Is democracy fading away,,,, should it ?

[TomServo]

Your opinion is worth just as much as anyone else's. By split,,,, UMMMmmm, how do you mean? The U.S. is millions of fragments and the glue is weakening.

Coastal states for Dems...The "Heartland for Reps" ...or maybe just Texas. No offense to Texans...I lived there.

[can't sit still]

I've given much thought to the Iron Mountain" report. Wiki claims that it is a hoax. That isn't possible. It is too well thought out,,, too logical,,, too applicable.

I've excerpted several quotes that will, hopefully, get interested people to read the entire report. The central focus of the report is that peace is not desirable. They also make a good case to prove that the world is not prepared to make the transition.
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/ha ... n_full.htm


"is the abolition of war, in the broad sense, really possible? If so, is it necessarily desirable,"

"It is not too much to say that general disarmament would require the scrapping of a critical proportion of the most highly developed occupational specialties in the economy"

"Some essential element has clearly been lacking in all these schemes"
"It is the incorrect assumption that war, as an institution, is subordinate to the social systems it is believed to serve"
"Economic systems, political philosophies, and corpora jures serve and extend the war system, not vice versa."
"Proper logical sequence would make it more often accurate to say that war-making societies require---and thus bring about---such conflicts."

"In the case of military "waste," there is indeed a larger social utility. It derives from the fact that the "wastefulness" of war production is exercised entirely outside the framework of the economy of supply and demand. As such, it provides the only critically large segment of the total economy that is subject to complete and arbitrary central control."
"The fact that war is "wasteful" is what enables it to serve this function. And the faster the economy advances, the heavier this balance wheel must be."

"Why is war so wonderful? Because it creates artificial demand
resulting from heavy defense expenditures, has provided additional protection against depressions,"

"The war system,,,Without it, no government has ever been able to obtain acquiescence in its "legitimacy," or right to rule its society. The possibility of war provides the sense of external necessity without which nor government can long remain in power"

"In advanced modern democratic societies, the war system has provided political leaders with another political-economic function of increasing importance: it has served as the last great safeguard against the elimination of necessary social classes. As economic productivity increases to a level further and further above that of minimum subsistence, it becomes more and more difficult for a society to maintain distribution patterns insuring the existence of "hewers of wood and drawers of water". The further progress of auto- mation can be expected to differentiate still more sharply between "superior" workers and what Ricardo called "menials," while simultaneously aggravating the problem of maintaining an unskilled labor supply."

The report goes on extensively talking about the various control mechanisms created for war that are used on the "home" population to keep it in control.

The report is extremely important in understanding today's extravagant expenditures for wars. Keynes would have you believe that counter-cyclical spending is the sure cure for an economic downturn. In fairness to Keynes, he wrote that a surplus should be set aside for counter-cyclical spending. I believe that he did not advocate deficit spending as a cure for downturns.

The report shows excellent rationale far the conclusion that; a population will not bear the heavy yoke of GOV if it doesn't feel an external threat.

Wilson attacked Germany and Japan many months before they finally attacked America. Wilson went to a lot of trouble to insure that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a "surprise". The Lusitania WAS carrying arms when it was attacked by Germany. This was necessary because numerous attacks on German shipping did not produce the required effect. [retaliation]

The U.S.S.R. vs U.S.A. mutual threat fell flat on it's face. The U.S.S.R. collapsed and nobody invaded or conquered Russia. Lacking credible external threats in America, internal threats had to be invented. Wars on terror and drugs, climate, etc.

"faster the economy advances, the heavier this balance wheel must be."
Relating to an earlier RAND study; the U.S. is just not prepared for the unlimited wealth that could be produced by the machine society. GOV feels it incumbent for it to destroy wealth at an ever-increasing rate to keep the economy going.

Let there be no mistake. This is done to maintain the control of GOV. The report claims that we just wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. There is also the claim that over-population would bring a Malthusian future very rapidly. GOV is naked control and brute force. The report concludes that peace would be bad.
I place a lot of faith in man's adaptability.

The report shows a lot of very intelligent deliberation. I believe that it is a roadmap for stasis brought about by fear of change and loss of control.
Dan

[Simon of the Playa]

on this rare instance, CSS, i will have to agree...Iron Mountain does need to be researched fully.

[can't sit still]

COOL !
We see confirmation in many places. China has risen just TOO fast. They will experience a crash before long. They have very limited resources. Their buildup is unsustainable if there is a default or an interruption of exports. The lack of domestic resources will bring social "unrest", What is their answer,,, their preparation ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ction.html
Prepare for WAR ! How original

[Simon of the Playa]

again CSS, my personal opinion as far as china is concerned probably dovetails with the above statement...

publicly, at least for now, a hot war with china is verboten.


you can take that however you please, i'll deny everything.

