Really now!???

[Buckaroo]

Totally agree with Raindawg on this one. Our civil liberties have been eroding since Bush sr. to the point where this is a de-facto police state.

 

I'll present just one example. Three years ago me and a friend went ice climbing in Banff. When we crossed the border into Canada we were stopped right before the border on the US side by the Office of Homeland Security. We were rudely interrogated and ordered to pull over to the side and a drug sniffing dog was put in the car and walked all over our stuff.

 

Both of us were very clean cut and there was nothing to indicate we were doing anything wrong. We were interrogated and searched without probable cause by US officials while we were LEAVING the US.

 

There's so many reasons this is a police state it would take a book to explain them. First we imprison more citizens than any other country in the world, by percentage and by total number. Obama just signed the NDAA. Now the president can detain any US citizen of his own choosing, indefinitely, in secret, and without trial. Obama claims he didn't want to sign and he's not going to use this. LOLZ!! But I guess it doesn't matter when we get another Bush in office.

 

As witnessed by the recent Occupy the police are protecting the 1% and the rest are subject to illegal abuse. Just in general the police are also above the law as witnessed by their ongoing activity here in Seattle, murdering citizens at will with no retribution, the native American wood carver being a prime example.

[Buckaroo]

far more dangerous to the lives of Americans

 

Those who would surrender liberty for safety will have neither.

[rob]

Totally agree with Raindawg on this one. Our civil liberties have been eroding since Bush sr. to the point where this is a de-facto police state.

 

I'll present just one example. Three years ago me and a friend went ice climbing in Banff. When we crossed the border into Canada we were stopped right before the border on the US side by the Office of Homeland Security. We were rudely interrogated and ordered to pull over to the side and a drug sniffing dog was put in the car and walked all over our stuff.

 

Both of us were very clean cut and there was nothing to indicate we were doing anything wrong. We were interrogated and searched without probable cause by US officials while we were LEAVING the US.

 

There's so many reasons this is a police state it would take a book to explain them. First we imprison more citizens than any other country in the world, by percentage and by total number. Obama just signed the NDAA. Now the president can detain any US citizen of his own choosing, indefinitely, in secret, and without trial. Obama claims he didn't want to sign and he's not going to use this. LOLZ!! But I guess it doesn't matter when we get another Bush in office.

 

As witnessed by the recent Occupy the police are protecting the 1% and the rest are subject to illegal abuse. Just in general the police are also above the law as witnessed by their ongoing activity here in Seattle, murdering citizens at will with no retribution, the native American wood carver being a prime example.

 

Well, I think you're wrong about it being a "police state" but there's no point arguing over political nomenclature -- I actually agree with you: our civil liberties have been steadily degrading. I'm really pissed off about it and don't have faith in any current political solution by any party. I think this stuff has to be fought in the courts, and at least you and I can afford to send $$ to people actually doing something about this.

 

Personally, though, I think that you do yourself disgrace when you describe our condition as a police state. I mean, it's getting bad, but the police in Seattle DID admit the killing was wrong (though WA State law protected the officer from prosecution) and they DID pay money to the family. Things are plenty bad enough without resorting to hyperbole and bombast to try and make a point -- we still enjoy the rule of law (mostly). More than anyone else (probably). So it's just kinda lame to start whining that we're a police state, it seems insulting to the majority of the world that kinda is. I mean, just look at the fact that you and I are even allowed to talk about this at all, freely, and without risk.

 

Anyway, give money, dude.

Edited January 4, 2012 by rob

[kevbone]

 

Anyway, give money, dude.

 

Agreed....right to Ron Paul.

[Buckaroo]

Okay, if you want to mince words. Or maybe you don't understand the meaning of "defacto".

 

This may not be an overt police state as defined by history, but it is most assuredly a covert police state.

 

With the NDAA the office of president has near dictatorial power when it comes to detainment. There is no judicial review. The presidency has become unitary. Imprisoned. Secret. Indefinite. No charges. Just think about that. That's no different than Stalin's Gulag. That is the diametric opposite of democracy. Whether they are using it or not right now is immaterial. It is the fact they now have that power.

 

Also if you had been detained, interrogated and searched for no reason by people that exactly fit the description of jack booted thugs you might have a different view on this subject.

 

We can also talk about Gitmo if you'd like. Detained without charges, no evidence presented, tortured, no trial.

 

I also question what you define as a police state if it is not incarcerating more citizens than any other country in the world, by number and by percentage. More than China with it's miserable record on human rights. So what part of freedom do you not believe is a human right? Also tell me just who exactly rounds up all those prisoners... would that be the police?

 

So the POLICE in the United STATES of America round up more prisoners than any other country, and this is not a police state?

 

You know what those DHS officers were doing at the border? They were only looking for one thing, drugs. They were looking for drug users to put in our for profit private prisons. The main questions they asked me were "do you have any illegal drugs?" and it was dope sniffing dogs, they are separate from dogs that sniff explosives.

