Equal under surveillance?

I thought New Jersey was a liberal, progressive state until its senate voted 20-14 against legalizing gay marriages last month. And some of the language used against the bill sounded rather illogically restrictive (love my adverbs and dem)…un-progressive. Take this statement, for instance: “gay marriage would weaken the social fabric by redefining one of society’s bedrock institutions…” Now where do I begin listing the many other factors that have redefined (and continue to redefine) this “bedrock institution?” And what on earth would America's social "fabric" be without gays? (Okay, that was unnecessary).

But maybe the vote can be understood if you believe there is a natural inclination to go the other way when one view of how society should operate seems to be dominating. Maybe electing a black president was a huge left swing that needed an immediate right check back in the other direction. Maybe that’s the check/balance system at work in a real democracy.

I read this last night about societal checks and balances…

 

Buckley, a British Secret Service agent in Pauline Melville’s novel, Eating Air, observes:

“ …To maintain order in a liberal society the population needs to believe that any person could be under surveillance at any time, subject to ID checks, DNA databases and so on. People internalize this and police themselves. Look at the way people slow down when they see speed cameras. I’m all for a quiet life although I suppose it could all lead to a police state.”

I tend to agree with Buckley, though I don’t know that a liberal society needs surveillance any more or less than a non (or less)-liberal society. Seems to me one would want to safeguard, protect, or control unwanted access to plenty as much as to little.

 

I like the idea of surveillance cameras. They tell the truth when people can't or won't. A New York politician (someone paid to help safeguard the rights and freedoms of citizens of a "liberal" state--another state that recently rejected a gay marriage bill, by the way) who was caught dragging his bleeding girlfriend down a flight of stairs just got booted out of office because the building's surveillance cameras told a truer story than the one they concocted for the courts. I hope he heard the click-check sound loud and clear as he left the building.

 

And in presumably less-liberal Georgetown, Guyana (any hope for a gay rights bill there?), the Mayor and City Council recently used a press release to liberally attach words like "wanton" and "compromises the integrity of the environment" to the city's litter problem. And it got me thinking that maybe one way to change the course there (in a city apparently stuck in one direction) is to install 24-hour surveillance cameras to identify and make stern examples of the offenders. Think that'll work?