The fact that the past is more terrible than the present doesn't have any effect on how terrible the present is. If the present is bad, it is bad whether or not the past was as bad or worse. We shouldn't be handwaving off the issues of the present as not mattering when compared to the past, because that leaves us complacent and ready to accept a hell of a lot of terrible stuff that we shouldn't put up with. Liberty isn't that "one gift"; it is a right. It belongs to you in the first place. It isn't something that someone has to give you.

And a person can't have a "surplus" of freedoms. Freedom means freedom of choice, so long as you don't infringe on the freedom of others to choose. There can't be a surplus of freedoms because anything above and beyond that definition does not constitute a freedom. Anything less is unjust.

Freedom is also something that no person or other social construct has the right to take away. If you wouldn't use force to make your neighbor act in the way you want him/her to (barring using force to defend yourself), why is it that a collection of people suddenly gain that power? Why is it that you can't take money from your neighbor against your neighbor's will, but a larger group of people can? What makes that right?

Variations of which have all happened in the past, and worse. I never said there aren't major problems now; I was objecting to your statement that our rights are being 'chipped away', when in fact it's more like a slow and painful process of infringements of rights and civil liberties being chipped away. Have things been in a downturn in some areas for the last ten years or so? That's a valid argument, but it hardly justifies deciding the country is going down the tubes forever, although I understand how it can look like that right now.



True, but it's unlikely, at least not for just expressing your opinions online. Still doesn't justify the use of the term 'police state', which sounds disrespectful to all the people who have lived and continue to live in true police states.

And I'm sorry for the ignorance remark - you obviously know your history although I disagree with the way you're interpreting it.

Last edited by CmarNYC : 27th Jan 2012 at 03:30 PM.

Yes, because I care about basic human rights I'm 'spoiled rotten', and in need of a 'tinfoil hat' and 'medication'. Somewhere, but obviously not here, people know that the right to a fair trial in a timely fashion is a basic human right. Not to be tortured is a basic human right. Not everyone is able to enjoy said rights, but I think that everyone would agree that countries that don't accord people these rights are bad places to be. Further, neither I nor anyone else anywhere else in the world owes thanks to anyone for these rights - that's why they're called basic human rights. Yet Pres Obama has signed a document saying that US citizens can be indefinitely detained without representation. If you're thinking that the NDAA only applies to terrorists, anyone can be called a terrorist. You're going to be locked up without trial or representation, so who exactly is going to refute the charges. You are the first person I've encountered who thought that someone worried over the continuing attack on civil liberties was a spoiled rotten person having a temper tantrum.



I never said anywhere that I thought things were better or worse in the past - that was your straw man and another topic. Maybe you believe that the world is constantly improving, but I doubt everyone would agree. . I'm talking about now. And I have been giving specific examples, not 'sweeping false generalizations' - I think you've got me confused with you.

If it's not about comparing life now with life in the past, then what is your premise for comparison with anything? You are having a tantrum. Every word you write sounds like you're stomping your foot and going "thisissoimportantandwhywon'tyouagreewithmeentirely!" If all you're looking for is a pat on the ass and people to agree with you, I suggest you go elsewhere. I've mentioned several times that I don't find our system perfect or without fault, and yet you keep trying to lay this inane, preposterous guilt trip on me for not assuming that imperfection equates with fascism or whatever you're really going on about. Specific things are fine to gripe about. I gripe about them myself. But you've made a generalization with a specific meaning, whether you're willing to admit to or not. And I don't agree with that general feeling. I don't think we're living in a police state, and I think you're absolutely acting like a spoiled child who wants all things she wants, at once when she wants them, and can't accept that someone agrees with you that there is a forest because you keep pointing at an oak and demanding we call it a pine.

You are being silly. You're being as silly as people always are when they say the sky is falling. Please, take a few deep breaths and just chill out... the problem with people who are overexcited to the point of exaggeration? The rest of us eventually ignore them.

I think you're being excessively dismissive of the point the OP is making. We may not now be a police state, but we certainly seem to be headed in that direction if we don't remain vigilant. I think it's short-sighted to belittle someone for wanting "all things she wants, at once when she wants them" when the things she wants are basic concepts like human rights and governmental accountability. I'm shocked that you are so dismissive of these things. Are you really so quick to defend a government that could one day decide to take you away, indefinitely, without warning, on trumped-up charges of terrorism, and be operating within the legal system?

Could one day? The US has made it its prerogative to hunt terrorists all over the world, regardless of the costs in terms of both money, man power or logistics. Detaining a possible terrorist in its own back yard won't even make it to the papers, and that could happen any time to any one as we speak because one can never be too cautious.

Except that that's so excessively vague and general that it could be applied to any moment and any place in history ever. I'm not dismissing the notion that you shouldn't try to fight oppression, that one shouldn't be wary, but that by premature proclamation of oppression one only stands to diminish true oppression. Essentially it's the equivalent of Godwining - "Oh noes! People are abusing their positions of powah! THE WORLD IS ENDED AND THE SKY IS FALLING!"

