Another look at the police state

[Kutnupe14]

I can start the list

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
East Germany Stasi (about the most effective as a police state)
China under Mao
Pol Pot

Where does the US fit in that list?

 

[jamil]

I can start the list

Nazi Germany
Soviet Union
East Germany Stasi (about the most effective as a police state)
China under Mao
Pol Pot

North Korea's not on that list?

 

[rambone]

Does the USA need to be a top-5 or top-10 police state before we start worrying and talking about it? Do we need to be a historical, textbook case in order to have a discussion?

"A police state is a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the population."

So... do we qualify?

We have to have permission to do everything. Stop & frisk is condoned by federal courts. The government spies on our private email and internet activities. There are checkpoints everywhere. People's homes get raided by masked agents at midnight over plants and victimless crimes. Your children can be taken from you on a whim and force medicated. Your money is extorted from you and given straight to powerful corporations. Free speech zones are an actual thing now. We have compulsory education, compulsory draft registration, and compulsory health insurance. You can't work or own property without having government take a bite out of your ass. Indefinite detention and torture await those who are accused of "terror." American citizens have already been assassinated because a secret panel ordered it. Brutality goes virtually unaddressed throughout the country. Warrantless bag searches are now SOP at every major public gathering and on every form of public transportation. If a terror suspect is in your zip code, they will perform warrantless searches on the whole town and order you from your homes at gunpoint.

IDK... should we wait till they shut the lights off on us and ration the food before we have a discussion about this?

 

[mrjarrell]

Why go to the historical extremes as examples of police states? Why not some of the more "nice" police states? Israel, Apartheid South Africa, Mubarak's Egypt and others. All perfectly nice places, seemingly with lots of freedoms. But underneath the patina a raging police state. We're closer to these than the worst examples.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Does the USA need to be a top-5 or top-10 police state before we start worrying and talking about it? Do we need to be a historical, textbook case in order to have a discussion?

"A police state is a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the population."

So... do we qualify?

We have to have permission to do everything. Stop & frisk is condoned by federal courts. The government spies on our private email and internet activities. There are checkpoints everywhere. People's homes get raided by masked agents at midnight over plants and victimless crimes. Your children can be taken from you on a whim and force medicated. Your money is extorted from you and given straight to powerful corporations. Free speech zones are an actual thing now. We have compulsory education, compulsory draft registration, and compulsory health insurance. You can't work or own property in Indefinite detention and torture await those who are accused of "terror." American citizens have already been assassinated because a secret panel ordered it. Brutality goes virtually unaddressed throughout the country. Warrantless bag searches are now SOP at every major public gathering and on every form of public transportation. If a terror suspect is in your zip code, they will perform warrantless searches on the whole town and order you from your homes at gunpoint.

IDK... should we wait till they shut the lights off on us and ration the food before we have a discussion about this?

I simply want to know "where" we rank as far as police states go. My hunch is, that if we are calling the US a police state, then we might as well call the world a police planet.

Kut (thinks we aren't anywhere close)

 

[88GT]

I simply want to know "where" we rank as far as police states go. My hunch is, that if we are calling the US a police state, then we might as well call the world a police planet.

Kut (thinks we aren't anywhere close)

We could, and it would be correct. But so what? Instead of arguing that it's wrong in all circumstances, you want us to be satisfied with the fact that the whole world is in the same predicament and it's not as bad as it could be, so buck up and live with it? I don't do moral equivalency very well. There is right and there is wrong. And the level of control our government has over us in this country is wrong.

 

[Trigger Time]

I simply want to know "where" we rank as far as police states go. My hunch is, that if we are calling the US a police state, then we might as well call the world a police planet.

Kut (thinks we aren't anywhere close)

Whatever you want to call it, we are past the point of what the republic stands for. Our founders are rolling in their graves. And the people running the govt that think they are public servants and patriots are really just tyrants with the police to enforce anything they pass because "it's the law". And they're just doing their jobs. I have no doubt that if gun control was passed here there would be no shortage of Leo's lining up to take them just like in other states. Sure a small number wouldn't but it wouldn't matter.
so if you dot think we are becoming a police state then what do you call it? This certainly is not a republic anymore.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Whatever you want to call it, we are past the point of what the republic stands for. Our founders are rolling in their graves. And the people running the govt that think they are public servants and patriots are really just tyrants with the police to enforce anything they pass because "it's the law". And they're just doing their jobs. I have no doubt that if gun control was passed here there would be no shortage of Leo's lining up to take them just like in other states. Sure a small number wouldn't but it wouldn't matter.
so if you dot think we are becoming a police state then what do you call it? This certainly is not a republic anymore.

