Of course-this is the danger. A bureaucracy with too much power, with very little oversight, out of the possibility of influence by voters, throwing out nothing statements.
I remember only one national politician screaming "Warning!' when the TSA and Department of Homeland Security were created - Congressman Ron Paul, who made these predictions virtually every time he spoke or wrote.
His prescient warnings were, of course, dismissed as the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist kook.
Message: The public is not supposed to listen to figures who have the Bad Guys and their agendas pegged. We are supposed to listen only to the "authorities" who we have been indoctrinated to believe are "protecting us" and our "freedoms." These people and organizations are doing the opposite.
We have an awful lot of sheep in congress. This gov has gotten too big to be managed efficiently. Time for a small federal Gov. just putting it out to the churning universe. There’s but One Mind. It implies all minds are connected and minds manifest. When those who think alike spread their thinking they manifest faster. Hollywood, msm, cable TV, porn industry and our education system are all controlled by the same people. They’ve been slowly converting minds. We work to awaken them.
Beeta, wait until you see what is planned for our bodies with the next plandemic in the fall. The virus is ready. The "vaccine" is ready. We're about to be forced to take something that is eventually going to kill us, or make us obey the PTB. I could barely get on a plane; by now I don't think I'll try. Look what happened to Scott Ritter lately.
I live in SE NM and neither the city nor county law enforcement even complied with state mask mandates. The county guys take Constitutional Sheriff oaths swearing that they will not answer to anything else. We're pretty much "come at me bro" down here.
Do not consent! Majority are more than happy to comply. Let them. Our Will, united with God’s, is unbreakable. They fear us! Don’t let them put the fear of Devil in you. Don’t spread fear, Unless you’re a fear mongering operative
Millions of innocent Americans are placed on the TSDB (Terrorist Screening Data Base.)
The FBI freely admits that only an extremely tiny fraction of the people on TSDB have any connection whatsoever to terrorism. These millions of innocent, law abiding Americans are on the TSDB due to dark (i.e. hidden, secret) forces in our government.
The US Department of Defense readily acknowledges that it has "lost" many trillions of dollars. Where did all those incalculable trillions (trillions with a T, not billions) of $US go? To highly illegal, nefarious, satanic hidden programs, which surveil, harass, vandalize, sabotage, extort, torture, and kill, (usually via directed energy weapons, psychological torture, poisoning, and other satanic means) untold numbers of innocent Americans. There are many hundreds of thousands of Targeted Individuals in the United States, and millions worldwide. These illegal torture programs are not limited to the United States.
You're a nobody if your name isn't in the TDSB database. Eventually you might even find yourself in front of a tribunal being asked to explain why you're not in the TDSB database.
Pay decent salaries and most will defend the indefensible. I may be misunderstanding, but surveilling a passenger, supposedly a threat to the USA, for a limited amount of time doesn't make sense.
Not to mention creating a huge and ever-expanding bureaucracy creates its own support. Employees like their jobs and sweet government benefits packages. Contractors like their sweet government contracts.
My guess is it's a low bar to initiate. Did someone sign a petition back in the 80s? Watch 'em and track for awhile.
For the overwhelming majority of "watchees" there's no "there there" so a few lucky ones get dropped from the watch list when the overlords get around to it, while the rest linger in a gargantuan data base called Purgatory, comprised of mostly trivial data points, which is in turn linked to an an even larger megavault containing the permanent records of every human being on earth and their pets... something like that. It's a great use of resources.
Why surround a home with a kevlar suited, masked and anonymous, long gun toting swat team at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to terrify the wife and children of a man who has already offered to voluntarily turn himself in? It's totalitarian feminist/Marxist/DEI inspired life/career destroying DNC/EU/WEF Davosphere intimidation to the core. The free peoples of the world are being held at both electronic and literal gun point and everyone is considered under arrest. It is an obvious example of the modern day marriage between Marxist ideological utopianism, the bureaucratic surveillance state and corporate fascism. It's purely pathological not political, and represents the same A-Bomb rattling gangsterism that fed the ovens in WWII and burned the 20th Century to the ground.
I think what you describe has something to do with "Saving Democracy". Strange when we've always been a Constitutional, Representative Republic, at least to start with anyway. The founders actually were not positive about what democracy was in it's true definition, basically mob rule.