[Elderberry]

I listened to it again [3rd time] and yes, you're correct. When he uses the word "it", I seem to have connected "it" to the constitution rather than connecting "it" to the reading.
Keep me honest.

Sorry I came down on you with that tone. But the entire right wing blogosphere reported the story incorrectly and so many people just took what they read based on the reporting as being factual.

The same thing has been done to health care reform and so many of the other pieces of legislation passed by congress this year, that it is just a sore spot for me.

I don't mind when someone disagrees or doesn't like something, but it almost enrages me when people's opinions are formed based on incorrect facts. It's even worse when you consider this information is promulgated with the sole intent of manipulating people's opinions. I really don't know what's worse, those that do the manipulating or those that allow themselves to be so easily manipulated. (these comments are not directed at you personally)

JK

[Simon of the Playa]

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/collapse/

[can't sit still]

Looking at the larger picture, this is an interesting vid;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02rvMwSl ... re=channel

[can't sit still]

This is an interesting article. I've highlighted a couple of quotes. There is a lot to think about.

Dangerous Times in Marxist America
By David McElroy

Dec. 31, 2010

“Those that make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.“ President John F. Kennedy is remembered for this statement. Americans are finding force and fraud in every venue stifling free debate, free speech, all practices of truth, justice, and liberty. We do not seek trouble. But trouble insists on looking for us. We do abhor violence, yet violence is set upon us in many ways in a Marxist Cultural Revolution confusing, degrading, and intolerantly destroying us with diversity.

Contemplating the portents of 2011 does not envision a Happy New Year! But we must soldier on, being vigilant to protect ourselves, our families, our homes, our communities against the New World Order. We must stay alert and guard our minds. For the children. Surveillance is everywhere. We are faced with a terrible choice so often forced upon people by tyrants through the ages: Live Free or Die!

It should be painfully obvious to even those uninterested in politics, or the rat race to the illusory “American Dreamâ€

[Ugly Dougly]

Fidel Castro Wins Again!

White House Eases Travel to Cuba
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

By JARED A. FAVOLE

WASHINGTON--The White House on Friday eased travel restrictions to Cuba and expanded payments to the country as part of an effort to allow U.S. citizens and institutions to engage directly with Cuba.

President Barack Obama has ordered changes in U.S. policy that would allow religious groups to travel to the country and increase journalistic activities on the island. Other changes include the ability for U.S. citizens to send as much as $2,000 per year in remittances to non-family members in order to support private economic activity.

The new measures also allow educational institutions to sponsor travel to the island.

These "are important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens," the White House said in a press release. The directives build on earlier moves by the Obama administration designed to increase the flow of people and goods between the U.S. and Cuba.

The measures announced Friday also allow all U.S. international airports to apply to provide services to licensed charters flying to Cuba.

The policies comes after the island's aging dictator, Fidel Castro, transferred power to his brother, Raul Castro.

[Elderberry]

CSS you REALLY need to stop reading and polluting your mind with that garbage.

JK

[can't sit still]

dougly, it isn't a question of Castro winning. It's a matter of Cubans being able to receive remittance from family here. The country has no resources and the people are very poor. Cuba nationalized a lot of stuff when Castro took over. Mexico nationalized lots of stuff too. We didn't fuck them up. Castro is FAR more lenient and open that the house of Saud. We don't complain about them. Cuba has a very severe criminal punishment system. So does Singapore. We don't screw with Singapore.
It's hard-headed assholes like Jesse Helms that have caused most of the problems. All the pols have been saying that they will normalize when Fidel is gone. It's all personal for the pols. Raul is more authoritarian than Fidel. It only matters that his name is NOT Fidel Castro.
Here's the link for the Cuba thread;
viewtopic.php?t=11373

[Elderberry]

dougly, it isn't a question of Castro winning. It's a matter of Cubans being able to receive remittance from family here. The country has no resources and the people are very poor. Cuba nationalized a lot of stuff when Castro took over. Mexico nationalized lots of stuff too. We didn't fuck them up. Castro is FAR more lenient and open that the house of Saud. We don't complain about them. Cuba has a very severe criminal punishment system. So does Singapore. We don't screw with Singapore.
It's hard-headed assholes like Jesse Helms that have caused most of the problems. All the pols have been saying that they will normalize when Fidel is gone. It's all personal for the pols. Raul is more authoritarian than Fidel. It only matters that his name is NOT Fidel Castro.
Here's the link for the Cuba thread;
viewtopic.php?t=11373

One of the most ridiculous policies toward a country I have seen. Let the US tourists return. Cuba was such a fun vacation spot when I lived on the east coast.

