Another look at the police state

[rambone]

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.

What are the reasons you feel this way?

 

[Trooper]

The problem with Americans is that their perspective is limited to about a decade or two. Thus few have an understanding of history.

Look at the ones saying we are less free now. Are we less free than when FDR put thousands of Japanese in camps? Or when the owners of companies could beat employees demanding more rights? Or what about the Salem witch trials? Or how the American Indian was treated or the treatment of blacks? What about how corrupt the NYPD was in the decades after the Civil War? What about how Reconstruction in the South?

Freedom ebbs and flows in America. We are far freer than most peoples on this planet at any time in history. This is not the Soviet Union where you could be executed for teaching your children your religion. This is not Saudi Arabia. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Our police are not even close to doing what the Stasi did.

 

[jamil]

The problem with Americans is that their perspective is limited to about a decade or two. Thus few have an understanding of history.

Look at the ones saying we are less free now. Are we less free than when FDR put thousands of Japanese in camps? Or when the owners of companies could beat employees demanding more rights? Or what about the Salem witch trials? Or how the American Indian was treated or the treatment of blacks? What about how corrupt the NYPD was in the decades after the Civil War? What about how Reconstruction in the South?

Freedom ebbs and flows in America. We are far freer than most peoples on this planet at any time in history. This is not the Soviet Union where you could be executed for teaching your children your religion. This is not Saudi Arabia. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Our police are not even close to doing what the Stasi did.

With increasingly militarized police, more armed FEDs--have we ever had a Homeland Security department before?--more "checkpoints", etc., I think what people are saying, previous misdeeds notwithstanding, is that the current "ebb" is moving hard and fast in that direction.

 

[Birds Away]

I don't think it was sarcasm.

Oh! I guess his definition of American must be different than mine. I thought this was a conversation about the freedom of all Americans. Not just the ones who look like me.

 

[88GT]

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.

post #49. Can yvou not read?

there are always fluctuations. But the trend has always been toward less freedom. Always. Increases in freedom have always been paired with decreases in freedom. But taken as a whole, the average level of freedom for the average American has been steadily reduced, starting before the ink dried on the Constitution.

The problem with Americans is that their perspective is limited to about a decade or two. Thus few have an understanding of history.

Look at the ones saying we are less free now. Are we less free than when FDR put thousands of Japanese in camps? Or when the owners of companies could beat employees demanding more rights? Or what about the Salem witch trials? Or how the American Indian was treated or the treatment of blacks? What about how corrupt the NYPD was in the decades after the Civil War? What about how Reconstruction in the South?

Freedom ebbs and flows in America. We are far freer than most peoples on this planet at any time in history. This is not the Soviet Union where you could be executed for teaching your children your religion. This is not Saudi Arabia. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Our police are not even close to doing what the Stasi did.

Are we more free now that half of our earnings and our possessions are confiscated/stolen for the benefit of a select few? Are we more free now that our most basic human right is limited to whatever means the government finds acceptable? Are we more free now that our person and property are subject to searches and seizures without cause and without warrants? Are we more free now that our homes are mere dwellings with roofs and not the proverbial castle? Are we more free now that the parent is just a caregiver and the child belongs to "society?"

you can be jailed for teaching your children. You can lose your life for exercising your rights.

We can go back and forth picking this or that specific issue and whether or not we are better than yesterday. But the big picture is clear: far more laws are passed that limit our freedoms than expand them.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

We can go back and forth picking this or that specific issue and whether or not we are better than yesterday. But the big picture is clear: far more laws are passed that limit our freedoms than expand them.

I would add that, as a general rule, virtually all laws tend limit freedoms. They tend to define, regulate, and constrain behaviors that some have done that others viewed as being negatively impacted by them. Unless the new law has the word "repealed" in it regarding an existing law, it is probably further limiting you.

 

[jdmack79]

I'm starting to think that you don't know anything about police business and how it is conducted.

The more I learn about how police conduct their business, the more frightened and concerned I am.

 

[KLB]

post #49. Can yvou not read?

there are always fluctuations. But the trend has always been toward less freedom. Always. Increases in freedom have always been paired with decreases in freedom. But taken as a whole, the average level of freedom for the average American has been steadily reduced, starting before the ink dried on the Constitution.



Are we more free now that half of our earnings and our possessions are confiscated/stolen for the benefit of a select few? Are we more free now that our most basic human right is limited to whatever means the government finds acceptable? Are we more free now that our person and property are subject to searches and seizures without cause and without warrants? Are we more free now that our homes are mere dwellings with roofs and not the proverbial castle? Are we more free now that the parent is just a caregiver and the child belongs to "society?"

you can be jailed for teaching your children. You can lose your life for exercising your rights.

