Olice-pay Ate-stay: What to do if you feel you live in one?

Am I right that the NDAA is a pretty usual piece of legislation that they're trying to slip a bombshell into with this stealth clause?

gregrampage wrote:

I would like to hear the thoughts from the people who didn't want to use the term police state yet

"The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive." Those are my thoughts--you realize this hasn't passed yet, right?

Also re: My Thoughts: what the heck is up with McCain?

edit: also, this is strange: the Levin guy voted against the war in Iraq, and introduced a resolution that, if I read it correctly, would have required a UN resolution to invade Iraq.

Something weird is going on here. The guy who is against torture and the guy who voted against the war in Iraq without a go-ahead from the UN are behind this Orwellian nightmare that comes out of nowhere?

as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

I don't know of anyone who thinks there is no slippery slope.

Edwin wrote:

Our hope is that the White House is threatening to veto the bill. While the Udall amendment would squash the current forms, I am worried that it will open it up to even more changes. Not sure what the problem is with the current version of the way we address the status of detainees.

I don't see a problem here that needs to be fixed.

I do. This is the problem from the 'extrajudicial execution' threads of how the government has to behave outside a battlefield. The issue here is that they attempt to solve that problem the same way a sledgehammer solves the problem of a malfunctioning watch.

gregrampage wrote:

I would like to hear the thoughts from the people who didn't want to use the term police state yet as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

If we live in a police state this new law would be meaningless, right?

Jayhawker wrote:
gregrampage wrote:

I would like to hear the thoughts from the people who didn't want to use the term police state yet as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

If we live in a police state this new law would be meaningless, right?

Arguably, this law could only see the light of day because you already live in a country where much of the road there has already been covered. This may just be a formalization, in other words, of practices that have already been quietly enacted, informally.

I've always been of the opinion that the law is a reflection of the people who make it, and the people who live under it, and by it. Culture makes tradition, which breeds law. What does the drafting of this law, and its serious consideration by the Senate, say about America as it is right now?

Or the press covers it, and the law never passes.

Jayhawker wrote:
gregrampage wrote:

I would like to hear the thoughts from the people who didn't want to use the term police state yet as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

If we live in a police state this new law would be meaningless, right?

it would be a double secret probation police state.

CheezePavilion wrote:
as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

I don't know of anyone who thinks there is no slippery slope.

That's a direct quote from the OWS thread.

LarryC wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
gregrampage wrote:

I would like to hear the thoughts from the people who didn't want to use the term police state yet as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

If we live in a police state this new law would be meaningless, right?

Arguably, this law could only see the light of day because you already live in a country where much of the road there has already been covered. This may just be a formalization, in other words, of practices that have already been quietly enacted, informally.

I've always been of the opinion that the law is a reflection of the people who make it, and the people who live under it, and by it. Culture makes tradition, which breeds law. What does the drafting of this law, and its serious consideration by the Senate, say about America as it is right now?

Thank you for expressing what I am thinking much better than I would have been able to.

I do realize the law hasn't passed but these things don't exist in a bubble. It's not like these are outsiders proposing a law. These are actual members of the government and it's naive to think they are the only ones with views like these and that these views haven't influenced previous decisions.

CheezePavilion:

The thing speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquitur. Anyone committed to the rights of the citizenry would not be in negotiations over a law that could be worded this way, regardless of what its details are. It would be thrown out, and with much pomp, force, and ceremony; hopefully to the political demise of whichever political enemy was fool enough to draft it.

The fact that this is not happening is part of why this development is so very, very frightening.

If you are an American, make no mistake, they are coming for you; these politicians, these power players. If this law is enacted, then the even the time for action has passed - at that point, you can only flee for your life.

I've been relatively quiescent in this thread up until now. That bill fills me with all manner of foreboding and dread, and much of that isn't related to whether it's passed or not - just to the fact that it exists. I have family in the States.

LarryC wrote:

CheezePavilion:

The thing speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquitur. Anyone committed to the rights of the citizenry would not be in negotiations over a law that could be worded this way, regardless of what its details are.