JK

[can't sit still]

It seems that Switzerland does have direct democracy. They want a referendum on gun confiscation;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 12515.html

[can't sit still]

In the end, ALL democracies crash. This is an interesting article on "Democracy 2.0". It postulates a whole new system that seems to be appearing in Belgium. It is the opposite of NWO or "One World". It severely diminishes the power of the federal system. Very interesting;
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-0 ... ck-en.html

[can't sit still]

Since all democracies eventually break the bank, one could speculate that our present economic problems are a result of democracy. They aren't. After WW II, Britain handed off the baton of empire to America. Just as Britain went broke, America is now broke. Considering the hyper-productivity of the machine age , America could very well have continued for a long time. The pursuit of empire broke us, not democracy.
Here is our legacy;

America is like an aging, bloated rock star that has become addicted to a dozen different drugs. America is a shadow of its former self and it desperately needs to wake up before it plunges into oblivion.

If you do not believe that America is in bad shape, just read the list below. The following are 20 not so good categories that the United States leads the world in....

#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.

#2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.

#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

#4 The United States is tied with the UK for the most hours of television watched per person each week.

#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.

#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.

#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.

#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.

#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.

#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.

#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the USA and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.

#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the US has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.

#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, US military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.

#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.

#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.

#20 The US has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, US government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.

[Ugly Dougly]

...
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
....

Just for fun, I fact-checked ONE of these.
Nationmaster DOES confirm that the USA leads the world in divorce, but also in marriage.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_mar_rat-people-marriage-rate
In other words, if fewer people are getting married, say in Sweden, then you will have a lower per capita divorce rate.

[can't sit still]

Yup, some of the numbers are misleading because they're given as absolutes instead of percentages. Here's a different look at divorce;
Worldwide Divorce Rates – Top 20
Countries with Highest Divorce Rates per Capita

1. Belarus 68%
2. Russian Federation 65%
3. Sweden 64%
4. Latvia 63%
5. Ukraine 63%
6. Czech Republic 61%
7. Belgium 56%
8. Finland 56%
9. Lithuania 55%
10. United Kingdom 53%
11. Moldova 52%
12. United States 49%
13. Hungary 46%
14. Canada 45%
15. Norway 43%
16. France 43%
17. Germany 41%
18. Netherlands 41%
19. Switzerland 40%
20. Iceland 39%
21. Kazakhstan 39%

[cowboyangel]

Let's watch this, but don't hold your breath. This is why the US government is a criminal enterprise. Imagine that your husband or Dad were among the 29 murdered miners from Upper Big Branch. Blankenship and his executive crew should be serving long jail sentences for murder.





Feds Report That Massey Hid Mine Violations Through Two Sets of Safety Records
Tuesday 12 July 2011
by: Roger Bybee, Working In These Times | Report



The federal government has just released its report on the Massey Energy mine explosion, which killed 29 West Virginia miners in April 2010. The key revelation is shocking even for those familiar with Massey’s willingness to endanger miners’ lives whenever greater profits could be attained by ignoring risks.

The feds' explosive finding: Massey kept two sets of safety records in order to prevent federal inspectors from learning about the severe hazards in the Upper Big Branch mine that Massey officials already knew about. For its own needs, Massey had to keep a record of safety problems, malfunctioning equipment, maintenance needs and other operational details in the mine.

But in a separate record book required by the federal Mine Health and Safety Administration and regularly reviewed by the MHSA, Massey officials systematically deleted any references to the dangers that they had observed first-hand.

As the New York Times’ Sabrina Tavernise explains,

Kevin Stricklin, administrator for coal at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, described a dual accounting system practiced by Massey before the deadly explosion, in which safety problems and efforts to fix them were recorded in an internal set of books, out of sight of state inspectors, and off the official books that the law required them to keep.

Even with Massey officials hiding safety problems with the falsified safety record, the Upper Big Branch mine had compiled an appalling history. “In the year before the blast, the mine received more orders to shut down unsafe areas than any other coal mine in the country," the Times noted.

As I reported here a month ago, a report commissioned by the West Virginia governor’s office, conducted by the former MHSA director J. Davitt McAteer, documented how deviance from sound safety practices became the norm at Upper Big Branch.

Truthout doesn’t take corporate funding - this lets us do the brave, independent reporting that makes us unique. Please support this work by making a tax-deductible donation today - just click here to donate. This week, an anonymous foundation will double your donation!