 

I give all my donations to environmental charities. I think the earth is more important than people.

 

You should also do a YouTube search, gun confiscation during Katrina. They ran a little test to find out how easy it would be to confiscate everyone's guns. There was no resistance, everyone gave them up.

[Choada_Boy]

There's a prefab building and a funny smell

Around the hill outside of town

Every now and then we wonder

But we shrug our shoulders

And get back to work

 

There's a railroad there and trains go by

And there's people locked in cattle cars

And have you noticed

The french fries at the A&W

Taste a little strange?

 

I drive down to the disco

Pompadour and pink lamme

I bow and blow the doorman

He parts the chain, says join the game

 

A quick line in the girls room

To the bar for the electrodes

A coin into the right slits

Tape my temple watch me go

 

Now I want your perfect Barbie-doll lips

And I want your perfect Barbie-doll eyes

Slip my fingers down your Barbie-doll dress

Up and down your spandex ass

 

If I lit a match for you

You'd melt before my eyes

C'mere my pretty glow-worm

You look so fine to dance with me

 

The fly-eye lights are throbbin'

I'm burning up the floor

Whirling twirling

Close my eyes

No faces judging me

 

But I want your perfect Barbie-doll lips

And I want your perfect Barbie-doll eyes

Slip my fingers down your Barbie-doll dress

Up and down your spandex ass

 

A Hitler youth in jogging suit

Smiling face banded 'round his arm

Says, 'Line up, you've got work to do

We need dog food for the poor'

 

A scream bleats out, we're herded into lines

Customized vans wait outside

I'm getting scared of my new home

To Auschwitz condominiums we go

Oh no

 

Now I want your perfect Barbie-doll lips

And I want your perfect Barbie-doll eyes

Let my fingers down your dress

One more time

[kevbone]

Okay, if you want to mince words. Or maybe you don't understand the meaning of "defacto".

 

This may not be an overt police state as defined by history, but it is most assuredly a covert police state.

 

With the NDAA the office of president has near dictatorial power when it comes to detainment. There is no judicial review. The presidency has become unitary. Imprisoned. Secret. Indefinite. No charges. Just think about that. That's no different than Stalin's Gulag. That is the diametric opposite of democracy. Whether they are using it or not right now is immaterial. It is the fact they now have that power.

 

Also if you had been detained, interrogated and searched for no reason by people that exactly fit the description of jack booted thugs you might have a different view on this subject.

 

We can also talk about Gitmo if you'd like. Detained without charges, no evidence presented, tortured, no trial.

 

I also question what you define as a police state if it is not incarcerating more citizens than any other country in the world, by number and by percentage. More than China with it's miserable record on human rights. So what part of freedom do you not believe is a human right? Also tell me just who exactly rounds up all those prisoners... would that be the police?

 

So the POLICE in the United STATES of America round up more prisoners than any other country, and this is not a police state?

 

You know what those DHS officers were doing at the border? They were only looking for one thing, drugs. They were looking for drug users to put in our for profit private prisons. The main questions they asked me were "do you have any illegal drugs?" and it was dope sniffing dogs, they are separate from dogs that sniff explosives.

 

I give all my donations to environmental charities. I think the earth is more important than people.

 

You should also do a YouTube search, gun confiscation during Katrina. They ran a little test to find out how easy it would be to confiscate everyone's guns. There was no resistance, everyone gave them up.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

It's pointless to argue the definition of what is and is not a police state. Much more productive to recognize some very real problems: - that we incarcerate far more of our population than any other society, that our police are now systemically trained to employ a once size fits all, military style violence way too often and way too harshly, and that we are now handing over law enforcement to the military, whose mission is to kill and destroy, not enforce laws. Given that America owns 40% of the world's weaponry, that's a very real problem indeed.

 

The more Americans that become aware of how far out there we are on this psychopathic spectrum, the better. In my experience in talking with the public about these issues, most aren't.

[kevbone]

It's pointless to argue the definition of what is and is not a police state. Much more productive to recognize some very real problems: - that we incarcerate far more of our population than any other society, that our police are now systemically trained to employ a once size fits all, military style violence way too often and way too harshly, and that we are now handing over law enforcement to the military, whose mission is to kill and destroy, not enforce laws. Given that America owns 40% of the world's weaponry, that's a very real problem indeed.

 

The more Americans that become aware of how far out there we are on this psychopathic spectrum, the better. In my experience in talking with the public about these issues, most aren't.

 

Agreed. So which presidential candidate will you endorse? Obama? He just signed the NDAA into law. He is part of the problem. So which will it be?

[tvashtarkatena]

I don't vote for the party of fascism, Bone. You know that. The GOP...and that would be Ron Paul's party, put those riders in the NDAA. Naughty Obama for signing it, but naughtier GOP for crafting it in the first place.

[kevbone]

I don't vote for the party of fascism, Bone. You know that. The GOP...and that would be Ron Paul's party, put those riders in the NDAA. Naughty Obama for signing it, but naughtier GOP for crafting it in the first place.

