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The collective is taking more control over the individual, which is sad.
Every year more and more personal freedoms, rights, and civil liberties are done away with.
They normally make up some bogus reason like "It's for saftey" or some other propaganda.
There's always some boogey man to point at, be in the Russians or terrorists or whatever. The boogey man changes but the result the same, fewer rights and fewer freedoms.
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That's why republicans want smaller government. This whole gun debate currently going on in America plays around this idea. It's possible but very unlikely. Not in this country. Too many paranoid people with guns.
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Paranoid people with guns wouldn't be much use against a modern US military unfortunately. In the 1800s, perhaps, but not in today's time with tanks, bombers, helicopters, etc. 100 million rifles just don't amount to much when stacked up against 100s of billions of dollars' worth of modern military equipment & technology. It would've meant something back when that was a more relevant idea -- say sometime around the 1800s.
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Honestly what is the point of all this?
It seems TC doesn't really understand or is just ill-informed
MARIJUANA is NOT DANGEROUS.
like really??? are you serious? As someone who has smoked for 10+ years I can easily say you are very wrong......I mean dear lord your source for that is 420 magazine......hmmmmm
But thats just a little part the is wrong with your entire post not to mention all your other sources.....that most you dont even cite
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On February 06 2013 13:42 StateOfDelusion wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 13:15 TheToaster wrote: I don't think you guys understand how libertarian Americans really are. Just take a look at the nations reaction involving the recent discussion on gun control. The only way for government to become totalitarian would be for the citizens to become so dumb, that they would have no idea that an internal change in government was occurring. And yet the majority of Americans who post on these forums are vehemently anti-libertarian. Don't try to explain it away by appealing to age or some other internet demographics. The reality is your assessment is wrong, and the polling data refutes it as well. Libertarians are a small minority of Americans, as evidenced by the last 100 years of policy and election results.
You don't understand where America is on the global political scale. We are EXTREMELY conservative; so much so that it's practically a joke outside of this country. The vast, vast majority of this country is incredibly conservative, even compared to European right-wing ideologues.
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On February 06 2013 14:59 FallDownMarigold wrote: Paranoid people with guns wouldn't be much use against a modern US military unfortunately. In the 1800s, perhaps, but not in today's time with tanks, bombers, helicopters, etc. 100 million rifles just don't amount to much when stacked up against 100s of billions of dollars' worth of modern military equipment & technology. It would've meant something back when that was a more relevant idea -- say sometime around the 1800s.
Maybe, but the more realistic outcome is civil war. For a big brother like country, you need to completely fool the people, to where they're ignorant and powerless. This country is way too divided for that to happen.There is a party completely dedicated to limiting the scope of government.
I live in Texas, my father is a Republican. So I am exposed to the right's ideologies and so forth. I can't see it happening.
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Yeah KingAce, actually on the topic of "are we becoming big brother state", I agree with you that the answer is a pretty thoroughly resounding NO. Heh. I got distracted and was more inclined to respond to this thread because of the dangerous misinformation at the end, stating weed is totally "harmless to the body", when at the end of page 9 you can clearly see that weed actually contains no fewer carcinogens in its smoke than in smoke from inhaled tobacco.
In any case, yeah, it seems pretty ludicrous to me to fear the US becoming a totalitarian state, lol - especially based on the reasons provided in the OP
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Absolutely. One of the key Misesean insights was that the interventionist state leads inexorably to socialism and the 20th century has proved that socialism is invariably totalitarian. Look at the size of America's prison population, the draconian drug laws, the rise of the surveillance state. The right of Habeas Corpus is disappearing, police conduct warantless searches, people are held indefinitely in American detention facilities without access to a lawyer or any sort of due process, individuals like Bradley Manning who speak out against atrocities are put in prison for daring to defy the administration, millions of non violent drug users are locked in jail their lives ruined by avaricious and power hungry prosecutors...
it's a grim future for what was once a great nation, for a place that was once a bastion of hope and liberty
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On February 06 2013 15:34 TerribleNoobling wrote: Absolutely. One of the key Misesean insights was that the interventionist state leads inexorably to socialism and the 20th century has proved that socialism is invariably totalitarian. Look at the size of America's prison population, the draconian drug laws, the rise of the surveillance state. The right of Habeas Corpus is disappearing, police conduct warantless searches, people are held indefinitely in American detention facilities without access to a lawyer or any sort of due process, individuals like Bradley Manning who speak out against atrocities are put in prison for daring to defy the administration, millions of non violent drug users are locked in jail their lives ruined by avaricious and power hungry prosecutors...
it's a grim future for what was once a great nation, for a place that was once a bastion of hope and liberty Look at the size of Europe's prison population, and how many rights they are giving up! Just today British Parliament approved gay marriage! Oh yes, how invariably totalitarian, the walls of Mises close in on us as the monolith looms overhead, its outline more important than its substance.
Socialism is here. And God died long ago.
