"I Didn't See No Line"...and Surveillance

This post goes back to my post of yesterday.  I suppose the theme could be thought of as the blurring of lines.

Many of my generation loved Seinfeld (the first time through, and now through multiple generations of syndication), finding that in almost any episode one could uncover uncanny parallels between real life and the show.

The same notion--that a TV representation could have parallels with real life (more about that at the bottom, but first I must set the stage) is true of the 1989 TV miniseries Lonesome Dove, which won some 7 Emmys.  The screen adaptation in turn had evolved from the 1985 Larry McMurtry novel, which captured a Pulitzer Prize.  The miniseries ran in four 2-hour parts.

The main characters were Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae, Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call, Rick Schroder as Newt, Diane Lane as Lorena Wood, Danny Glover as Joshua Deets, Robert Urich as Jake Spoon, Anjelica Huston as Clara Allen, Frederic Forrest as Blue Duck, Chris Cooper as July Johnson, and Barry Corbin as Roscoe Brown.

All of these characters seem as real to me as real life--just as was true of the recent Lincoln movie, I never once thought "That's not really xxxx--it's an actor."

Anyway, I keep circling back to any number of popular new stories, or what we all see in our personal lives, about how you need to listen to that little voice inside of you:  Just Do. The. Right. Thing.

In the clip below, quote below, since YouTube has removed the clip, the morally lazy Jake Spoon (Robert Urich) fell in with some bad guy horse thieves and was caught by his former Texas Ranger buddies, Captain Call (Tommy Lee Jones) and Gus (Robert Duvall).  Spoon tries to explain his deeds:

Jake Spoon: I didn't see no line Gus. I was just trying to get through the territory without getting scalped, that's all.

Gus McCrae: [Call is about to hang Jake] You know how it goes, Jake. You ride with an outlaw, you die with an outlaw. Sorry you crossed the line.

Jake Spoon: I never seen no line, Gus. I was just trying to get through the territory without gettin' scalped.

Gus McCrae: I don't doubt that's true, Jake.


To Jake Spoon I say, Bullsh*t!!  You know, you know, right from wrong.  Then as the noose is around Jake's neck and he's kinda saying goodbye to his buddies:

"Well, hell, boys, damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch of damn strangers." 

Then he kicked his own horse to initiate the hanging rather than have one of his buddies have to do it.

As I wrote yesterday, the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is pretty unequivocal.  The line has indeed been mightily crossed, and the powers that be are OK with that.  I guess they didn't see no line:

 “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”