Posted on 04/17/2010 3:05:25 AM PDT by Scanian
Only an overcaffeinated tea-partier would believe that America is on the path from "an open society into dictatorship," right? Who could think that there are 10 simple steps to establishing a police state and "that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States"?
As you might have gathered, these aren't the words of an unhinged right-winger, but an unhinged left-winger: Naomi Wolf, author of the perfervid 2007 book "The End of America."
Wolf detected a "fascist shift" in the country, and got some respectful notices (Library Journal: "compellingly and cogently argued"). While a New York Times review of a documentary based on the book didn't buy it all, it concluded "there is still enough here to make you shiver."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Lowry meanders throughout, but here are the money quotes:
“... a bristling skepticism of government and a keen vigilance about our liberties should be treasured national qualities.”
-snip-
“A New York Times survey found that tea-partiers are wealthier and better educated than the general population, exploding the stereotype of them as rubes. If critics still insist on foolishly dismissing them as lunatics, fine: They are crazy in a most characteristically American way.”
Laz, I asked this question in 1983 after KAL-007 was shot down. It was just a thought experiment. I asked, “what if the USSR became the US and we, the US, became the USSR?” The idea was that the USSR/Russia would become free or freer while we became more like the USSR. I know Russia has a way to go but even now in some or many ways, they seem to be freer than we are now. I can say more but I got to go to work but I wanted to share that thought with you. BTW, another Freeper here asked the same question I did, but back in 1957 when Sputnik went up.
The Police State Is Right Here, Right Now
1. Invoking an external and internal threat
2. Establishing secret prisons
3. Developing a paramilitary force
4. Surveiling ordinary citizens
5. Infiltrating citizens' groups
6. Arbitrarily detaining and releasing citizens
7. Targeting key individuals
8. Restricting the press
9. Casting criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason"
10. Subverting the rule of law
The quote at the top of the article...(emphasis added by me)
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwilling victims of the darkness. Justice William O. Douglas
Confiscation of private property by the Government in the form of taxes, eminent domain and redistribution of resources to an indentured lower class for power and patronage.
*enslaved* might be a more apt description.
However, the morons who put this socialist in place do, in fact, have a contract. The quid pro quo - their votes (and their souls) in return for *freebies* confiscated from the producing class.
Thank you. Very much appreciated.
mark
Well, he’s not doin’ it as fast as Hitler, but then again, he’s no artist.
Historians think that is the mechanism by which, under pressure of fierce tax collection, Roman freehold farmers were driven to seek the "protection" of local grandees, and thus became the serfs of Europe.
Note that they didn't become slaves -- they were never slaves, the slave class didn't go away (one of the oldest documents in proto-Old French is a bill of sale for a German woman slave, from the 6th century). Rather, they simply became bound -- to the land, and to their seigneur.
Now the only thing Wolf and her backers have to do is produce all the innocent Americans who were jailed or imprisoned, the newspapers shut down, and all the Bush admin critics who were silenced. Because none of that happened.
Shoots the sreams from the left full of holes.
My pleasure.
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