MY guess is that Tulsi pissed off Hillary, Harris or some other ignorant mouth-breather in the DC Politburo. If Obama gets a fourth term in November (Harris/Tampon Timmy), this country is fucked.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
Logically applied, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision revoking its acceptance the "Chevron Doctrine ", previously invented by it out of whole cloth, should end this type of thing very quickly. Followed to its logical conclusion, then end of the Chevron Doctrine means that the Supreme Court has confirmed the Constitutional DUTY of Congress to create, specifically define/debate-in-public, and transparently set forth, the laws which it intends to govern the American Public. NOT just pass 1,000-page general bills which it never reads in the first place and then leave it to entrenched, unionized (as in untouchable), and mainly Democrat bureaucrats to interpret. This, necessarily, means smaller, less opaque and more accountable governance going forward. It is the Deep State's worst nightmare. Thus, the DNC's newly- stated goal to "reform" (i.e.: pack) the Supreme Court. I dare say history will, in time, prove that the subsequent assassination attempt on former President Trump was part-and-parcel of the Deep State's revulsion to losing its formerly unquestioned and unaccountable powers.
The TSA is especially egregious because it serves no public function. It does not protect the people--only serve as an excuse to persecute those the state dislikes, evidently.
I sent the original article to two people who hate Trump, one politically agnostic and one a loyal Dem. With that background, and I only sent this because it didn't have the T word and was a general interest story - their response was they would rather be safe, brushed it off as 'like when you get searched going to a concert' and 'obviously they must have a reason to suspect her of something'. A completely lack of concern for where this could lead on both a personal and a societal level. Even when I pointed out the lack of any arrests or results from the program. They're totally fine with it. Folks, this is where we are heading and this is why...
Those are some of the same rationalizations Republicans used when TSA was created 20 years ago.
Everyone loves Big Brother when they control the levers of power. Then they rediscover civil liberties when they don’t. Americans have the memory of a goldfish, and can’t imagine what could happen past the next election cycle.
I forgot the 'best' part. One of the people aforementioned subsequently sent me three articles from 2022 where Tulsi criticized the wisdom of our involvement in Ukraine. Apparently in their minds, this constitutes a valid crime - to speak against a war.
Reminds me of a far left friend, when I asked him about what he thought about how bad everything is in the U.S. with inflation, crime, illegal aliens and wars breaking out he responded “yes it’s terrible, we’re going to lose the next election!” I was shocked he said it so earnestly. He has a masters from Columbia
Well...you know...sometimes it does eventually break through. It seems to never cross over going the OTHER direction, does it? And it's hard for people to admit they were wrong or have changed their thinking. So kudos to your friend!
90% of the b.s. on the internet is created by 10% of the people present on it. How serious should we take a sh't show created by nut case crazies and a surveillance perp psyop. My experience is, in any organization, 10% of the people do the majority of the work necessary to hold it together. Truth matters and we the people are in the process of finding how powerful the truth can actually be.
I asked ChatGPT last night how it remembered I had ulcerative colitis. It told me, oh, I remember all our conversations so you don't have to re-enter info you've already provided. I said, can you assure me that no human has access to that data? It said, it's designed so that's not possible. I said, would the programmers not have put a back door in? It said, they did but it takes multiple layers of security to access it.
Yesterday Facebook suggested I join the Facebook group "Pot smoking atheists who love dogs". I am more of an agnostic than an atheist but they got two out of three correct and now they know the third one too.
I did point out that fear is a tactic people succumb to because they think 'it can't happen here' and sent that saying about "when they came for ... I said nothing...when they came for me, there was no one...". Ask people, your friends, you first daters out there, your family: if they had to choose between safety and freedom which would they choose? If they don't miss a beat, either way they answer will tell you volumes. If they ponder it, at least give them credit for using the ole noggin.
Actually, didn't it start during WWII? Didn't we round up the Japanese and put them in internment camps? I also recall from family and friends' lore how their German relatives were treated during WWI. Sadly, I think we have been here for awhile. It is just all pervasive now thanks to technology.
It’s way older than that. Woodrow Wilson’s administration made sure Eugene V. Debs had to run his 1920 campaign for president from a prison cell because he had criticized America’s entry into WWI.
Maybe even older than that! Maybe that was the rationalization to "justify" slavery!
"Well, these people obviously can't be trusted on their own and, well, you know, we could use some help around here."
But, yes, definitely, this sort of thing is no doubt as old as...life?
Some bugs (e.g., ants) basically corral other bugs (e.g., aphids) to produce food (aphids secrete glucose-rich material when "stroked" by the ants).
