[ExI] [ZS] Edward Snowden's Transhumanist Girlfriend

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> On 2013-06-14 11:25, spike wrote:
>
>> The recent revelation is that the IRS has vast and arbitrary power and
>> apparently exactly zero accountability.
>>
>
> This is the important point. Not really any issues of surveillance or
> government power, but the fact that it is secret and unaccountable.
>

I feel compelled to add that there are other facets of the US governmental
system that are similarly run "in the dark" and don't function with any
balance of powers. The one that I am personally most familiar with is the
"Juvenile Justice System". In this system, a judge can be seated who is a
former senior worker in the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS)
where she can hear her former friends and colleagues throw unfounded
accusations against well intentioned parents who have a different style of
parenting than that which they approve of (say, the only parent has a
penis, for example) and the judge listens to her friends.

One might think one was entitled to be deprived of one's children only
through a trial in front of one's peers. But OH NO, that is not the case.
The sole decider is the judge who is biased to believe everything the
division (DCFS) says.

When the state Ombudsman (supposedly the check and balance against DCFS)
creates a 29 page report outlining 72 specific cases where DCFS violated
their OWN guidelines, DCFS is left to police it's own workers, and in my
case did absolutely NOTHING to chastise the worker who has since been
promoted.

You might think that the public had a right to see these trials, but alas,
because of the immutable need for protecting the privacy of the children,
the public is not allowed to attend these mock trials.

Darkness (or lack of transparency) is all that is needed for cockroaches to
take over the world. The IRS system, with it's own judges, no juries, and
their own system of rules with no checks and balances is no doubt similarly
diseased.

Someday, I may tell my whole story, but I don't know that anyone would be
interested. The idea of a child abuser being given any kind of fair hearing
doesn't strike at the heart of most plebes. But when they come and take
away your children, you'll then know that you don't live in a free country,
just as I now know it.

Every time I have interacted with the government, they have made things
immensely worse. They placed my sweet daughter in the custody of her
mentally ill mother. She still suffers from the mental abuse that was
heaped upon her for years. There is no justice in this world, or the next
(hehe), but I hope that some day we get judges with sufficient intelligence
(i.e. beyond human intelligence) and detachment that things may get better.
But until then, I'm afraid it is hopeless. Especially when very few people
are interested in shining the light on these dark corners of the gargantuan
government that we have allowed to grow under our feet.

Thanks for listening to today's installment of "Why I'm a libertarian"...
:-)

-Kelly
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