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| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
While I agree with you on most instances, I'm going to have to disagree with you on a couple of others. Unfortunately I don't have the time I once did to research things to support myself better, so I'll have to resort to personal, anecdotal instances instead. So take them with a grain of salt.
For the most part, I agree (with you).
Very much agree.
Don't know much about this one. |
Yeah, you're right about that one... so far you are, and hopefully that won't change soon either:
| quote: | | Patriot Act 2 not only fails to fix this definition, it exacerbates these problems by hinging even more anti-terrorism powers to this definition. These include new wiretapping authority (secs. 120, 121), civil asset forfeiture powers (sec. 427, 428), new death penalties (sec. 411), and a frightening and unprecedented power for the government to revoke American citizenship even of native-born Americans (sec. 501). |
Source: ACLU
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Very much agree.
Agree again
Agree.
Agree (what a fucking mess we've created with this one especially).
Part 2 on the SSCI Report is finally out (no thanks to my Senator Roberts who sat on it for years when he was Chair), and is yet another piece of evidence on
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/w...&hp&oref=slogin
Don't know much about this one either. |
tranceaddict Forums > Other > Political Discussion / Debate > Hallibutron Concentration Camps
Halliburton "detainment centers" : Source: NYTimes ...check
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Are you referring to police check points or military check points? I'm not a major fan of either myself, but I'll support anything that helps getting a drunk driver off the fucking road before they cause harm to someone else.
On a personal note, almost 5 years ago a check point was supposed to go up on a road in my town but was called off because a major fire broke out in an apartment building. That check point that would have gone up would have stopped the fucking drunk driving little 19 year old bitch that nailed my wife right in front of me as I was following her home from watching our friend play at a coffee shop. The girl had ran her stop sign and crossed the intersection where my wife's car was in the middle of, and subsequently my wife got T-boned and had her pelvis literally shattered. And I saw the whole thing in my car behind her. Two surgeries involving a metal plate and 19 screws, $95,000 in bills, 3 months of physical therapy later, she recovered well and has been doing terrific since.
But I guess I don't mind the drinking and driving check points as much anymore. In the grand scheme of things that cops could or should be doing in order to "protect and serve" us, a cop stopping cars at a check point in a college town where I'd guess probably 1 out of 4-5 cars has a drunk driver on Thurs.-Sat. nights doesn't really get my panties bunched up as much as it used to.
In regards to tasing, I have a couple of policemen as patients that I'm working with for various problems (one has epicondylitis in his elbow, the other has a torn hamstring from running after a perp). We've discussed the tasers at length, and the conclusion I've drawn so far is that neither one of them really like them much at all. In fact one of them says he can pretty much do the things he needs to without using it. However, he understands that there are instances to which they are vital to protection. And unfortunately, from the many hundreds to thousands of instances to which they've been used for in a positive manner for protection, the instances that are thrown out to the public in the news and on YouTube are the exceptionally few instances of abuse. And some of those instances of supposed abuse are even a matter of interpretation to which have been thrown out of court. So for me personally, I haven't seen enough evidence to say we should get rid of them altogether, at least not yet.
As for your list here, as pkcRAISTLIN had mentioned you seemed to be attempting to connect what this Administration has created with it's foreign and military policies versus the domestic judiciary branch that entails the attempts of the local police to uphold the law by protecting the citizens from lawbreakers. I understand your reply (somewhat) about a frame of reference to which both instances you describe fit in, however doing so creates a bit of an illusionary connection between the two, IMO. What is occurring in one particular branch of the government does not equate to ALL the remaining branches of government are under the same occurrence of events.
If you were not trying to make that connection, that's fine despite it appearing that way. If you were more or less making a larger point about authoritarianism without trying to make that connection, that's fine. If, however, you were attempting to make a connection, I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more convincing, at least to me.
I don't know exactly what to think about authoritarianism as a whole. I think on the grand scheme of things what our country has personally compared to most is pretty good, but things have definitely changed over the past 7-8 years thanks in large part to this Administration's philosophy (Yoo doctrine, neoconservatism, Cheney's influence, etc.). Shades of gray tend to add up over time, but layer those shades on slowly, one by one and it becomes difficult to determine just how much different things have changed in the short term at all. Then you have to add in our society's supposed "watch dog" branch, the media, who's been horribly complicit with so much of the propaganda:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/w...20generals.html
and you've really got to question just how far we've come. In our minds, at least in my mind we've unfortunately gone down the slippery slope way too far, and the backdrop of terrorists coming to take away our "freedom and liberties" has unfortunately enabled this to happen that much more easier. The irony that we are slowly doing to ourselves what we supposedly feared that the terrorists would be doing to us cannot be missed, which of course rightly puts into question who exactly is behind giving us this fear of all things surrounding us in the first place. Are we as bad off as many other places in the world? Hardly. But since we are supposedly a leader of the free world, I would not want any country to emulate our actions as a leader that we have taken over the last 7 years like the ones you've mentioned in that list of grievances above. |
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"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller
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