Posted on 02/06/2025 5:41:34 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
Trump wants FBI agents who investigated his coup attempt, his facilitating espionage, or his other financial and criminal activities fired.
Let’s be very clear: this is how dictatorships start.
A guy who wants to be a dictator always begins by changing how the government works. Even though the majority of the nation had agreed previously that the government should do certain things in certain ways, he reassures everybody he’s got a better way and it’ll all work out.....
In the process, he breaks a bunch of laws, but people mostly shrug because they don’t directly affect them. Pastor Niemöller wrote about this in 1930s Germany; to paraphrase: First they came for the government workers…
He will realign our democratic country away from democratic allies and toward countries run by dictators like he aspires to become....
He will remake our criminal justice system so it becomes more violent and brutal, opening prisons for “the worst of the worst“ in places beyond the reach of law, like Auschwitz in Poland or Guantánamo in Cuba....
He will proclaim grand plans and spectacular efforts, like the Autobahn or remaking Gaza, Greenland, and Panama. They will distract the public from the relentless, grinding destruction of the guardrails of government itself.....
Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can pull this off in a matter of weeks, and so far — because of the cowardice of Republican legislators and the disorganization and lack of leadership among Democrats — they may be right.
Unless we all stand up and speak out now.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Thom can ESAD.
“No, this is how unelected bureaucracies have their power smashed and are they put in their proper place.”
Exactly. The bolsheviks and the Nazis just co-opted the existing bureaucracies.
” Pastor Niemöller wrote about this in 1930s Germany; to paraphrase: First they came for the government workers…”
That is hilarious. To paraphrase is to make a minor simplification of a phrase while keeping the original spirit and meaning. The original statement was “First they came for the Communists, but I did not say anything because I was not a Communist”. Communists in 1930’s Germany were being rounded up, jailed, and shot. The only government worker who has been shot so far is Donald Trump. Some good, dedicated government workers will likely lose their jobs. But all the employees of Lehman Brothers lost their jobs, because their company failed. All the employees of Arthur Anderson lost their jobs because the CEO drove the company off a cliff. Most of those employees were not involved in the actions that lead to the failure of the company, but they got fired anyway. Life is like that. Getting fired is a routine part of private sector employment. Government employees think they should have permanent guaranteed-for-life employment, whether they do a good job or not. That party is over.
You mean like when Obama came in and said he was going to be transformational and then weaponized the CIA and FBI and DOJ? Actually, I kind of agree, Obaba did want to be a tyrant and he did change government to do it. Thank God for President Trump dismantling all those tyrannical tethers.
“Let’s be very clear: this is how dictatorships start.”
Yup, those Nuremberg trials really signaled the start of a dictatorship.
Scare quotes incorrectly omitted in the original . . .
The Constitution was composed and ratified by people who were wise enough to be determined to avoid pure democracy - which is why they defined (Article IV, Section 4)
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Governmenttheir handiwork not as a “democracy” but as a republic.
Been around for awhile.
And OBTW, America is a REPUBLIC, NOT a "democracy."
Democracy used to be a great word.
It used to refer to a government by the people : rule of the majority.
Now we can't really use that word anymore.
Well the Constitution, the Supreme Law of our Land, refers to America’s governance as a “Republic” (”republican form of gov’t”, Art. VI, Cl. 2). The term “democracy is not in the Constitution.
A republic is a decentralized, representative, limited form of gov’t. Constitutional limitations on gov’t, separation of powers, bicameral legislature, state/local gov’t sovereignty, the electoral college, all support our republican form of governance.
A democracy is “majority rule” and tends towards the tyranny of the majority. Democracy is not a representative form of governance and fails to include the vast areas of decentralized population across our great nation. If we were a democracy, then NY, CA, and FL would decide every national election.
That is why the Left LOVES to call America a “democracy” and is loathe to admit we are a “republic”. The “Democrats” (unlimited gov’t) vs. the “Republicans” (limited/representative gov’t, at least in name).
The only thing standing between “democracy” and dictatorship
is the US. Constitution !!!
Democracy - what I am referring to is a system that was invented in ancient Greece which means rule by the majority.
Now the word "democracy" belongs to the Left.
And today it means Orwellian totalitarianism.
Democracy - rule by [the tyranny of] the majority - is distinct from a republic - decentralized representative rule.
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