I like practical solutions to practical problems. Flailing at the world like an imbecile because of gross exaggerations of generalizations is imminently impractical.

For other uses of this principle: After the recent Kamen Foundation debacle, start a thread where you might announce "Are all charitable foundations run by idiots and fascists?" Taking specifics and winding them up into overstated grossly notions that ignore counterexamples isn't just bad debate form, it's really annoying from a human perspective. It's bad when the other guys do and it's not flattering when someone I might normally agree with on specifics does it either.


I am, because any government could "one day" do that. "One day" the government might finally decide to install the bubble machine in my backside and pronounce it a national treasure. "One day" I might find myself on a space ship abducted by a race of hot female aliens bound to force me to save their dying race via saucer sex. One day is scary, it's always scary. But because it's always scary "one day" is also completely useless, absolute rubbish from a standpoint of generalizing for the present. "One day" the government, based also on general trends, could have an enforced equality and respect for all mankind, with universal peace and an absolute commitment to the welfare of all citizens. That's also useless for the present, because it's we don't live in the future and we can't wave at a crystal ball and make sweeping insights into larger futures. We certainly can't look at today based on our expectations of the wider future and condemn (or praise) ourselves because of those possible futures.

I grew up during the Cold War, in a military family where my childhood really was absolutely tainted by expectations of disaster based on people's not-so optimistic calculations for the future. What came of that? Not much. Why? Because if you're afraid of what's going to come of something you don't piss and moan about what it is. You buckle down, find the practical problem and create a practical solution. Better yet, don't count on the things that aren't wrong in your world view either. Take the things, any things, that you hold dear and invest in those too.

It's never as good or bad as in now as you ever think it is, and no one knows what the future holds.

I agree that conflating the current political climate with a police state is an overstatement and degrades the potency of the term. However, it seems to me that you are arguing too far in the opposite direction. When you say that someone is spoiled by a surplus of freedoms, you are dismissing the perfectly reasonable arguments that the government is currently doing things that it ought not be doing.

And, as to the second part of your response, I know you're informed enough about the issues to know what I was talking about. When I talk about "one day", I'm not talking about legislation that has yet to come through. I'm talking about as soon as you do enough things the government considers suspicious - and their threshold for suspicious is abominably low - under currently enacted legislation, you could be taken away and detained indefinitely without trial. That flies in the face of human rights and directly contradicts the Bill of Rights in our Constitution.

Unbelievable. If anyone reads back through my posts and then through yours, they will see your usual escalation of hysteria and verbal abuse. You are seldom content to make arguments backed by facts. You would prefer to mock, and use reductio ad absurdum.
I don't need to chill out - I've remained calm as I've been called an imbecile, offensively dumb, silly, in need of medication, blah blah tinfoil hat blah blah blah.


Who in the hell do you think you are? I've been taking my lumps here and not whining about all the 'disagrees' I've been getting and, if I choose to continue, then it's none of your concern. Do you expect a moderator to step in and declare you the winner and give you a trophy? If that were to happen, it wouldn't bother me at all - it's not like any of this matters. Yeah, right, I'm the overexcited one here.


I missed the part where I held a gun to your head and forced you to post in this thread. Feel free to start ignoring me starting now.

Okay. Sure.

Please stop the personal insults. If you can't debate without your egos getting in the way then just leave the thread.

While i'm an European and not an American i see that the US is actually turned into a police state, especially after 9/11. Now it is a bit lesser since Obama, but it is still too much big brother. Unfortunately we're going in the same direction here in The Netherlands.
It goes awfully into the direction of the movie Minority Report, where they already can read someones mind. Governments are trying to get every single information of any civilian, about what they do in their life, what they have done, their interests and so on.
And acts like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and now CISPA only confirms that the government, but also the industry, will try to get a foothold on the life of civilians.

There's no mind reading in Minority Report.

I've already stated very clearly why the US is not a police state earlier in the thread, and there's no point my repeating those arguments, which are still correct. So all that's left is to clear up the Minority Report thing.

Regardless your thoughts on Bradlee Dean on other issues, you might like what he has to say in this video:

1967 vs. 2013

I actually watched it. That video is obnoxiously sanctimonious, and it's just a bunch of straw man fallacies to suggest that things were better in the 1960s. Additionally, in two separate points, he suggested that society would be better off if people were allowed to physically punish children for acting out - in one case, a father whipping his son with a belt; in the other, a principal giving a student a "good paddling". He also suggests that ADD is not a real disorder, that a student bringing a shotgun onto school property is harmless (lol), and that minors aren't afforded due process under the law in today's society.

He also seems to support the notion that prayer in school is a good thing, and that all high school students should have to pass a "Bible test" in order to graduate.

No.

(By the way, you know who has it a HELL of a lot better in 2013 than in 1967? Black people. Thank you, government.)