Word!

At her blog, Grace offers an arresting thought about the great American public's ho-hum reaction to the news that our gummint is keeping track of whom everybody calls, and when:

I have to keep reminding myself that so many generations have passed since school kids first had to piss in cups just so they can sing in the school chorus or join the Future Outsourced Employees of America club (specimens are required in my town's school district) that pretty much no one but cranky oldsters has any expectation of privacy.

Everything flows from that first demand for body fluids.

We have become a nation of cup-pissing cheese eaters.

There's no separating one diminution of our liberties from another. Even when they are superficially unrelated, one leads to the next. Words on paper -- or parchment -- are unavailing; they serve, at best, as guides and reminders for those who, unlike our supervisors, are willing to be guided and reminded. There's only one effective rebuke to tyrants, and it requires that at least a large minority of the people have had enough; until then, overt resistance only gets you killed. The time hasn't come.