The ants no doubt explain this to the aphids as, "We're doing this for your own protection." Which is not entirely false and the aphids (being both not super-bright and also complacent) of course go along.
And if an aphid were to resist, I imagine the ants would just eat them.
Actually, didn't it start during WWII? Didn't we round up the Japanese and put them in internment camps? I also recall from family and friends' lore how their German relatives were treated during WWI. Sadly, I think we have been here for awhile. It is just all pervasive now thanks to technology.
The answer depends on how we define "it". The original comment in this thread (by "Me") was about the attitude of liberals to government surveillance. Some of the comments are about the government's policies toward war resisters and other dissidents.
Regarding government surveillance of U.S. citizens, I haven't seen anything showing that, in the years leading up to 9/11, the NSA was spying on U.S. citizens. The message that the NSA does not spy on U.S. citizens was made clear to people working on cryptography for the government. That obviously changed dramatically after 9/11. On the other hand, we do know that the FBI spied on citizens, including MLK Jr.
I have wondered this very thing about my progressive friends. They have SO much faith in the govt and safety is a paramount value. Also this....Recently, I was with my husband as he was at a legal conference. He was listening to these two prosecutors in the room (yes they now beam this stuff to your room) talk about cognitive biases as it relates to jury selection. There was something call the The Just World bias. These people assume that their safe world where everyone behaves pretty well is how it must be for everyone. They side with criminals and stuff like the above because they believe no reasonable person would do that for no reason or for simple nefarious reasons. It must be justified or the govt/criminal wouldn't do it. They wouldn't so no one would. That explained a lot to me. Their minds would break if they let go of that kind of thinking. I know because I'm a recovering one myself and it did break my mind for a while.
I've come across this, too...and to be honest, while 'slam dunk / yellow cake' was my moment of clarity it did take 2020 for me to understand the vastness of the problem. And I could see how most people are GOOD and KIND people and so it IS a really difficult concept to grasp and acknowledge. Just World Bias. I've never heard that term but I think you bring up an excellent point and why it is so confusing to those of us who can now see this contradiction /flaw in human reasoning. Thank you for adding to this discussion. Recently I've also used this when talking to people on issues by recognizing 'you are a good person, and it is really hard for good people to make the leap that not everyone is'. People trying to solve homelessness is another topic where I see this- it's hard for good people to understand there is money to be made in perpetuating certain anti-societal behaviors. Anyway, thanks for chiming in!
I'm curious - has your "you are a good person ..." approach worked in any cases?
For a long time, I thought that the liberals you described were good but misguided people. I eventually came to the disturbing conclusion that the hard-core cases, at least, were not well-intentioned at all, but only concerned that their tribe remain in power. I suppose that means I had "Just World Bias" in a way.
Homelessness and other intransigent social issues. Maybe another facet of Just World is the magical thinking that if we just do exactly the right thing, spend enough money, do enough for these folks, they will see the light and we can in fact eliminate poverty, homeslessness, addiction, and any number of other social ills.
Once people understand that this is about retaliation and retribution, I think it could have an impact on the election. Remember Christie's closing of the lane going to Manhattan in retaliation for a slight from a local official, and destroyed his political career in New Jersey.
I think, unless it directly effects them In a negative manner it is perfectly fine. One of the folks mentioned has an opinion re: the border that he has never seen the immigration problem so it's not anything he cares about. Until it happens to them...
It feels like the citizenry is mostly deeply asleep on the Dem side. It takes a lot to wake them up, then they only go "Whaaatt??" mumble something, roll over, start snoring again.
What's happened to American liberals the past decade can only be compared to cult indoctrination.
They have their tribe's sacred beliefs with maybe the most important one being that anyone not in their cult is an evil enemy who can never be trusted but only attacked and destroyed. And, much like cults, if you attempt any form of reasoned debate, try to find any middle ground, or even just remind the cult member of things they used to believe before they joined the cult, they will respond with furious rage and say or do anything not to have their cognitive dissonance challenged.
Tribalism plus our new propaganda/brainwashing devices (smartphones + social media) have essentially performed a lobotomy on the American liberal class.
Of course-this is the danger. A bureaucracy with too much power, with very little oversight, out of the possibility of influence by voters, throwing out nothing statements.
I remember only one national politician screaming "Warning!' when the TSA and Department of Homeland Security were created - Congressman Ron Paul, who made these predictions virtually every time he spoke or wrote.