We can go back and forth picking this or that specific issue and whether or not we are better than yesterday. But the big picture is clear: far more laws are passed that limit our freedoms than expand them.

I would add that the advancement of technology has enabled the .gov to monitor the citizens of this country to an extent they were never able to in the past. There are cameras everywhere, they monitor our communications, and they can track phones, cars, etc. It will only get worse as the trend continues.

 

[2A_Tom]

Pick a time. The time before that was freer.

This exactly

I know that you are a lady, but you seem stronger in your beliefs than most men on this site.

 

[richardraw316]

This exactly

I know that you are a lady, but you seem stronger in your beliefs than most men on this site.

What does gender have to do with this subject?

 

[Stickfight]

What does gender have to do with this subject?

This and this and this and this.

 

[CathyInBlue]

I think it's important to distinguish between technologic capability and administrative permissibility. We've always had the capability of communicating one to another across hundreds of miles. In the days when the Constitution was being drafted, that merely required the ability to hire a person to physicly convey a confidential letter sealed with a wax seal to the hands of the person by whom you intended the message to be read. Then came the postal service, and the government said, "We'll do that for you for one, low price." The capability became easier, but now you had to trust that the government was not steaming open your mail and reading them, a trust that was sometimes broken. Then came the Internet and e-mail, and a government-built system made possible the conveyance of virtual copies of letters to its intended recipient(s) at near instantaneous speeds. The capability became even easier, but now there's the concomitant virtual certitude that the government is passing the virtual version of these missives through data mining filters looking for patterns of communiques that signify ideas and that describe actions that the government itself finds objectionable, whether on a criminal or government security basis. (Note: I did not say national security. There's also a huge distinction between that which threatens the safety and prosperity of a nation and that which threatens the power and abilities of a government.)

Do not make the mistake of believing that because you can read these words world-wide within seconds of my clicking "Post" that it makes you or me freer than we would have been a quarter millennium ago. Indeed, the State has made the argument, and continues to maintain in courts to this day, that the fact that your Internet traffic must needs be transmitted through third party-owned systems, your personal data becomes their "business records" in which you have no privacy interests whatsoever. If we could do this with the technologic, as opposed to administrative, assurance that the government could not read our communiques in any fashion (NSA claims stockpiling copies of your raw Internet traffic without attempting to break your cyphertext or otherwise analyze your traffic's content (exempting analysis of your metadata) is not actually wiretapping you.) without performing the most stringent due process procedures on the planet, something we have seen grossly eroded, not strengthened, in recent history, then, and only then, could it be said that the Internet has made us freer in the political sense.

 

[Trooper]

The way that the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians was through taxes. IN that time the tax was paid in labor. Over time more and more labor was demanded such that they had to enslave themselves in order to eat. Obamacare will enslave us, it will take about half of our income.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

The way that the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians was through taxes. IN that time the tax was paid in labor. Over time more and more labor was demanded such that they had to enslave themselves in order to eat. Obamacare will enslave us, it will take about half of our income.

Most all of the taxes we pay now are only payable by the fruits of our labor.............

 

[loudpedal]

Never let your muzzle cover anything that you are not willing to destroy.
I think that I read that somewhere.

 

[88GT]

This exactly

I know that you are a lady, but you seem stronger in your beliefs than most men on this site.

You should hear my position on war.

This and this and this and this.

And people were mocking me for supporting repeal of the 19th.

 

[Bunnykid68]

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

Prior to SB1 in Indiana a long time ago, we did not even need a License to carry a handgun

 

[Bunnykid68]

You should hear my position on war.



And people were mocking me for supporting repeal of the 19th.

Yep, bad enough we have a bunch of pansy ass men running around with sand in their who whos voting , we got a bunch of women too.

 

[dirtfarmerz]

The way that the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians was through taxes. IN that time the tax was paid in labor. Over time more and more labor was demanded such that they had to enslave themselves in order to eat. Obamacare will enslave us, it will take about half of our income.

Trooper's "Obamacare will enslave us" point is 100% accurate. Everything they are doing is prepping for control. They are setting up their New World Order just like they've been telling us for decades. They will continue to fundamentally change America. They won't stop. They will speed things up.

 

[traderdan]

We are really just about one MAJOR catastrophe away from undeniable tyranny..And the worthless,lazy,weak population will embrace their captors..