anti-pop-frustration's Journal: I don't know yet, and I don't want to find out.

by Valdrax (32670) (#44822747)

Seriously, Americans? What do you care? What do you have to hide!?

I don't know yet. Personally, I don't want to find out after the fact that there was something I would have wanted hidden. Maybe I'm doing nothing wrong by today's standards, but who knows how we'll think about ourselves 10, 20, or 40 years from now?

Think of how many older people you know/knew who lived through the days when racism was still openly practiced and encouraged. Think of people who have mellowed their views about homosexuality only in the past decade. Think of how people used to smoke in their homes around their children. Or how they used to spank children that misbehaved. Or let them ride in the back of a truck with no seat belt. Or let them run around naked and even take pictures of it.

If you grew up in a rural area, you probably remember someone having hunting rifles on a gun rack in the back of their truck at school or maybe you even carried a pocketknife to school. Maybe you used to be the kind of geek that wore a trenchcoat before Columbine killed that fashion off.

So who knows what innocent thing I'm doing today that will be disapproved of later? Maybe it'll just be embarrassing. Maybe it'll be blackmail worthy. Maybe it'll even be grounds for suspecting me as some kind of future or current criminal. I mean, how many Muslims in America thought their social networks would be under heavy scrutiny before 9/11?

We shouldn't have to live in perpetual fear of the future or of the judgment of our peers. We need a personal space in which to unwind and to develop our thoughts before they're ready to take before public scrutiny. We need privacy to become ourselves and not just an empty reflection of what others expect from us.