Private-Eye Vs. Secret Agent

I've been overhearing some pretty interesting conversations lately, just sitting around sipping espresso at my favourite Nova Avalon café.

The following is part of a conversation I overheard a week ago last tuesday between a one time Private-Eye and an ex-Secret Agent.

PE:  Hi Bob, I haven't seen you around much lately, ever since our inevitable rendezvous with destiny.

SA:  Yeah, well that's because I hitched myself a ride for the Martian Colonies.

PE:  I thought you might have.

SA:  Not much work here on Earth for us Secret Agent types, is there Stan?

(silence)

SA:  So how about you Stan ol' boy, you got much to do here… around Nova Avalon?

PE:  As a P.I.? No!  …but as a barn-builder, yes, there's plenty to do!

(silence)

PE:  So tell me uh… Bob-meister, have you foiled many 'terrorist plots' lately, way out there on the colonies?

SA: (Laughing) Nooo, we're way too busy building our new world for anyone to bother about stuff like 'terrorism'... and besides, Hate is a luxury anyway, when you're too busy 'surviving', you don't have much time to hate. 

What I can't understand though, is how you people live without worrying about secretive plotters and rogue insurgencies???

PE:  We don't worry because there's no incentive for that type of activity. The power structure that allows for those dichotomies simply doesn't exist around here. How can anyone possibly overthrow an Anarchic system?

SA:  So, you would consider Nova Avalon to be an Anarchy.

PE:  Absolutely!  Remember, Anarchy doesn't mean 'without rules', it just means "Without Rulers" that's all; there's a BIG difference between the two.

SA:  But surely your enemies will one day want to take you over, the way a wolf would prey on a flock or herd.

PE:  We don't have enemies, Bob;  there's simply no incentive for that type of thing here. 

Besides, our spiritually based culture makes exploitation virtually impossible. If one day we're ever attacked, we would defend ourselves, and our right to live freely, to the death. 

You've gotta understand, there is no power to be had here, other than realizing your own. 

In the old days, in that time of the great forgetting, governments had kept many secrets from it's tax-paying citizens, and the people actually funded that folly in order to keep everybody in perpetual ignorance. We were manipulated into doing this by those in authority, and the disproportionally wealthy individuals who created it's own enemies!

In those days, people just wanted others to do the thinking for them, so they abdicated all their personal responsibilities to those 'in charge'… and the secrets were not kept on behalf of the people, as they had been told, but instead kept to maintain the 'status quo', which was an order imposed by a wealthy 'elite', while masquerading as a progressive democracy. 

Had the secrets been publicly disclosed, the citizens would have been outraged, and not left vulnerable, as they were led to believe. The only ones who were threatened by disclosure of the truth were those who had built their empires on a tapestry of lies, and those doting minions who dared not bite the hand that fed them.

SA:  Come on Stan, governments can't function without a certain level of secrecy. 

PE:  You're right Bob, but the more secrets they keep, the more Truth is withheld, which in turn requires more and more secrecy, until one day it manifests itself in ways which had once nearly wiped out our species…you remember that, don't you?

SA:  Oh yes!  Everyday I sit looking out at that desolate and lifeless Martian surface, and reminded of that painful fact… But don't tell me you guys don't keep secrets, Stan?!

PE:  Sure we do, except that 'here' we call it 'Privacy'!   Do you know the difference Bob, someone in your line of work must surely know the difference between Privacy and Secrecy, right?

SA:  Well, they're two words that pretty much mean the same thing...

PE:  No!  Privacy is Truth withheld for 'personal' reasons; Secrecy is Truth withheld for 'Political' reasons…in other words, disclosure of the truth would be harmful to authorities who otherwise would lose their grip on power if the truth were ever revealed.

Truth is the enemy of the state, and it must be suppressed in order to maintain control, or as it used to be referred to back in the day: 'security'.  Many philosophers have spoken of this, Bob. 

(silence) 

Distinctions must also be made not only between Privacy and Secrecy, but also between 'Violence' and 'Force', or even 'Complaints', and 'Criticism'... do you understand? 

Violence is a violation of another's sovereignty, while Force is a righteous personal response against acts of violence. 

A Complaint is made by those who are somehow complicit in a wrongdoing. If your government on the Martian Colonies takes your money, and then uses it to pay security personel to limit your freedoms, then one's only non-violent recourse is to make a complaint. 

We here in Nova Avalon, given the fact that we do not give your governments any money, are in a perfect position to criticize it's actions in a way that you are not... comprende?

(Silence)

SA:  My 'Space-Taxi' is leaving in 45 minutes, it's been nice talking with you again, Stan… I'll try to remember to send you a digital-postcard.

PE:  'Happy Trails' amigo!

Future CT     Village 5,  Nova Avalon.          Year 17 P.T.E.