His prescient warnings were, of course, dismissed as the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist kook.
Message: The public is not supposed to listen to figures who have the Bad Guys and their agendas pegged. We are supposed to listen only to the "authorities" who we have been indoctrinated to believe are "protecting us" and our "freedoms." These people and organizations are doing the opposite.
Thanks for highlighting this story.
It was obvious anyone with half a brain who was paying attention at the time. Once again Ron Paul was proven to be correct.
My daughter's 16 year old boyfriend knew.
Smart kid
Very successful lawyer today.
We have an awful lot of sheep in congress. This gov has gotten too big to be managed efficiently. Time for a small federal Gov. just putting it out to the churning universe. There’s but One Mind. It implies all minds are connected and minds manifest. When those who think alike spread their thinking they manifest faster. Hollywood, msm, cable TV, porn industry and our education system are all controlled by the same people. They’ve been slowly converting minds. We work to awaken them.
Beeta, wait until you see what is planned for our bodies with the next plandemic in the fall. The virus is ready. The "vaccine" is ready. We're about to be forced to take something that is eventually going to kill us, or make us obey the PTB. I could barely get on a plane; by now I don't think I'll try. Look what happened to Scott Ritter lately.
I live in SE NM and neither the city nor county law enforcement even complied with state mask mandates. The county guys take Constitutional Sheriff oaths swearing that they will not answer to anything else. We're pretty much "come at me bro" down here.
Fairly sure most people are inclined to give SE NM a hard pass, especially the "county guys," and respectfully decline the invitation.
Not my favorite place to live, but since we don't get in the news about this sort of thing, just doing my bit to level the reporting playing field.
Do not consent! Majority are more than happy to comply. Let them. Our Will, united with God’s, is unbreakable. They fear us! Don’t let them put the fear of Devil in you. Don’t spread fear, Unless you’re a fear mongering operative
Right on!
Millions of innocent Americans are placed on the TSDB (Terrorist Screening Data Base.)
The FBI freely admits that only an extremely tiny fraction of the people on TSDB have any connection whatsoever to terrorism. These millions of innocent, law abiding Americans are on the TSDB due to dark (i.e. hidden, secret) forces in our government.
The US Department of Defense readily acknowledges that it has "lost" many trillions of dollars. Where did all those incalculable trillions (trillions with a T, not billions) of $US go? To highly illegal, nefarious, satanic hidden programs, which surveil, harass, vandalize, sabotage, extort, torture, and kill, (usually via directed energy weapons, psychological torture, poisoning, and other satanic means) untold numbers of innocent Americans. There are many hundreds of thousands of Targeted Individuals in the United States, and millions worldwide. These illegal torture programs are not limited to the United States.
Please study this website in depth: TargetedJustice.com/
You're a nobody if your name isn't in the TDSB database. Eventually you might even find yourself in front of a tribunal being asked to explain why you're not in the TDSB database.
The thing to fear is fear itself.
Unit your will with Creator’s!
Seek higher guidance!
Pray unceasingly !!
This too shall pass.
Beeta: I have no fear whatsoever. All I'm doing is sharing the truth about what is happening in our corrupted world.
Your post sounds to me rather hysterical. I am calm amidst decades of torture , harassment, and manifold threats of all kinds, including murder.
My mission is simply to tell the unvarnished truth, to try to alert as many other living human beings as possible of the reality we are all living in.
I’m sorry for the mix up truthbird. My reply was to Rob Roy, not you.
Oops… seems like I did it again, can’t seem to correct it.
Ney (R-Ohio), Otter (R-Idaho) and Feingold (D-Wisconsin) joined Paul from the Senate voting ney.
In the House, 66 Congressman voted against the Act, 62 Democrats, 3 Republicans, with 1 abstention.
I did not read it as a "nothing" statement. I read it as "Fuck. You. That's. Why."
💯
Pay decent salaries and most will defend the indefensible. I may be misunderstanding, but surveilling a passenger, supposedly a threat to the USA, for a limited amount of time doesn't make sense.
yes, but monitoring actual dangerous people is hard. plus the CIA doesnt like when we interfere with their false flags.
Not to mention creating a huge and ever-expanding bureaucracy creates its own support. Employees like their jobs and sweet government benefits packages. Contractors like their sweet government contracts.
My guess is it's a low bar to initiate. Did someone sign a petition back in the 80s? Watch 'em and track for awhile.