I contend that were are probably the freest generation of American (on whole) than any other generation prior. I'd challenge you to name a time that the people of our nation were freer.

 

[88GT]

I contend that were are probably the freest generation of American (on whole) than any other generation prior. I'd challenge you to name a time that the people of our nation were freer.

Pick a time. The time before that was freer.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Pick a time. The time before that was freer.

The day prior to the passage of SB1... where you freer then (under the law), or the day after?

 

[88GT]

The day prior to the passage of SB1... where you freer then (under the law), or the day after?

You can pick any particular law that enhances freedom and argue that before the passage of the law people were worse off. But that's not the way you framed the argument in your initial post. In fact, you specifically used the words "on whole." So cherry-picking a particular and specific law to make your argument doesn't cut it. It remains, regardless of your attempt to argue otherwise, that whatever the small gains we may see in any one particular area, on the whole, the ability of the any given American to follow his own path has been steadily reduced as time wears on. One needs look no further than the forests of paper that catalogue the laws that have passed in this country. For every law that has been passed that gives me a freedom back, there are 2, 5, 10, or more that are passed reducing it.

 

[Trigger Time]

I contend that were are probably the freest generation of American (on whole) than any other generation prior. I'd challenge you to name a time that the people of our nation were freer.

Before the civil war

 

[Birds Away]

Before the civil war

You forgot the purple.

 

[Kutnupe14]

You can pick any particular law that enhances freedom and argue that before the passage of the law people were worse off. But that's not the way you framed the argument in your initial post. In fact, you specifically used the words "on whole." So cherry-picking a particular and specific law to make your argument doesn't cut it. It remains, regardless of your attempt to argue otherwise, that whatever the small gains we may see in any one particular area, on the whole, the ability of the any given American to follow his own path has been steadily reduced as time wears on. One needs look no further than the forests of paper that catalogue the laws that have passed in this country. For every law that has been passed that gives me a freedom back, there are 2, 5, 10, or more that are passed reducing it.

Since we're nitpicking, my "on whole" referenced generations. So If I pick a time prior to today that was within a particular generation, it wouldn't apply as the net/loss is to be applied to the entire generation vs other generations. So if you disagree, you must pick a generation which proves otherwise. So which generation do you believe is freer than we are currently?

 

[88GT]

Since we're nitpicking, my "on whole" referenced generations. So If I pick a time prior to today that was within a particular generation, it wouldn't apply as the net/loss is to be applied to the entire generation vs other generations. So if you disagree, you must pick a generation which proves otherwise. So which generation do you believe is freer than we are currently?

Asked and answered.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Asked and answered.

Yeah, I really don't think you did. I'm asking you pick a generation that was freer than we are now. We can go tit for tat based on freedoms and oppressions if you'd like, from whenever you like.

 

[hornadylnl]

You forgot the purple.

I don't think it was sarcasm.

 

[rambone]

So which generation do you believe is freer than we are currently?

In the past 12 years alone, freedoms have been wildly devoured. I had more freedom as a younger man than I do today. My parents had a lot more freedom than I ever did.

The day prior to the passage of SB1... where you freer then (under the law), or the day after?

SB1 basically restored the status quo, did it not? A court decision disrupted what was traditionally true, SB1 brought it back to the place it was before.

I simply want to know "where" we rank as far as police states go.

I'd say the USA is somewhere in the middle, trending strongly in the wrong direction.

 

[Kutnupe14]

In the past 12 years alone, freedoms have been wildly devoured. I had more freedom as a younger man than I do today. My parents had a lot more freedom than I ever did.



SB1 basically restored the status quo, did it not? A court decision disrupted what was traditionally true, SB1 brought it back to the place it was before.



I'd say the USA is somewhere in the middle, trending strongly in the wrong direction.

What I find interesting, is that my parents grew up with a lot less freedoms than I did. I think it's fair to say that they lived more in a police state that I did. It's all a matter of perspective. To say today's America is "becoming," in light of our history, a police state is laughable. It either always has been, or it isn't. The "good ole days" weren't so good, for a variety of people, and they find today's "police state" preferable to yesterday's.

 

[Trigger Time]

What I find interesting, is that my parents grew up with a lot less freedoms than I did. I think it's fair to say that they lived more in a police state that I did. It's all a matter of perspective. To say today's America is "becoming," in light of our history, a police state is laughable. It either always has been, or it isn't. The "good ole days" weren't so good, for a variety of people, and they find today's "police state" preferable to yesterday's.

Well if you ever **** the gubment off and get tried by a military court maybe then you'll see the police state. Is all possible now.anyone else find it strange that police are always the ones trying to convince us we do not live in a police state?