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Are 'Police State' Theorists Just Drama Queens?
Insight ^ | 11/25/02 | James Lacey

Posted on 11/25/2002 10:33:36 AM PST by Jean S

Since 9/11 there has been a lot of ranting from the left that America is well on the way to becoming a police state. According to this line of thought John Ashcroft and his evil minions are working overtime to smash all dissent and to deprive Americans of their civil liberties. Such near-great celebrities as Susan Sarandon have taken to the airwaves to announce, "We're living in lockdown."

What more evidence is required?

Countries earn the sordid title of "police state" because they have achieved a certain level of repression that ensures only the very brave or the very stupid ever will speak out against the government. Since Susan Sarandon decided to speak out while in England she cannot truly be considered brave, though it is much too early to rule out stupid.

If America is well down the road toward becoming a police state the proof of it should be all around us. Let's look at the evidence.


The cumulative evidence appears to indicate that we either are not in a police state or that John Ashcroft is the most inept secret policeman of all time. Some on the left would argue the latter. To appease them, I will give Mr. Ashcroft one more chance to enforce the principles inherent in a police state.

As of this moment, and for the rest of the week, I am calling for the nonviolent overthrow of the U.S. government (advocating the violent overthrow of the government actually is illegal). If this column fails to appear next week you can assume that storm troopers have dragged me off to Leavenworth. But, frankly, I think I would have a better chance of being arrested if I were to smoke a cigarette in a New York bar.

James Lacey is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a New York-based columnist with expertise in finance and military affairs.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government
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1 posted on 11/25/2002 10:33:36 AM PST by Jean S
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To: JeanS
Thanks for the post. An interesting take on the matter. Of course, there is the opposing view on this matter, that the onset of tyranny is not like turning off a light switch, but instead is a long, gray, almost imperceptible twilight into darkness.
2 posted on 11/25/2002 10:37:12 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: JeanS
Good point. We need a running scorecard in Times Square!
3 posted on 11/25/2002 10:38:56 AM PST by sam_paine
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To: JeanS
Thanks for your post.

I happen to agree with you. I am more pissed off that there is a seat-belt law (which they are currently ratcheting up during the Thanksgiving Holidays for enforcement) than the government having the ability to monitor my spending habits and my emails.

Sure, it's an invasion of privacy and I should be concerned.....IF I WERE BREAKING THE LAW!

Until we weed out the possible terror cells living in our country due to inept enforcement of INS rules, we all have to understand that to ensure our safety, the government needs the ability to track suspects.

I AM NOT A SUSPECT and I will give them no reason to be concerned with me.

4 posted on 11/25/2002 10:39:51 AM PST by DCPatriot
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: DCPatriot
Until we weed out the possible terror cells living in our country due to inept enforcement of INS rules, we all have to understand that to ensure our safety, the government needs the ability to track suspects.

Great. So change the rules for aliens, both legal and illegal. If someone can prove they are a citizen, leave them alone.

6 posted on 11/25/2002 10:42:13 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: JeanS
How about posting the number of Americans who have had property seized in the WOD without ever having charges filed against them?

Besides, we have seen that GWB is an honorable man. What happens when we get another unprincipled person like clintoon in the Oval Office? You cannot grant power to a good and decent president without granting that same power to a hopelessly corrupt and evil president.
7 posted on 11/25/2002 10:43:34 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants
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To: JeanS
Most of them, for sure.
The societal equivalent of Munchausen by proxy.

The U.S. the second most neurotic area on earth.

8 posted on 11/25/2002 10:44:24 AM PST by Publius6961
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To: DCPatriot
Sure, it's an invasion of privacy and I should be concerned.....IF I WERE BREAKING THE LAW!

Of course, once the government has the information, they can always change the law to make you a lawbreaker. Or they can just decide that since probable cause doesn't matter any more, neither does due process.

The trick is not to apply the brakes where you want this process to stop. The political momentum will carry it much further. The brakes need to be applied now, and quite possibly the vehicle will need to subsequently thrown into reverse.

9 posted on 11/25/2002 10:44:57 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: DCPatriot
You post here. That is reason enough for a Rat administration to suspect you as a "possible subversive". What do you think hitlery clintoon would do with this type of power?
10 posted on 11/25/2002 10:45:21 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants
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To: JeanS
The main concern I hear regarding the new powers granted the Justice Department are that they may someday be used by someone like Hillary. But to use them against innocent citizens, she would have to break the law in some fashion, which she would do anyway, as she has amply demonstrated by her past behavior. She would just be breaking DIFFERENT laws.

Or perhaps the concern is that the new laws make specious invasions of privacy more justifiable, under the linguistic cover of broadened Justice/Homeland Security powers. Is that the crux of the matter? I would really like to know if the sometimes brutal criticism I've seen at FR over this new legistlation is appropriate and warranted. I admit that I want President Bush and his administration to succeed, and that such desire may blind me somewhat to what is happening. But I also don't want to run around like a chicken with my head cut off, in an inchoate overreaction. Are there any good threads debating this stuff rationally?