While concurring with McAteer that the fatal explosion was caused by an avoidable buildup of volatile coal dust touched off by a small flare-up of methane gas, the new MHSA report is even stronger, Tavernise reports that

Some of the findings echoed a report issued by an independent team of state investigators this month, which blamed Massey and a culture of impunity for the explosion. But these findings went further, saying that Massey took systematic and premeditated steps to circumvent government inspections.

Falsifying such records is a felony under federal law. Further, high-ranking Massey officials were notorious for forcing supervisors to maintain peak production levels regardless of the safety hazards they face. Repeated, serious safety violations at Upper Big Branch suggest a corporation that brazenly viewed its miners as expendable.

What's Next for Perpetrators?

But what kind of justice will Massey executives responsible for the 29 deaths in this explosion face? The case against Blankenship and other officials appears damning.

However, can we realistically expect that Attorney General Eric Holder and the federal Justice Department will take this case seriously? Holder and Co. have not exactly shown much zeal in convicting and jailing millionaire Wall Street con artists, who helped to bring on the meltdown of 2008 still plaguing America's working class.

Moreover, former Massey CEO Don Blankenship still has plenty of clout. He has been able to depict himself as a “job creator” in a region afflicted by some of the worst poverty in the nation and desperate for jobs. (About one out of four West Virginians lives in poverty, with rate closer to 34% among children.)

In the last three presidential elections West Virginia, the Republicans have been remarkably successful in diverting popular frustrations toward alleged “cultural elites” and environmentalists depicted as threatening job rather than corporations like Massey who are imposing horrible working conditions and wrecking the land.

The combination of economic desperation and cultural resentment has served to shield rapacious mine owners like Blankenship from serious punishment for union-busting, rampant violations of miner safety and “mountaintop removal” mining projects which despoil the land, clog rivers and endanger communities with mudslides.

The big chieftains from Massey have maintained a unified stone wall against federal investigations thus far. Top Massey officials have been practicing what the Mafia calls “omerta,” the code of silence. While two small-fry Massey officials—a foreman and the chief of security—have been indicted, the most important Massey officials have been very careful not to point fingers at each other and not to say nothin’ to nobody:

Massey managers, including the former chief executive, Don Blankenship, have not been charged, including 18 executives who refused to be interviewed for the federal investigation, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights.

Holder's background as a fighter against white-collar crime is less than stellar: he was the former chief counsel for Chiquita at a time when it was making payoffs to a right-wing death squad in Colombia which targeted union organizers for torture and death, as exposed by journalist Charlie Cray.

I have a hard time imagining a Holder crusade against Blankenship and his crew without massive pressure from labor and West Virginia's elected officials and citizenry.
Originally published at InTheseTimes.com

[can't sit still]

This new law seems a bit un-democratic;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VP6TMd5 ... ture=share
Where do these people get their ideas

[can't sit still]

The PEOPLE of Iceland got together to write a new constitution;
http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/03/25 ... ial-media/

[can't sit still]

The Eight Marks of Fascist Policy
Lew Rockwell
Lew Rockwell
John T. Flynn, like other members of the Old Right, was disgusted by the irony that what he saw, almost everyone else chose to ignore. In the fight against authoritarian regimes abroad, he noted, the United States had adopted those forms of government at home, complete with price controls, rationing, censorship, executive dictatorship, and even concentration camps for whole groups considered to be unreliable in their loyalties to the state.

After reviewing this long history, John T. Flynn proceeds to sum up with a list of eight points he considers to be the main marks of the fascist state.

As I present them, I will also offer comments on the modern American central state.

Point 1. The government is totalitarian because it acknowledges no restraint on its powers.

This is a very telling mark. It suggests that the US political system can be described as totalitarian. This is a shocking remark that most people would reject. But they can reject this characterization only so long as they happen not to be directly ensnared in the state’s web. If they become so, they will quickly discover that there are indeed no limits to what the state can do. This can happen boarding a flight, driving around in your hometown, or having your business run afoul of some government agency. In the end, you must obey or be caged like an animal or killed. In this way, no matter how much you may believe that you are free, all of us today are but one step away from Guantanamo.

As recently as the 1990s, I can recall that there were moments when Clinton seemed to suggest that there were some things that his administration could not do. Today I’m not so sure that I can recall any government official pleading the constraints of law or the constraints of reality to what can and cannot be done. No aspect of life is untouched by government intervention, and often it takes forms we do not readily see. All of healthcare is regulated, but so is every bit of our food, transportation, clothing, household products, and even private relationships.

Mussolini himself put his principle this way: “All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” He also said: “The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.”