I disagree. People and their actions are not so simple.

CheezePavilion:

At this point, I think we should be past more discussion and meandering. I can offer limited succor to anyone who chooses to flee to my part of the world, but if you do, I can offer some advice and aid. Hit me up with PM before your flight, if you ever find it necessary.

CheezePavilion wrote:

I don't know *what* these views are. I followed a link from the ACLU site and found an article that states:

“Issues which have been raised I believe have been addressed,” said Levin, who indicated that the Senate could consider the measure this week. He insisted that “there are all kinds of misconceptions” about the detainee provisions.

Like I said above, the presence of McCain is strange, and looking up stuff about this Levin guy, it seems weird that someone who voted against the Iraq war is involved in this. I want to know more about what's going on here. Is this guy really Jar-Jar Binks dumb?

Yeah, I found it strange too. It's why my post has links directly to the bill and the section that I could find in it. I left out the ACLU's interpretation as best as I could. I'm not really sure what to make of it outside of what I read at the Library of Congress site.

gregrampage wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

I don't know of anyone who thinks there is no slippery slope.

That's a direct quote from the OWS thread.

I just checked and I don't think it is: can you give me a link?

gregrampage wrote:

I do realize the law hasn't passed but these things don't exist in a bubble. It's not like these are outsiders proposing a law. These are actual members of the government and it's naive to think they are the only ones with views like these and that these views haven't influenced previous decisions.

I don't know *what* these views are. I followed a link from the ACLU site and found an article that states:

“Issues which have been raised I believe have been addressed,” said Levin, who indicated that the Senate could consider the measure this week. He insisted that “there are all kinds of misconceptions” about the detainee provisions.

Like I said above, the presence of McCain is strange, and looking up stuff about this Levin guy, it seems weird that someone who voted against the Iraq war is involved in this. I want to know more about what's going on here. Is this guy really Jar-Jar Binks dumb?

clover wrote:

Sadly, Levin and McCain have two of the safest seats in the Senate. I can't speak to McCain with the sort of knowledge PhoenixRev has, but Carl Levin was first elected to his seat before I was born, and even with this will not likely go anywhere until he retires or dies. Michigan voters are not known for their astute, long-term outlook on things.

McCain's seat is relatively safe, with the only exceptions being people concerned about his age and he suffers some of the heat from the fallout the state GOP is suffering after our power-grabbing governor tried to remove the head of the Independent Redistricting Commission and was slapped down by the state Supreme Court... twice.

However, he isn't up for re-election until 2016, so any current political storm, he is bound to weather well.

CheezePavilion wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

I don't know of anyone who thinks there is no slippery slope.

That's a direct quote from the OWS thread.

I just checked and I don't think it is: can you give me a link?

Believe this is the quote in question.

Jayhawker[/url]]We don't live in a police state, and the notion that we do is a slap in the face of all those that actually do. In modern societies with police forces there are always going to be issues on how to handle large protest movements. Some of what has happened has been deplorable, just like in the 60's and during the Civil Rights movements. It should be covered and exposed so that the guilty officers can be punished, and new expectations for how we expect our police forces to behave can be enacted.

There has been no slippery slope. When there are protest movements, police forces struggle to act with restraint. It's why a free press is so importnat. And from all of the news I have seen, the story is being told, police officers are facing repercussions. OWS is designed the test the will and patience of the establishment. When that happens, humans sometimes fail to live up to standards.

Personally, while I know that the label "police state" is a heavily-loaded and polarizing term, I'm running out of alternative terms to describe some of the things which are happening in our country.

CheezePavilion wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
as well as anyone that thinks there is no slippery slope.

I don't know of anyone who thinks there is no slippery slope.

That's a direct quote from the OWS thread.

I just checked and I don't think it is: can you give me a link?

Sorry, I got the tense wrong so it wasn't a word for word quote: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

What we have today is another crisis, and humans struggling to deal with it. But it isn't some conspiracy to strip of us our rights. It's scared leaders over-reacting to protesters that are hitting too close to home. But effective protests have ugly moments. It sucks, but it is a predicable cycle.

