Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Zoetermeer, Thought Police


An advertisement on the back of a newspaper. It can be translated as
"In the Netherlands, an increasing amount of people is cooperating to prevent people from having terrorist ideas."

Yes, you've read it right. They're not talking about "performing acts of terrorism" or "blowing stuff into pieces". They want to stop people from "having terrorist ideas".

I must admit it sounds like a noble purpose, but to me it's kinda scary too. A group of people trying to stop you from thinking certain thoughts sounds awfully Orwellish to me. It also makes me wonder how you define a "terrorist idea". I'd guess "Maybe I should blow up this building" could be categorized as a terrorist idea and "Maybe we need a different government" wouldn't, but where do you draw the line? And how do you want to control those ideas?

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