Posted on 04/28/2020 4:11:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
All my life, I have dismissed paranoids on the right ("America is headed to communism") and the left ("It can happen here" -- referring to fascism). It's not that I've ever believed liberty was guaranteed. Being familiar with history and a pessimist regarding the human condition, I never believed that.
But the ease with which police state tactics have been employed and the equal ease with which most Americans have accepted them have been breathtaking.
People will argue that a temporary police state has been justified because of the allegedly unique threat to life posed by the new coronavirus. I do not believe the data will bear that out. Regardless, let us at least agree that we are closer to a police state than ever in American history.
"Police state" does not mean totalitarian state. America is not a totalitarian state; we still have many freedoms. In a totalitarian state, this article could not be legally published, and if it were illegally published, I would be imprisoned and/or executed. But we are presently living with all four of the key hallmarks of a police state:
No. 1: Draconian laws depriving citizens of elementary civil rights.
The federal, state, county and city governments are now restricting almost every freedom except those of travel and speech. Americans have been banned from going to work (and thereby earning a living), meeting in groups (both indoors and outdoors), meeting in their cars in church parking lots to pray and entering state-owned properties such as beaches and parks -- among many other prohibitions.
No. 2: A mass media supportive of the state's messaging and deprivation of rights.
The New York Times, CNN and every other mainstream mass medium -- except Fox News, The Wall Street Journal (editorial and opinion pages only) and talk radio -- have served the cause of state control over individual Americans' lives just as Pravda served the Soviet government. In fact, there is almost no more dissent in The New York Times than there was in Pravda. And the Big Tech platforms are removing posts about the virus and potential treatments they deem "misinformation."
No. 3: Use of police.
Police departments throughout America have agreed to enforce these laws and edicts with what can only be described as frightening alacrity. After hearing me describe police giving summonses to, or even arresting, people for playing baseball with their children on a beach, jogging alone without a mask, or worshipping on Easter while sitting isolated in their cars in a church parking lot, a police officer called my show. He explained that the police have no choice. They must respond to every dispatch they receive.
"And why are they dispatched to a person jogging on a beach or sitting alone in a park?" I asked.
Because the department was informed about these lawbreakers.
"And who told the police about these lawbreakers?" I asked.
His answer brings us to the fourth characteristic of a police state:
No. 4: Snitches.
How do the police dispatchers learn of lawbreakers such as families playing softball in a public park, lone joggers without face masks, etc.? From their fellow citizens snitching on them. The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, set up a "snitch line," whereby New Yorkers were told to send authorities photos of fellow New Yorkers violating any of the quarantine laws. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti similarly encouraged snitching, unabashedly using the term.
It is said that about 1 in every 100 East German citizens were informers for the Stasi, the East German secret police, as superbly portrayed in the film "The Lives of Others." It would be interesting, and, I think, important, to know what percentage of New Yorkers informed on their fellow citizens. Now, again, you may think such a comparison is not morally valid, that de Blasio's call to New Yorkers to serve a Stasi-like role was morally justified given the coronavirus pandemic. But you cannot deny it is Stasi-like or that, other than identifying spies during World War II, this is unprecedented in American history at anywhere near this level.
This past Friday night, I gathered with six others for a Shabbat dinner with friends in Santa Monica, California. On my Friday radio show, I announced I would be doing that, and if I was arrested, it would be worth it. In my most pessimistic dreams, I never imagined that in America, having dinner at a friend's house would be an act of civil disobedience, perhaps even a criminal act. But that is precisely what happens in a police state.
The reason I believe this is a dress rehearsal is that too many Americans appear untroubled by it; the dominant force in America, the left, supports it, and one of the two major political parties has been taken over by the left. Democrats and their supporters have, in effect, announced they will use state power to enforce any law they can to combat the even greater "existential" crisis of global warming.
On the CNN website this weekend, in one of the most frightening and fanatical articles in an era of fanaticism, Bill Weir, CNN chief climate correspondent, wrote an open letter to his newborn son. In it, he wrote of his idealized future for America: "completely new forms of power, food, construction, transportation, economics and politics."
