On Wed, 25 May 2005 20:13:54 GMT, james wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 12:23:42 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote:

Duh! Last time I reviewed my civics and political science notes, I
thought the American People were the government. You may find it
acceptable to blindly follow your elected officials like those in
Hitler Germany!

Woah! Back up and drop the Hitler metaphors. This is not about
dictatorship, but about the ineptitude, indifference, and general lack
of understanding of "big picture" politics by the average American. We
elect representatives to carry out America's business in our best
interests so that "we the people" do not have to. If the government
had to disclose each and every piece of intelligence with the
population at large, they would, at the very least, create a national
security issue, and at the worst create confusion and panic as the
average citizen tries to come to grips with what they've just been
told.
******

no I elect representatives to do what I want.

Along with everyone else. The reality is that no one gets exactly what
THEY want. We settle for elected officials who share our basic
ideology, values, and character.


I don't elect them to go
off and do as they see fit.

But that's exactly what they do, within reason. When was the last time
someone you helped to elect did exactly what you wanted them to do?
When was the last time they asked you what you wanted?


This may not be what th eaverage American
does but if they wish to jump off a cliff then so be it. Even a
representative democracy can desolve into facism and dictatorship.
Remember Hitler was elected and he did not gain his dictatorship
untill after he was in office.

Actually Hitler gained his power after Paul Von Hindenburg died in
1934. Before that Hitler was just a chancellor and had been unable to
beat Hindenburg in the last election. So in many ways, fate was
responsible for Hilter's chance at power.


Then he convinced the Congress and the
poeple of Gernamy that it was in the best interest that he and the
leadership rebuild Germany.

Yes, and like Clinton, Hitler took the credit for many of the economic
improvements that had been occurring, and he was somewhat successful
in convincing the less educated into believing that the root of their
problems rested squarely on the shoulders of the Jews. Hitler used
this as a rallying cry to unify the people into following his
distorted views of how things should be.


He asked for their trust in the
leaderships work and not to worry that they had their best interest
at heart.

No, he basically told them that Germans were superior, gave them
someone else to blame (deflection) for their problems, and promised to
"fix" it. When you tell people what they want to hear, it's not hard
to gain their support.


The rate Congres s here is going in ten yrs we all will have to have
papers to travel around in the US.

Surely you have to realize just how exaggeratedly absurd that is.
Besides, we already have "papers". It's called a driver's license.

Members in Congress want even more
rigid Patriot Act enactment. I love that, they want the masses to give
up civl liberties and make them feel it is patriotic to do so! Even
call the law the "Patriot Act".

Well, here's the deal. If we have total freedom and civil liberties,
it becomes next to impossible to effectively protect us against
outside infiltrators. So you have to make a choice. Either certain
freedoms need to be modified or curtailed in order to make our borders
more secure, make living and travel throughout our country more
difficult for non-citizens, and obtaining forged documents by hostiles
much tougher, or we have to learn to accept that the price of our open
freedom might likely be a large scale terrorist attack.

You cannot realistically expect to have both total freedom and total
protection. If you do not want the government taking steps to protect
us from terrorists, then you have no right to complain when they
attack. As long as they use our own laws against us, we remain
vulnerable.

Most people are willing to give up some freedoms in order to gain
better security. But that does not mean that we are "becoming a
fascist state". As long as we can continue to elect our
representatives, that will not happen. GW Bush will not be the
president 4 years from now, and there will be a new leader for us to
blame for all the trouble we're having.

IF Americans don't wake up to the big picture it will be to late. In
fact so many things are no win place that it may now be to late. One
more 9/11 event and that may spell the end of most of our civil
liberties.

I'd rather lose some civil liberties than worry that my family could
be wiped from the planet in one fell swoop. Besides, some people take
advantage of certain civil liberties in order to engage in activities
that are either illegal or immoral. A greater individual
accountability for those activities would not be a bad thing IMHO.


I bet Jefferson is rolling in his grave at the blind sheep
the Americans have become.

Yet, you would entrust these same blind sheep as worthy of knowing all
intelligence information on our foreign affairs?.

Dave
"Sandbagger"