Big Brother is Your Mamma

remember back in high school (or even earlier) when the inevitable response to any untoward question was, "Your mamma!"?

aah, the good ole days, when things were simple (although at the time we thought we had the market cornered on complexity) and no analysis was needed because song lyrics and bumperstickers seemed to capture our deepest thoughts. many people, it seems, are still stuck in that mentality. if it can be captured in a soundbite or printed on a t-shirt, it must be the God-Given Truth.

so it is that i recently had to confront one of my own knee-jerk reactions. my position seemed so sound, so intellectual, so Truthy- but then i thought it through.

why are we afraid of big brother?

i must confess at this point to doing a long and fruitful internship with the ACLU. my friends were all equally pompous intellectuals, and we railed against those "reactionary conservatives" who wanted to control, not only my uterus, but also my First Amendment right to free assembly. who was the government to wire tap my phone, or know what my party identification was for voting (like they couldn't have guessed that- duh!), or see what books i checked out in the libray, or even to know what race i was every time i filled out a government form (to increase your blogblond knowledge base, i always left that blank, or checked 'other'. yeah, government, i'm part of the HUMAN race- don't see that on your corrupt forms- how do you like that?!? oh man...)

but, like i said, i recently had to revisit all of that, and to rethink my fomerly entenched position.

don't know if you've noticed (i certainly didn't at the time), but there are some bad people in the world. really bad people. and, now that i have children, i kind of would like the government to keep any eye on them...

even up until a few weeks ago, i was so against the government being in my business. it seemed so... well, prudent, to protect my privacy. but then i had a blogblond epiphany: i don't do anything i need privacy about.

do i really care if the government taps my phones? other than the idea of my tax dollars paying for the government to hear what's on sale at walmart, or my new chicken recipe, or which of my kids has stomach flu, what's the difference if they listen to my phone calls? is the fact that i'm making soup a national security issue? if the government knows that i am a registered republican, can they use that infomation to blackmail me into divulging classified secrets? if the president himself, for some sick and twisted reason, wants to know my race, i guess i am okay with that, since any person who sees me on the street can posess that same information. and just in case the fbi is still monitering my blog, the mein kampf i checked out of the library was for a history class i was teaching at the time. really.

so, i know all of you socially aware people out there are quaking in your boots over the idea of the government intruding into your private life, but i guess i want to know- what the heck are you doing that you wouldn't want anyone to know about? if big brother knows that i bought an amy tan novel on ebay and that means they can also know about the yemenite guy who just bought three sniper rifles, i am good with that. if big brother wants my kids to take off their shoes at the airport so that the terrorist has one less place to hide his box cutter, i say go for it. if big brother listens on my phone and finds out how i make lasagna, but that also allows them to listen to someone else and know that some evil people are planting a bomb in our local school, then i must say that i am perfectly willing to forego my sacred privacy for a higher pupose. if you are reading this and saying, yeah- but then what? what civil liberties will we lose next? congratulations- you have just had an irrational knee-jerk reaction.

and if you say, but i am a law-abiding citizen, so why does the government need my private information? why is the blogblond turning into a fascist? then i say to you:

your mamma!