For the overwhelming majority of "watchees" there's no "there there" so a few lucky ones get dropped from the watch list when the overlords get around to it, while the rest linger in a gargantuan data base called Purgatory, comprised of mostly trivial data points, which is in turn linked to an an even larger megavault containing the permanent records of every human being on earth and their pets... something like that. It's a great use of resources.
It's a bitches brew.
Why surround a home with a kevlar suited, masked and anonymous, long gun toting swat team at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to terrify the wife and children of a man who has already offered to voluntarily turn himself in? It's totalitarian feminist/Marxist/DEI inspired life/career destroying DNC/EU/WEF Davosphere intimidation to the core. The free peoples of the world are being held at both electronic and literal gun point and everyone is considered under arrest. It is an obvious example of the modern day marriage between Marxist ideological utopianism, the bureaucratic surveillance state and corporate fascism. It's purely pathological not political, and represents the same A-Bomb rattling gangsterism that fed the ovens in WWII and burned the 20th Century to the ground.
I think what you describe has something to do with "Saving Democracy". Strange when we've always been a Constitutional, Representative Republic, at least to start with anyway. The founders actually were not positive about what democracy was in it's true definition, basically mob rule.
<snort> Love it! Tell us how you really feel, Mike. 😂
Hey! That’s an insult to the iconic classic Miles Davis album!
😆
MY guess is that Tulsi pissed off Hillary, Harris or some other ignorant mouth-breather in the DC Politburo. If Obama gets a fourth term in November (Harris/Tampon Timmy), this country is fucked.
Don’t forget Nancy.
I think ol’ Nance might the ultimate Godfather of Deepstate/Dem politics.
This is consistently apropos and bears repeating:
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
Pournelle worked in the defense industry, so no doubt the Iron Law came from personal experience.
No doubt.
Truth
Which more or less describes nearly 2 million federal employees. Bring on schedule F.
and state, county, city, HOAs, School boards, etc ... They can and do always fall back on FYTW.
the federal employees have been raping we the people for decades. turnabout is fair play.
Logically applied, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision revoking its acceptance the "Chevron Doctrine ", previously invented by it out of whole cloth, should end this type of thing very quickly. Followed to its logical conclusion, then end of the Chevron Doctrine means that the Supreme Court has confirmed the Constitutional DUTY of Congress to create, specifically define/debate-in-public, and transparently set forth, the laws which it intends to govern the American Public. NOT just pass 1,000-page general bills which it never reads in the first place and then leave it to entrenched, unionized (as in untouchable), and mainly Democrat bureaucrats to interpret. This, necessarily, means smaller, less opaque and more accountable governance going forward. It is the Deep State's worst nightmare. Thus, the DNC's newly- stated goal to "reform" (i.e.: pack) the Supreme Court. I dare say history will, in time, prove that the subsequent assassination attempt on former President Trump was part-and-parcel of the Deep State's revulsion to losing its formerly unquestioned and unaccountable powers.
the govt flouts the law all the time. the only thing that will deter them indefinitely is fear for loss of life and/or liberty.
If only the danger were limited to form letters.
Exactly what I thought as I was reading it. I thought Kamala Harris spoke in word salad.
The TSA is especially egregious because it serves no public function. It does not protect the people--only serve as an excuse to persecute those the state dislikes, evidently.
You’re not allowed to know what the Stasi is really doing but you should rest assured that it is in your best interest.
Also, you don't actually know what's in your best interest, but rest assured that the Stasi does!
🛎️🔨
I feel safer already!
( Gets back to ratting out neighbors )
🤣
I sent the original article to two people who hate Trump, one politically agnostic and one a loyal Dem. With that background, and I only sent this because it didn't have the T word and was a general interest story - their response was they would rather be safe, brushed it off as 'like when you get searched going to a concert' and 'obviously they must have a reason to suspect her of something'. A completely lack of concern for where this could lead on both a personal and a societal level. Even when I pointed out the lack of any arrests or results from the program. They're totally fine with it. Folks, this is where we are heading and this is why...
Those are some of the same rationalizations Republicans used when TSA was created 20 years ago.
Everyone loves Big Brother when they control the levers of power. Then they rediscover civil liberties when they don’t. Americans have the memory of a goldfish, and can’t imagine what could happen past the next election cycle.
I forgot the 'best' part. One of the people aforementioned subsequently sent me three articles from 2022 where Tulsi criticized the wisdom of our involvement in Ukraine. Apparently in their minds, this constitutes a valid crime - to speak against a war.