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On February 06 2013 15:41 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 15:34 TerribleNoobling wrote: Absolutely. One of the key Misesean insights was that the interventionist state leads inexorably to socialism and the 20th century has proved that socialism is invariably totalitarian. Look at the size of America's prison population, the draconian drug laws, the rise of the surveillance state. The right of Habeas Corpus is disappearing, police conduct warantless searches, people are held indefinitely in American detention facilities without access to a lawyer or any sort of due process, individuals like Bradley Manning who speak out against atrocities are put in prison for daring to defy the administration, millions of non violent drug users are locked in jail their lives ruined by avaricious and power hungry prosecutors...
it's a grim future for what was once a great nation, for a place that was once a bastion of hope and liberty Look at the size of Europe's prison population, and how many rights they are giving up! Just today British Parliament approved gay marriage! Oh yes, how invariably totalitarian, the walls of Mises close in on us as the monolith looms overhead, its outline more important than its substance. Socialism is here. And God died long ago. My sarcasm detector readings are through the roof!
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farvacola : The nations in Europe are not examples of socialism. North Korea, on the other hand is. Like North America what you see in Europe is the interventionist state, as well as socialism for many industries (health care, roads, police etc). Further the people in Europe have given up many rights; the right to own property is just as infringed upon there as it is in North America.
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Just look at the history of the USSR, Cambodia, Maoist China, Cuba etc. Socialism is not pretty.
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On February 06 2013 16:34 TerribleNoobling wrote: Just look at the history of the USSR, Cambodia, Maoist China, Cuba etc. Socialism is not pretty. You mean Dictatorships and single party systems aren't pretty...
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On February 06 2013 16:33 TerribleNoobling wrote: farvacola : The nations in Europe are not examples of socialism. North Korea, on the other hand is. Like North America what you see in Europe is the interventionist state, as well as socialism for many industries (health care, roads, police etc). Further the people in Europe have given up many rights; the right to own property is just as infringed upon there as it is in North America.
On February 06 2013 16:34 TerribleNoobling wrote: Just look at the history of the USSR, Cambodia, Maoist China, Cuba etc. Socialism is not pretty.
I think your confusing socialism with communism dominated by dictators.
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Which also has not much to do with communism anymore...
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oh comrades, don't humor him...
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I find it utterly hilarious the ACLU and other liberal lobbies are trying to stop "big government" when they're the driving force behind expanding the government's powers over its citizens. Throw around "Patriot Act" and "Police state" all you want, the American people are far too wary to let that happen. Forcing the citizenry to become utterly dependent on the government because it's creeped into our private an economic lives? That's more scary and much more possible because people don't have a natural aversion to "welfare" or "expanded civil liberties".
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I can't believe the amount of tin foil hat wearers there are in this thread, it just blows my mind. Some of you are referring to the U.S. military like some sort of clone army from Star Wars, only capable of executing commands from authority. I know several people that are enlisted, and they know exactly why they fight. This is still 2013, and the military won't even come close to involving themselves with domestic conflict on a large scale.
As far as the "surveillance state" argument, I'm not even sure what the massive amounts of data being collected by the government is even supposed to suggest. Okay, so they might have billions of personal e-mails stored up. It's not like the government has the time and resources available to actually make use of that data individually. That would require way more resources and employees than what our pathetically underemployed government has. At best, this is just another pathetic attempt by the government to try and keep up pace with the rapidly expanding world of the internet.
In general, the U.S. government has a pathetic internal infrastructure that can be no threat to it's own citizens. Internationally, on the other hand, I have no doubt the defense department has several skeletons in their closet that they aren't about to make public. But then again, we ARE the world's only remaining super power, so that's to be expected.
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The poll results are flawed by the fact that people want their lives to be more exciting and meaningful, for example by experiencing something important to happen. Of course the USA won't turn into the described form of police state in the near future (~30years) and nobody can ever predict what's going to happen after that. If they pretend they can, they're obviously fooling you to seem more exciting and meaningful (to quote myself) or to empower themselves to take something away from you.
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United States41960 Posts
On February 06 2013 17:20 TheToaster wrote: I can't believe the amount of tin foil hat wearers there are in this thread, it just blows my mind. Some of you are referring to the U.S. military like some sort of clone army from Star Wars, only capable of executing commands from authority. I know several people that are enlisted, and they know exactly why they fight. This is still 2013, and the military won't even come close to involving themselves with domestic conflict on a large scale.
As far as the "surveillance state" argument, I'm not even sure what the massive amounts of data being collected by the government is even supposed to suggest. Okay, so they might have billions of personal e-mails stored up. It's not like the government has the time and resources available to actually make use of that data individually. That would require way more resources and employees than what our pathetically underemployed government has. At best, this is just another pathetic attempt by the government to try and keep up pace with the rapidly expanding world of the internet.
In general, the U.S. government has a pathetic internal infrastructure that can be no threat to it's own citizens. Internationally, on the other hand, I have no doubt the defense department has several skeletons in their closet that they aren't about to make public. But then again, we ARE the world's only remaining super power, so that's to be expected. An argument that says it's okay to give the government the theoretical ability to intrude into our personal life because they lack the logistical ability to do it seems startlingly shortsighted given technological and computing advances. Surely it's better to say "stop reading our emails" than "sure, you can read our emails, but you'll need to invent a way of sorting them to actually get anywhere".
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