This isn't about party. It's about the whole government. And unless we can/are willing to throw them all away and start over
-wraith808
wraith, I don't know your party affiliation, and it's none of my business. But whatever it is (assuming you have one), are you willing to vote entirely against that party to ensure that the jerks who perpetrated these things are kicked out?
And will you be willing to vote in that other guy even if his platform is anti-[your favorite sacred cow]?
And will you be willing to do so one year, or even three years from now, when you've cooled down a little (and maybe even forgotten)?
-CWuestefeld
As a "party:unaffiliated" voter (and lifelong "political non-Euclidean") I'd have no problem dumping 99% of them on unemployment
and allow them to roam free
on their own recognizance while awaiting trial! And all without the tiniest doubt, or a hint of regret, on my part.
But here's the rub...when voting someone out...
who steps in to fill the void?
In some cases they'll be appointed by the same politicos you're trying to toss out the door. Otherwise, they'll be slated for 'free election' by the same political party machines that put the people in office you just got rid of.
You're looking at a
systemic failure of representative government here. So I have scant hope it will be able to be corrected by rational discussions among "men of goodwill." I think the entrenched powers have already dug in. And whatever reforms take place won't come quickly or without some very heavy pushback.
I think it's also instructive to note the huge build-up of surveillance, police power, and military technology in the last ten years. And even more chilling, the emphasis on remote control capabilities for same. Who exactly are they so worried about? An occasional terrorist cell that might succeed on generating a few dozen casualties? Another commandeered airliner suicide pact? That's the justification for treating every American who boards a plane these days as a potential security threat? That's the justification for handing every single police department in the country, no matter how small, an arsenal of overpowered weapons and a crash course in paramilitary operations?
Have you ever seen how local police respond these days to even a minor complaint? Time was a single squad car would show up. Maybe with backup if it were a robbery in progress or a domestic dispute. But now, the smallest complaint from a neighbor results in at least half a dozen 20-something "tactical" police officers armed with HK-G36s in stand-down/ready position showing up to do some of the "overwhelming force" and "fear and awe" stuff they were taught at that 5-day training session they went to.
Here's an example of happened in my own state when the "boys with their toys" showed up half-cocked and "ready for trouble" in about as rural an area as you can find around here. (Note: The town where it happened has a population of only 7490 people (7150 white). Median age is 41. The town is 27 square miles and is "gentrified country" in the extreme. It has a median household income of $132,000 for approximately 2500 households. So as you can see, this is not the type of place that requires the sort of presence the police elected to show up with on that occasion.)
But it gets worse...
Time was when you could hopefully count on the discretion and ethical judgment of field personnel to mitigate some of the most egregious attempts at abuses of official power. But with the direction this government want to go with tech (drones, field robotics, etc.) it's rapidly reaching the point where a moderately small cadre of "loyal Americans whose patriotism doesn't get reelected every four years" could easily hold much of this country under the yoke from "undisclosed secure locations" in places like Colorado, Utah, Maryland, or Virginia. Because they've certainly demonstrated it's possible to locate and kill somebody via a drone they're controlling by satellite from half way around the world that way. They're even proud enough they've boasted about it.
Not that you'd need t hat kind of tech...
Look how successful Nicolae Ceaușescu's secret police, the
Securitate were in Romania. And all they had was basic wiretaps and bugs (plus a scared populace) to help them.
From Wikipedia:
In the 1980s, the Securitate launched a massive campaign to stamp out dissent in Romania, manipulating the country's population with vicious rumors (such as supposed contacts with Western intelligence agencies), machinations, frameups, public denunciations, encouraging conflict between segments of the population, public humiliation of dissidents, toughened censorship and the repression of even the smallest gestures of independence by intellectuals. Often the term "intellectual" was used by the Securitate to describe dissidents with higher education, such as college and university students, writers, directors and scientists who opposed the philosophy of the Communist party. Assassinations were also used to silence dissent, such as the attempt to kill high-ranking defector Ion Mihai Pacepa, who received two death sentences from Romania in 1978, and Ceauşescu decreed a bounty of two million US dollars for his death. Yasser Arafat and Muammar al-Gaddafi set one more million dollars reward each.[5] In the 1980s, Securitate officials allegedly hired Carlos the Jackal to assassinate Pacepa.[6]
Forced entry into homes and offices and the planting of microphones was another tactic the Securitate used to extract information from the general population. Telephone conversations were routinely monitored, and all internal and international fax and telex communications were intercepted. After coal miners' unions went on strike and several leaders died prematurely, it was later discovered that Securitate doctors had subjected them to five minute long chest X-rays in an attempt to have them develop cancer.[7] After birth rates fell, Securitate agents were placed in gynecological wards while regular pregnancy tests were made mandatory for women of child-bearing age, with severe penalties for anyone who was found to have terminated a pregnancy.[7]
The Securitate's presence was so ubiquitous that it was believed one out of four Romanians was an informer. In truth, the Securitate deployed one agent or informer for every 43 Romanians, which was still large enough to make it all but impossible for dissidents to organize. The regime deliberately fostered this sense of ubiquity, believing that the fear of being watched was sufficient to bend the people to Ceausescu's will. For example, one shadow group of dissidents limited itself to only three families; any more than that would have attracted Securitate attention.[8
Is any of the above starting to sound strangely familiar?