 

I take it by your answer you are going to vote for Obama. Because the buck stops at his door. He is a tool of the establishment. He could have vetoed it.

[Buckaroo]

So which presidential candidate will you endorse? Obama? He just signed the NDAA into law. He is part of the problem. So which will it be?

 

Agree, Obama is further right than Reagan.

 

there is no one to vote for, the corps control our selection.

 

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice. But he just got cheated in Iowa. I mean it's getting blatant now, 30,015 to 30,008. They are rubbing it in our faces.

 

The vote scam has been nationwide for years now, private corps control the counting.

 

Two ways, either the long slow process of coming up through the ranks. Like the conservatives have for the last 30 years, packing the courts etc.

 

Or violent revolution, but that's pretty mucked out.

[Buckaroo]

that our police are now systemically trained to employ a once size fits all, military style violence way too often and way too harshly, and that we are now handing over law enforcement to the military,

 

the oppression of OWS was coordinated nationally by DHS.

 

they used Nat Guard and Blackwater at Katrina.

[rob]

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice.

 

Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate candidate out there, is that a joke?

Edited January 4, 2012 by rob

[kevbone]

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice.

 

Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate candidate out there, is that a joke?

 

Explain please.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice.

 

Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate candidate out there, is that a joke?

 

Explain please.

 

If Ron Paul dismantles the EPA as he wants to, would that be "pro" business or "anti" business?

 

[j_b]

well, it'd be anti-business because sensible regulations are good for business but it'd be pro-corporate because many modern corporations are mostly solely about short term gain.

[rob]

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice.

 

Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate candidate out there, is that a joke?

 

Explain please.

 

he doesn't think the federal government should regulate business (or the stock market, for that matter). He opposes virtually all "market interference" by the federal government, and he was one of the original plaintiffs on the lawsuit that became the Citizen's United decision. His libertarian beliefs are obviously anti-regulation, which is obviously pro-corporation. Jeez, don't you even research the guy?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Ron Paul had a few good facets, but he's not the corporate choice, he's the people's choice.

 

Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate candidate out there, is that a joke?

 

Explain please.

 

he doesn't think the federal government should regulate business (or the stock market, for that matter). He opposes virtually all "market interference" by the federal government, and he was one of the original plaintiffs on the lawsuit that became the Citizen's United decision. His libertarian beliefs are obviously anti-regulation, which is obviously pro-corporation. Jeez, don't you even research the guy?

 

Yeah, but he's an isolationist and would cut military-spending, harming corporations who participate in the military-industrial complex...

[rob]

 

he doesn't think the federal government should regulate business (or the stock market, for that matter). He opposes virtually all "market interference" by the federal government, and he was one of the original plaintiffs on the lawsuit that became the Citizen's United decision. His libertarian beliefs are obviously anti-regulation, which is obviously pro-corporation. Jeez, don't you even research the guy?

 

Yeah, but he's an isolationist and would cut military-spending, harming corporations who participate in the military-industrial complex...

 

yeah but they could make up for it with the abolishment of insider-trading laws as well as environmental regulations and the corporate income tax.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

yeah but they could make up for it with the abolishment of insider-trading laws as well as environmental regulations and the corporate income tax.

 

And that's assuming he could do all those things. You know, like all the things Barry promised to do.

[rob]

yeah but they could make up for it with the abolishment of insider-trading laws as well as environmental regulations and the corporate income tax.

 

And that's assuming he could do all those things. You know, like all the things Barry promised to do.

 

The FTC and the EPA are in the executive branch. True, he couldn't change the regulations, but he could get rid of the enforcers. I guess congress could bypass him and set up their own? I'm not a constitutional expert.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

The FTC and the EPA are in the executive branch. True, he couldn't change the regulations, but he could get rid of the enforcers. I guess congress could bypass him and set up their own? I'm not a constitutional expert.

 

It seems to me that creation of these agencies is usually additive. I'm not sure there is much precedent for eliminating them, and for what implications that would cause. Lawsuits? Pressure from lobbies, the congress, etc?

 

BTW, did you know Paul is like 76 years old. Talk about gramps. The dude will be like 81 when he gets out office - toothless and wearing diapers.

 

[billcoe]

I don't vote for the party of fascism, Bone. You know that. The GOP...and that would be Ron Paul's party, put those riders in the NDAA. Naughty Obama for signing it, but naughtier GOP for crafting it in the first place.

Glad you didn't vote for the fascists. I see you believe that the President, and his democratic party advisers, is infallible and that he alone can and will make the correct decision every time on when it it appropriate to kill Americans who need to be killed.

 

Well...

 

I guess some have argued that they did accidentally murder an innocent 16 year old American kid at the same time when they got the alleged low-life Al-Awawaki: but hey, can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Nothing fascist at all with the democratic party to see here folks.

 

Move along.

[rob]

Lol, I see Bill doesn't know what "fascism" means