You cannot get there without a police state.
If you love liberty, you must see that it is jeopardized more than at any time since America's founding. And that means, among other things, that at this time, a vote for any Democrat is a vote to end liberty.
If our freedom can be taken away at a moment’s notice, then we don’t have that freedom. At present, in much of the USA, we have few freedoms and are seeing what happens when government gets too much power.
BTTT
I don’t believe that for a second. You don’t have much faith in Americans. Are you an immigrant?
But it's a whole different story for businesses that have to serve customers in a physical location. These business establishments are usually subject to licensure by a government body, and are most vulnerable to a totalitarian government.
Look at rifles chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. Low recoil, accurate, and 1,000 yard ballistics.
And no -- I'm not an immigrant.
Any faith I had in Americans was lost when I saw a good 60% or more of FREEPERS getting on here and attacking those of us who warned about surrendering our freedoms in the midst of a media-fueled public hysteria.
Yup.
I always wondered how Hitler got the population so willing to comply, and the police to become so cruel. I think I understand it a bit more after observing our nation the past couple of months.
I have often wondered. God’s Prophet (OT)comes by and tells you that you will be captured and carried away. What do you do?
Good.
https://www.killology.com/sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs
It is time for all to reflect on sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.
Hence the "law-enforcer" in quotation marks.
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath—a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.
I am so old I remember WWII, then the Korean War, then and then and then.
Think about what our young people have lived and “their history”.
Tell you stories often......................... even if they are not politically correct.
“Police departments throughout America have agreed to enforce these laws and edicts with what can only be described as frightening alacrity.”
My county sheriff made it known that any orders that violate people’s civil rights would not be enforced.
However, the sheriff didn’t reopen sitting in McDonalds to eat a burger, so I guess he failed. Then again, is eating a burger at McDonald’s a constitutional right? Should we start a shooting war for the right to eat a hamburger or get a haircut?
There’s a lot to play out in the coming months. The courts will play a role in compensating businesses that were arbitrarily shut down, while other businesses were arbitrarily allowed to remain open.
Governors capriciously issued orders that violated state laws. That will play out in state legislatures that will tighten the rules on what governors may do in an “emergency.”
As for all you stupid pessimists who will pile in here, screaming that will never work, well, screw you. You’re not invited or wanted.
The point is that the Founders set in place the legal and political machinery to correct this police state crap.
Finally, people are in no position to begin an organized insurrection. When people get off their fat asses and elect a pro-2nd amendment, constitutional sheriff in their counties, then talk to me about resistance. That sheriff will give you the legal and armed muscle to take on fat, stupid cops violating your rights. Until then, eat the shit sandwich and start to correct what’s wrong in your county.
Try reading about Committees of Safety established by our Founders. It’s a blueprint left to us by our Founders to organize and resist tyranny.
Indeed. The number of those supporting these police state tactics right here on FR was also quite disheartening. Unsurprising, given what I recall about discussions way back when the 'patriot' act was just a totalitarian's wet dream, but still disheartening.
Yes, and "Common Sense Gun Reform". /Captain Obvious
I have never seen much of a difference between the mass-murdering totalitarian thugs of soviet socialism and the mass-murdering totalitarian thugs of national socialism. Dead is dead, whether you are one of the 18 million victims of the Nazis or one of the 100 million victims of the Soviets and of other communists. Pretending that the Nazis were a special level of evil - rather than exactly the same evil and in many cases the same people who spout communism in order to seize power - helps these same thugs to reach for power one more time.
Now more than ever, it's obvious that it can happen here. Worse, it likely will happen here, unless normal, decent Americans exercise all of our Constitutional rights when it becomes necessary.
we've lost the battle if we have posters like that on a conservative board.....
I've always said that when it comes to the leftist "orders" our cops and military will fall in line like Nazis......
its called a pension...
“No one is being dragged from their homes for reeducation.”
No, but the cops are coming and shutting down businesses, writing tickets for being in a park, pulling people over and giving them $1,000 tickets for “unessential driving”, etc.
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