11 posted on 11/25/2002 10:51:16 AM PST by TrappedInLiberalHell
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To: JeanS
Ya think police states just spring into existance fully-formed? Hardly. They develop over a period of decades, with one administration implementing more tools - always surrounded with warm fuzzy rhetoric - which the next administration abuses.

Remember the flap about Clinton obtaining 700 FBI files? Consider if he had 300,000,000 far more detailed files.
Remember all the rhetoric about how gun registration won't be abused? 50,000 AR-15 owners were recently tracked down and persuaded (under color of law) to hand them over, non-returnable, for "testing".
Remember how we have been assured all medical, credit, flight, tax, etc. records would be kept confidential to the intended use? Now we have the beginning of the Total Information Awareness Office, directed to gather and profile all such data.

Obviously we're not at a full police state yet. Nobody is seriously contending that (except a few fringers). HOWEVER, the path is clear, the methods are being put in place, the "everyone is violating something" laws are building up, and history repeatedly shows the consequences.

Sneer as you like, use carefully selected facts as you like, but do read history lest you repeat it.
12 posted on 11/25/2002 10:56:38 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: DCPatriot
Sure, it's an invasion of privacy and I should be concerned.....IF I WERE BREAKING THE LAW!

When's the last time you read the laws?
How do you know you're not breaking any laws?
Do you actually know what the law actually says, or are you just going on what a few ignorant people have told you?

I have read a portion of the NY penal law. It is terribly complicated, does not use words in normal ways, and requires a long time to understand properly. And it's surprising how many people violate it without knowing.

Don't be too sure of your legal innocence.

13 posted on 11/25/2002 11:00:11 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: TrappedInLiberalHell
Not to bang my own drum, but I've read through a lot of the initial bill as passed by the House, and will re-read the entire bill starting tonight as signed by the president. A discussion of that exercise is here:

One FReeper's analysis of the Homeland Security Act, HR 5710

You are right about a lot of the claims being made about this bill - it's basically a large-scale administrative change with a couple of minor stinkers thrown in, as well as some potentially problematic vaguely defined powers and some beneficial aspects (Section 880, for example, kills off TIPS). Claims, for example, that this bill would allow forced vaccinations are hypothetical instead of being based on specific wording. Do we need to watch that process? Of course - but that's true of the transition of any law into the Federal Register.

14 posted on 11/25/2002 11:02:31 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: JeanS
Bump
15 posted on 11/25/2002 11:04:43 AM PST by Fiddlstix
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To: Blood of Tyrants
You're right. I didn't take into account another Clinton-type administration that would compile another FBI-file debacle.

My point, however, was to agree with the poster that while the potential to make "criminals" out of law-abiding citizens exists, there is no proof that Ashcroft is going to run amok.

16 posted on 11/25/2002 11:12:58 AM PST by DCPatriot
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To: DCPatriot
Kind of like when the democr@p communists used the IRS to harass conservative organizations. The point of the matter is, the power and information in the wrong hands is never used in the benign manner that it is intended.

The point of having thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of laws, ever growing, is to grow a web big enough that *ANYONE* you disagree with or threatens your idealogy/ambitions - can 'catch' you, prosecute you - and persecute you.

I.e., Conservatives, "Hate-speech", Christians, etc.

If you believe the Word of God, which I do, then you see that inevitably the PC crowd takes over until the Lord comes back.
17 posted on 11/25/2002 11:15:28 AM PST by ApesForEvolution
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To: Blood of Tyrants
"You cannot grant power to a good and decent president without granting that same power to a hopelessly corrupt and evil president."

Exactly. Americans have far more to lose therefore have far more to protect. The rest of the world is either pitfully hopeless or at least moderately socialist. We would be too if the 'kooks' weren't constantly thinking out of the box. And who can quantatatively, based on the last century, demonstrate America hasn't already slid to a point of near-no return?

The more I here of the so-called 'kooks' and the concerns they raise, the more I seek to find if there is any validity.

For every handful of bogus or flawed contentions that the 'kooks' float, deeper research and investigation reveals a real danger to the American notion of individual liberty, national sovereignty and long term constitutional viability.

Good people rise to office to act positively and, conversely, bad people lust for power and attain it with disasterous results.

How many cotton-pickin' examples in history does one have to point to?

The arrogance of some to dismiss the dynamic, non-statist thinkers is the end of a society and will be the end of America.

From first hand experience, I can assure you that the two parties and their alphabetocracy have concocted, and in some cases attempted, numerous un-Constitutional, disastrous initiatives with, again in some cases, results very detrimental to the America that has thrived and now is in grave danger.
18 posted on 11/25/2002 11:27:11 AM PST by ApesForEvolution
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To: Publius6961
I'll bite. What's the first?
19 posted on 11/25/2002 11:28:34 AM PST by ffrancone
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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