When millions and millions live in the same country, there are going to times that test our ability to be civilized. And while there are some that think a crackdown will make the country safer, in the end, the opposite is what works. We'll get through this, and hopefully the officers will pay.

I think that's fair and definitely a much clearer explanation than previous posts. The reason I worry now is not that these are unprecedented acts and a sign of the end of the world, it's that we're actually putting these hard times into law instead of just enacting them. Once you allow the military to bypass the DOJ, I have a hard time seeing them giving up that ability in the future. Once it's legal to bypass all due process I have a hard time seeing law enforcement going back through the process again.

gregrampage:

It's actually more fundamental than that. By acting independently of the judiciary branch and having secret activities, the Executive is already effectively bypassing the Legislative branch of government, essentially using Congress and the Senate as sounding boards and to delegate the less important issues to. The new bill also seeks to legally allow them to acquire the powers of the Judiciary - creating three branches of government in one.

I have been in a country where that exact thing has happened, and in fact, it was also triggered by terrorist bogeymen and similar fears among the citizenry. I think it's reasonable to suppose that given the current trajectory of history, the US is headed that way soon unless you guys act decisively to prevent it now.

Maybe I'm just being naive but I'm not the least bit worried about the big bad government listening to my phone calls or monitoring my internets. Nor do I worry about being shipped off to some undisclosed prison someplace. I think there's another slippery slope here, the slope that allows you to slip into black helicopter and tin foil hat territory. The next thing you'll be telling me is that we blew up the WTC.

There's always been the danger of government overreach when it comes to maintaining order. Let's face the reality though, you're trying to control the behaviors of millions of people yet still give everyone a voice in how it's done. It's not a simple problem and some of the solutions are distasteful. You seem to be overlooking the fact that there are a whole lot of people who would like nothing more than pandemonium and chaos.

There's been far worse things that have happened through our history and behaviors that were far more dangerous than anything going on now. The difference is, you didn't know about it.

If you really think that the U.S. is a police state and that you need to flee to another country before your unlawfully imprisoned then I think it might be time for you to get on a boat and sail away.

I said there was not a slippery slope. My reasoning is that if there was the world we live in today would be much different considering this happened the 1940's:

IMAGE(http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/japanese-internment-camp-wwii.jpg)

And all of this fun in the 1960's:

IMAGE(http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c192953ef010536dc7420970b-800wi)

IMAGE(http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/05/images/filo_kent_state_pulitzer.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.historyteacher.net/USProjects/DBQs2001/ChicagoConvention-1.JPG)

It's easy to press the panic button and assume we are in the end times, just like every other generation has claimed. But these events led to more freedom, not less. They were reality checks, and affected change in the system.

I was lucky enough to be a board-op for talk radio in the 90's. Let me tell you, the paranoia and worry about the police state was 100 times worse. Black helicopters were all the rage. Bill Clinton had hit list of political opponents he had murdered. It was scary how far paranoia drove people.

What we have today is another crisis, and humans struggling to deal with it. But it isn't some conspiracy to strip of us our rights. It's scared leaders over-reacting to protesters that are hitting too close to home. But effective protests have ugly moments. It sucks, but it is a predictable cycle.

When millions and millions live in the same country, there are going to times that test our ability to be civilized. And while there are some that think a crackdown will make the country safer, in the end, the opposite is what works. We'll get through this, and hopefully the officers will pay.

I just think it serves us better to deal with the current events, rather than trying to make this out as the end of times.

assume we are in the end times,

For the people in those pictures, those were the end times.

After pictures of the internment camps, what the heck else do you expect?

If you really think that the U.S. is a police state and that you need to flee to another country before your unlawfully imprisoned then I think it might be time for you to get on a boat and sail away.

There were Jewish people saying the exact same thing about Germany in the middle 1930s. Each step toward the police state was met with a chorus of people insisting that things had always been that way, we just didn't know about it, and that it was important for security.

This is the exact same process, Bear. You are living in a police state, and you are one of its apologists. Those kids getting pepper sprayed, and those innocent brown people who are being held in prison forever, are your fault, because you are defending these ideas as good ones. When you take that position, in my view you assume liability for how they are used, and we can already see what's happening.