That would have been the loyal Dem., I presume.
Actually, it was the 'agnostic' of the two but he is someone who has never voted so I try to not rock that boat...
Reminds me of a far left friend, when I asked him about what he thought about how bad everything is in the U.S. with inflation, crime, illegal aliens and wars breaking out he responded “yes it’s terrible, we’re going to lose the next election!” I was shocked he said it so earnestly. He has a masters from Columbia
Well...you know...sometimes it does eventually break through. It seems to never cross over going the OTHER direction, does it? And it's hard for people to admit they were wrong or have changed their thinking. So kudos to your friend!
90% of the b.s. on the internet is created by 10% of the people present on it. How serious should we take a sh't show created by nut case crazies and a surveillance perp psyop. My experience is, in any organization, 10% of the people do the majority of the work necessary to hold it together. Truth matters and we the people are in the process of finding how powerful the truth can actually be.
I tend to agree that Americans (and lots of other people) often behave like they have short memories, but perhaps goldfish aren't the best comparison. Studies have shown that goldfish have better memories and learning abilities than is commonly believed. See, for example, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/goldfish-may-have-longer-memories-than-just-three-seconds&ved=2ahUKEwiolYSdu-mHAxVng4kEHWfxKTcQFnoECDgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3PrHYHY3594U7MSmRpjGNy
I’ll have to come up with a new way to say that. Didn’t mean to slander the noble goldfish!
I'd say they were brainwashed but I'm not convinced there are actually working brains there.
Well...I was trying to be discreet assuming we are all being monitored.
I asked ChatGPT last night how it remembered I had ulcerative colitis. It told me, oh, I remember all our conversations so you don't have to re-enter info you've already provided. I said, can you assure me that no human has access to that data? It said, it's designed so that's not possible. I said, would the programmers not have put a back door in? It said, they did but it takes multiple layers of security to access it.
So just assume we're all being monitored.
Yesterday Facebook suggested I join the Facebook group "Pot smoking atheists who love dogs". I am more of an agnostic than an atheist but they got two out of three correct and now they know the third one too.
We are.
👍Indeed!! And that's why I'm proud to be a Kamala supporter!!! 🇺🇸
😆
Sheeit . . . the safest place in the world is a solitary confinement prison cell.
Typical slavish attitude--If you've done nothing wrong, why object to being searched or interrogated or followed by the feds?
I did point out that fear is a tactic people succumb to because they think 'it can't happen here' and sent that saying about "when they came for ... I said nothing...when they came for me, there was no one...". Ask people, your friends, you first daters out there, your family: if they had to choose between safety and freedom which would they choose? If they don't miss a beat, either way they answer will tell you volumes. If they ponder it, at least give them credit for using the ole noggin.
Where’s your 27 B stroke 6 form sir?
That attitude started before COVID and then has intensified exponentially ever since.
Actually, didn't it start during WWII? Didn't we round up the Japanese and put them in internment camps? I also recall from family and friends' lore how their German relatives were treated during WWI. Sadly, I think we have been here for awhile. It is just all pervasive now thanks to technology.
It’s way older than that. Woodrow Wilson’s administration made sure Eugene V. Debs had to run his 1920 campaign for president from a prison cell because he had criticized America’s entry into WWI.
Think back even further. Alien and Sedition Act under President John Adams.
It's as old as slavery.
Maybe even older than that! Maybe that was the rationalization to "justify" slavery!
"Well, these people obviously can't be trusted on their own and, well, you know, we could use some help around here."
But, yes, definitely, this sort of thing is no doubt as old as...life?
Some bugs (e.g., ants) basically corral other bugs (e.g., aphids) to produce food (aphids secrete glucose-rich material when "stroked" by the ants).
The ants no doubt explain this to the aphids as, "We're doing this for your own protection." Which is not entirely false and the aphids (being both not super-bright and also complacent) of course go along.
And if an aphid were to resist, I imagine the ants would just eat them.
My good man, do you mean to suggest we human beings are no better than ants? How dare you!
I prefer ants to humans.
Spot on Bull! It’s as old as civilization and agriculture.
It’s human nature. Ten thousand years at the very least. Same as it ever was.
It started after 9/11.....
Actually, didn't it start during WWII? Didn't we round up the Japanese and put them in internment camps? I also recall from family and friends' lore how their German relatives were treated during WWI. Sadly, I think we have been here for awhile. It is just all pervasive now thanks to technology.
