Paranoid? Me? Did THEY tell you that?

I am not really a paranoid, at least not in the sense that a professional headshrinker would use the term.

I mean, assuming that i remember Psych 101 correctly, from back at the dawn of time, there are three main diagnostic criteria for clinical paranoia:

1. Delusions of Grandeur: Ummm, not me, i am just some random John Q. Asshole who writes a blog to amuse himself and maybe anyone else who stumbles on it... Hell, i am even too lazy to check whether my dimly remembered diagnostic criteria for paranoia is right. In the general scheme of things, i know that i am not hugely important, except to myself, and my friends and family.
2. Delusions of Reference: I am not, in general convinced people are talking about me... Hell, i sometimes fail to notice when people actually ARE talking about me.
3. Delusions of Persecution: This one is a little harder to deny. While I am quite aware that THEY are not out to get me, and that THEY pretty much don't really exist... I am security conscious and I own several guns. I have a carry permit and don't like going places where through law or rules i am not allowed to use it.

The reason for this is simple, though the odds of getting caught in the middle of a shooting spree are probably similar to those of any given individual winning a lotto jackpot, when they DO happen, it seems to happen most often in places where law abiding types are not allowed to be able to shoot back.

I am not the sort to pay my tax on people who don't understand math. But when facing similar odds of losing it all, i want an ace up my sleeve.

Nope, THEY are not out to get me, but i do want to reduce my odds of being collateral damage.

Anyway, a professional would probably not see me as paranoid... but a shit pot of amateurs do. And it isn't just because of the "gun thing."

I have, in the past, been accused of being a crackpot conspiracy theorist. Not because i am one mind you, but because it is a convenient label for someone who sees a greater threat to this nation coming from the erosion of civil liberties than i do from Islamic terrorists.

Fuck the god-monster of Abraham and all the assholes it inspires. And this includes the "good guys" of the bunch who are nice and friendly and tolerant... but do nothing to stand up to the psychos in their midst... Until the psycho commits an atrocity or three, then they weren't a "real Jew/Christian/Muslim" according to the moderate god botherers of the matching sect.

And it is the psycho god botherers who are driving the reductions in civil liberties. Because the psycho religionists who get into the positions as shot callers in one country give order to do shit that gives the shot calling psychos of other religions and nations the excuse to retaliate.

Sometimes these retaliations come in the form of terrorism.

Terrorism is the excuse du jour for the further erosion of our civil liberties.

This is not due to a conspiracy, despite what i have been accused of believing... This is because religious extremists across several nations got into positions of power. And these fuckers can't get along, so they kill CIVILIANS in each others ranks, because they can get to each other.

Which of course keeps most of us civilians scared enough to fail to notice how OUR religious whackjob shot callers are power mad motherfuckers.

So freedom of speech gets whittled away at, as does freedom of assembly, and forget about freedom FROM religion.

And freedom from unwarranted search and seizure has been pretty much fucked, as has the right to privacy that was inherent in it.

The bastards are wiping their asses with my bill of rights... some few of them out of powerlust. But mostly out of fear. This is NOT a conspiracy... the scheme is too fucking stupid to be part of a successful conspiracy. Because rights stolen help the NEXT motherfuckers in power just as much. And Obama's vote on FISA tells me it will not be getting any better under him. And unlike the current assholes, he wants to disarm the citizenry in general not just the poor folk.

There are no conspiracies that matter... just a long line of fuckups.

At least there is some small hope for privacy... If i ever have to cross national borders with my laptop again, i will be using that software from a live cd, with my HD backed up at home and freshly scrubbed before i set out. Not because i have done anything wrong, not because i have something to hide... because it is none of their thrice damned business what i do with my machine.