central bank toolbox right? My guess is that they *believe* the little people must pay the price for the excesses of the elites because that's their natural role in the economic scheme of things and that the economic elites must be left unfettered to "produce" lest they go on strike or otherwise refuse to do their part. (Bond vigilantes! Confidence fairies!) This also requires the little people to pay the price. This is theology not science and not even ideology. They simply believe.

Whether this comes from social or professional pressure or from true conviction is harder to know. But it doesn't matter. Very Serious People agree and that's all it takes for terrible decisions to be made and then compounded over and over. Perhaps we should deal with the root of that problem at some point.

Then, TPM on the fate awaiting those who refuse to be photographed naked before boarding a plane:

Those who refuse to walk through the new full-body scanners at the airport could be subject to a new style of pat-down, one that's much more invasive and, well, probing than before.

The Boston Herald reports that the Transportation Security Administration is testing the new pat-downs in Boston and Las Vegas, but plans to institute the searches nationwide.

From man on the street Rob Webster, who said he was a subject of the new search when flying out of McCarren-Las Vegas International last week:

"If anybody ever groped me like that in real life, I would have punched them in their nose," the 50-year-old said. "It was extremely invasive. This was a very probing-type touching - not just patting over all your areas, but actually probing and pushing and seeing if I was concealing something in my genital area."

SNIP

The TSA told the Herald that they've received few complaints and will continue with the searches.

Opposition to the scanners has been part about privacy -- despite the TSA's assurances, the machines are apparently capable of storing scans -- and part about the health effects of radiation.

And finally, Digby on the new torture machines coming soon to a public protest near you.

I had heard these were coming, but I didn't realize they were already on the market:

The 7½-foot-tall Assault Intervention Device emits a focused, invisible ray that causes an unbearable heating sensation in its targets – hopefully stopping inmates from fighting or doing anything other than trying to get out of its way, sheriff's officials said.

SNIP

The pain can be stopped by moving out of the beam's path, which targets do instinctively.

Deputies say it should reduce injuries by speeding up the time it takes to break up a fight. Normally if a fight breaks out, deputies can't move in immediately, but have to take the time to assemble a team while the fight continues.

They love the idea of being able to cause pain without "injury," whatever that means.

"This device will allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant," said Sheriff Lee Baca in a statement

Ok, so these guys have been convicted of a crime and are in custody. Their freedoms (although not their human rights) have been taken away for cause and they are unquestioningly subject to the states' orders.

But imagine a society in which the police (for our own good) use methods like this to break up political protests. And then further imagine that same society some time later in which its people have been trained like Pavlov's dogs to comply with authorities' orders. Authorities, by the way, which are sheltered from danger by being able to control its subjects from a distance:

SNIP

I wonder what happens if people subject to these heat rays can't get away? For instance, if they are in a confined area. Like a prison. Or a crowd.

I guess they'll think twice before they do anything again that might precipitate such pain. After all, "when you get that many of your pain receptacles telling your brain 'this needs to stop'" and you can't stop it, I'd assume there might be some psychological after effects.

But hey, it's all good:

"With this device, we can affect people that we need to have experience that effect and not have anything happen to other people," Osborne said. "And there's nothing to clean up, and no injuries."

Well that's a relief.