I submit to you that this is the prevailing ideology in the United States today. This nation, conceived in liberty, has been kidnapped by the fascist state.

Point 2. Government is a de facto dictatorship based on the leadership principle.

I wouldn’t say that we truly have a dictatorship of one man in this country, but we do have a form of dictatorship of one sector of government over the entire country. The executive branch has spread so dramatically over the last century that it has become a joke to speak of checks and balances. What the kids learn in civics class has nothing to do with reality.

The executive state is the state as we know it, all flowing from the White House down. The role of the courts is to enforce the will of the executive. The role of the legislature is to ratify the policy of the executive.

Further, this executive is not really about the person who seems to be in charge. The president is only the veneer, and the elections are only the tribal rituals we undergo to confer some legitimacy on the institution. In reality, the nation-state lives and thrives outside any “democratic mandate.” Here we find the power to regulate all aspects of life and the wicked power to create the money necessary to fund this executive rule.

As for the leadership principle, there is no greater lie in American public life than the propaganda we hear every four years about how the new president/messiah is going to usher in the great dispensation of peace, equality, liberty, and global human happiness. The idea here is that the whole of society is really shaped and controlled by a single will — a point that requires a leap of faith so vast that you have to disregard everything you know about reality to believe it.

And yet people do. The hope for a messiah reached a fevered pitch with Obama’s election. The civic religion was in full-scale worship mode — of the greatest human who ever lived or ever shall live. It was a despicable display.

Another lie that the American people believe is that presidential elections bring about regime change. This is sheer nonsense. The Obama state is the Bush state; the Bush state was the Clinton state; the Clinton state was the Bush state; the Bush state was the Reagan state. We can trace this back and back in time and see overlapping appointments, bureaucrats, technicians, diplomats, Fed officials, financial elites, and so on. Rotation in office occurs not because of elections but because of mortality.

Point 3. Government administers a capitalist system with an immense bureaucracy.

The reality of bureaucratic administration has been with us at least since the New Deal, which was modeled on the planning bureaucracy that lived in World War I. The planned economy — whether in Mussolini’s time or ours — requires bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the heart, lungs, and veins of the planning state. And yet to regulate an economy as thoroughly as this one is today is to kill prosperity with a billion tiny cuts.

This doesn’t necessarily mean economic contraction, at least not right away. But it definitely means killing off growth that would have otherwise occurred in a free market.

So where is our growth? Where is the peace dividend that was supposed to come after the end of the Cold War? Where are the fruits of the amazing gains in efficiency that technology has afforded? It has been eaten by the bureaucracy that manages our every move on this earth. The voracious and insatiable monster here is called the Federal Code that calls on thousands of agencies to exercise the police power to prevent us from living free lives.

It is as Bastiat said: the real cost of the state is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that don’t exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The state has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.

Point 4. Producers are organized into cartels in the way of syndicalism.

Syndicalist is not usually how we think of our current economic structure. But remember that syndicalism means economic control by the producers. Capitalism is different. It places by virtue of market structures all control in the hands of the consumers. The only question for syndicalists, then, is which producers are going to enjoy political privilege. It might be the workers, but it can also be the largest corporations.

In the case of the United States, in the last three years, we’ve seen giant banks, pharmaceutical firms, insurers, car companies, Wall Street banks and brokerage houses, and quasi-private mortgage companies enjoying vast privileges at our expense. They have all joined with the state in living a parasitical existence at our expense.

This is also an expression of the syndicalist idea, and it has cost the US economy untold trillions and sustained an economic depression by preventing the postboom adjustment that markets would otherwise dictate. The government has tightened its syndicalist grip in the name of stimulus.

[can't sit still]

Gerald Celente is calling for a "new world order' where we have 100 % direct democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-rj6TyJ ... _embedded#!
That has "disaster" written all over it.

[Roberto Dobbisano]

Incest-simulated Blow Load sex tubes orgasms...

[theCryptofishist]

Incest-simulated Blow Load sex tubes orgasms...

I have to admit that drew my eye as well.

[Simon of the Playa]

great minds think alike.

[Ugly Dougly]

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-secur ... ine-being/

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

[ygmir]

I think it'd lose, due to military use for policing actions in the "homeland", in a constitutional argument.
Well, I hope.........

though not specifically by "Posse Comitatus".

[Ugly Dougly]

But it's an emergency! These are just temporary measures for your safety!

[ygmir]

exactly!!

so often, people call for these sweeping powers, because they want their "benevolent" government, to do something, keep them safe, whatever.......they don't consider, what might happen, if those same powers, were in the hands of the bad guys..........