Here is an anecdote that has been on my mind for some time. If you know anything about Oakland University, you will probably know that it is the home of the only Chick - Fil- A in Michigan. This is one of those facts that is deemed "fun" in nature. In its quirkiness, it has become almost a novelty selling point by university officials, as though you come for the Chick - Fil - A, but stay for the academics. The sandwiches are apparently delicious, how unique they can be as compared to the rest of the chicken based restaurants is difficult for me to fathom, but I'm told they are good. And by good, I mean that their food is good, because I have been told many times, by many others, that they, Chick - Fil - A, are bad. They are bad because every year their organization gives money to other, "non-profit" organizations that actively discriminate and persecute members of the LGBT community.
This is where the story starts: the information gets out and members of the LGBT community begin to take action. They petition, they protest, they ask for a boycott, they ask the administration to discontinue the company's presence on the campus as it is personally and deeply threatening to them. They make a good deal of noise, that apparently fell on deaf ears. The administration asked questions, but in their own haplessly annoyed way, the way that seems to wink at the perpetrator, letting them know they're really on their side. The campus dinning services on the other hand, claims to have taken action. And to their credit they did, they issued a survey, an attempt to poll the students on whether or not Chick - Fil - A should be on campus. It seems to me that such an important decision being made on the premises of a progressive institution should not be merely left up to a vote, especially since votes do not solve ethical dilemmas, but just prove they are in fact, dilemmas (I.E. we could have all held a vote on slavery and regardless of conclusion, would have still had a civil war). Beside this, the survey was downright tactical, I remember one question in particular: "are you aware that Chick - Fil - A is staffed by students of Oakland University?". Whether the answer is yes or no it does not yield whether or not you like Chick - Fil - A or not, it is just a shameless way of telling you sympathetic facts that might dissuade you of any bad it is doing because it is also doing good. This puts the University Dinning Services clearly on the side of the restaurant. To be honest, I think the members of the LGBT community would have just rather have been told to "fuck off".
To my knowledge, the restaurant still stands at the university, as a pillar for their inability to make any move that might be deemed, in the most remote way, as controversial.
This is not a rant, there is a point here. The point is, that the Google empire knows more about me than most of my family members do, but we are incredulous when we hear the government is collecting our data. My point, is that I think we need to start reassessing who Big Brother really is. I'm not trying to be cliche here, I'm not just going to aimlessly talk about the flawed system I am fortunate enough to be apart of. No. I only want to rail against what I truly feel helpless against.
For example; take the way we vote. We vote both politically and with our dollar, but in both sense of the word, I feel as though I carry no value. Despite my refusing to shop at Wal-Mart or BP or Chick - Fil - A, there are still floods of people who rush to these institutions and cast their vote every single day. On the flip side, the incentive of receiving my insignificant vote does not seem like it pushes the politician to do what I elected him to do. Meaning this, Chick - Fil - A is always going to win because people are always going to go there and the powers that are supposed to stop it have no incentive to stop it. So what do I do?
In order to live in modern society, we have to buy into a system. This system is incredibly indifferent to us, it doesn't matter how careful you buy and it doesn't matter how often you buy, at the end of the day you will always buy. In order to use the internet and talk on the phone and send letters and emails and texts, we have to share our data, our identity, with the rest of the world. We are like children playing with sharp toys, but we're worse because we recognize the toys are sharp and we're still outraged when they are taken away from us. I don't think anyone would know what to do with pure privacy, because no one would be listening.
Again, not a rant. A request. I want the NSA to take all of my data; my phone calls, my emails, my bank statements, my texts, my diaries, my receipts, my random book annotations, my grocery lists, my love notes, my birthday cards, my bathroom stall carvings, I want them to assemble it all in a bin and label it "to do". Then I want them to go through and read it, have to read it, the president and congress and the CEO of Chick - Fil - A should be forced to read every single one of these "to do" files.
Then they will have to pay attention to us, not necessarily to what we're saying, but to the fact that what we say, says a lot more about us than they are even willing to pay attention to.
Kyle
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