Try Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago.
The answer depends on how we define "it". The original comment in this thread (by "Me") was about the attitude of liberals to government surveillance. Some of the comments are about the government's policies toward war resisters and other dissidents.
Regarding government surveillance of U.S. citizens, I haven't seen anything showing that, in the years leading up to 9/11, the NSA was spying on U.S. citizens. The message that the NSA does not spy on U.S. citizens was made clear to people working on cryptography for the government. That obviously changed dramatically after 9/11. On the other hand, we do know that the FBI spied on citizens, including MLK Jr.
The whistleblower/ inspector general system is subservient to "national security", and no longer works:
theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers.
I have wondered this very thing about my progressive friends. They have SO much faith in the govt and safety is a paramount value. Also this....Recently, I was with my husband as he was at a legal conference. He was listening to these two prosecutors in the room (yes they now beam this stuff to your room) talk about cognitive biases as it relates to jury selection. There was something call the The Just World bias. These people assume that their safe world where everyone behaves pretty well is how it must be for everyone. They side with criminals and stuff like the above because they believe no reasonable person would do that for no reason or for simple nefarious reasons. It must be justified or the govt/criminal wouldn't do it. They wouldn't so no one would. That explained a lot to me. Their minds would break if they let go of that kind of thinking. I know because I'm a recovering one myself and it did break my mind for a while.
I've come across this, too...and to be honest, while 'slam dunk / yellow cake' was my moment of clarity it did take 2020 for me to understand the vastness of the problem. And I could see how most people are GOOD and KIND people and so it IS a really difficult concept to grasp and acknowledge. Just World Bias. I've never heard that term but I think you bring up an excellent point and why it is so confusing to those of us who can now see this contradiction /flaw in human reasoning. Thank you for adding to this discussion. Recently I've also used this when talking to people on issues by recognizing 'you are a good person, and it is really hard for good people to make the leap that not everyone is'. People trying to solve homelessness is another topic where I see this- it's hard for good people to understand there is money to be made in perpetuating certain anti-societal behaviors. Anyway, thanks for chiming in!
I'm curious - has your "you are a good person ..." approach worked in any cases?
For a long time, I thought that the liberals you described were good but misguided people. I eventually came to the disturbing conclusion that the hard-core cases, at least, were not well-intentioned at all, but only concerned that their tribe remain in power. I suppose that means I had "Just World Bias" in a way.
Homelessness and other intransigent social issues. Maybe another facet of Just World is the magical thinking that if we just do exactly the right thing, spend enough money, do enough for these folks, they will see the light and we can in fact eliminate poverty, homeslessness, addiction, and any number of other social ills.
These people are good little obedient subjects. Obedience is the new American value.
It ain’t new. The shamelessness of the heavy-handedness of our American government is a bit new.
I wouldn’t call Woodrow Wilson, or Jim Crow laws new, in terms or heavy-handedness or shamelessness.
Well in my lifetime, the last 50ish years. I was thinking post WWII, post mass media, I should have specified…
Once people understand that this is about retaliation and retribution, I think it could have an impact on the election. Remember Christie's closing of the lane going to Manhattan in retaliation for a slight from a local official, and destroyed his political career in New Jersey.
I think, unless it directly effects them In a negative manner it is perfectly fine. One of the folks mentioned has an opinion re: the border that he has never seen the immigration problem so it's not anything he cares about. Until it happens to them...
It feels like the citizenry is mostly deeply asleep on the Dem side. It takes a lot to wake them up, then they only go "Whaaatt??" mumble something, roll over, start snoring again.
They see only what they have been programmed to see.
What's happened to American liberals the past decade can only be compared to cult indoctrination.
They have their tribe's sacred beliefs with maybe the most important one being that anyone not in their cult is an evil enemy who can never be trusted but only attacked and destroyed. And, much like cults, if you attempt any form of reasoned debate, try to find any middle ground, or even just remind the cult member of things they used to believe before they joined the cult, they will respond with furious rage and say or do anything not to have their cognitive dissonance challenged.
Tribalism plus our new propaganda/brainwashing devices (smartphones + social media) have essentially performed a lobotomy on the American liberal class.
This will not end well.
Translation: they figured out the subtext and gave the standard tribal response. Next up: "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!"
Most humans are herd animals to rival any lemming, dog or sheep,