This is how authoritarians always take power, rationalization from somewhat reasonable people that the dangers being screamed about by the monsters must be real, and that turning over absolute power to the monsters is the best way to be safe.

If you value safety more than you value justice and freedom, you are easy to chain. Scare people a little, and they will beg for the handcuffs. It's hard to look past the immediate fear to the long-term consequences, and it's that fundamental failure of imagination that leads to pictures like we just saw upthread.

Malor wrote:
If you really think that the U.S. is a police state and that you need to flee to another country before your unlawfully imprisoned then I think it might be time for you to get on a boat and sail away.

There were Jewish people saying the exact same thing about Germany in the middle 1930s. Each step toward the police state was met with a chorus of people insisting that things had always been that way, we just didn't know about it, and that it was important for security

So this is the official end of the thread, right?

This is the exact same process, Bear. You are living in a police state, and you are one of its apologists. Those kids getting pepper sprayed, and those innocent brown people who are being held in prison forever, are your fault, because you are defending these ideas as good ones. When you take that position, in my view you assume liability for how they are used, and we can already see what's happening.

You are on the side of monsters. You are willingly on the side of monsters. And this is how authoritarians always take power, rationalization from somewhat reasonable people that the dangers being screamed about by the monsters must be real, and that turning over absolute power to the monsters is the best way to be safe.

If you value safety more than you value justice and freedom, you are easy to chain. Scare people a little, and they will beg for the handcuffs. It's hard to look past the immediate fear to the long-term consequences, and it's that fundamental failure of imagination that leads to pictures like we just saw upthread.

I think what you are saying about Bear is despicable. He never said the actions were justified, nor should the people be punished.

You use of rhetoric limits rational discussion because it tries to divide and conquer. You want there to be a good and evil side, which allows you to pigeon hole people and ignore their message.

gregrampage wrote:

Sorry, I got the tense wrong so it wasn't a word for word quote: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

OH! I was looking for one of my posts because there was no name there. Like Jayhawker explained there are slippery slopes, we're just not on one of them if we look back on history: the tense changes the whole meaning of the statement.

Malor wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

So this is the official end of the thread, right?

After pictures of the internment camps, what the heck else do you expect?

Pictures of internment camps closed? If we're a police state, we're horrible at it: I mean, you become a military superpower with nuclear weapons capable of fighting wars on opposite sides of the planet and a homeland practically untouched by a world war that reduced everyone else to rubble, and you close down your internment camps?

Bit of a police state own goal, isn't it?

Actually, we were more of a police state in WW I than WW II. It was made an act of treason to protest the war and hundreds of liberal anti-war protesters were thrown in prison to rot. The government also actively encouraged citizens to snitch out communists, anarchists, and other "traitors."

But history lessons aside, I don't think we live in a police state - yet. The Patriot Act makes it very easy for the government to institute martial law if things get bad enough. We've also crossed into really dark gray areas such as spying on the e-mails and phone calls of millions of Americans, or ordering the death of an American citizen.

CheezePavilion wrote:
gregrampage wrote:

Sorry, I got the tense wrong so it wasn't a word for word quote: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

OH! I was looking for one of my posts because there was no name there. Like Jayhawker explained there are slippery slopes, we're just not on one of them if we look back on history: the tense changes the whole meaning of the statement.

Sure, it definitely does but my question was, essentially: after seeing this bill do you still think we're not on one? If this law passes, are we not much closer to a full blown police state before? In other words, I was asking "Does this change your opinion?" I understood the sentiment of the post and I think my question is still valid, regardless of tense.

Back to the actual topic itself, rather than discussion of discussion...I can understand not thinking we're in a police state but to say that we're not in a slippery slope seems just factually incorrect at this point.

I'm pretty much done with the insane train. I'll come back to this thread when I lose my right to speak openly, my right to vote and the constitution is abolished. You act as if some idiotic campus security guard who goes off with the pepper spray is indicative of the state of our society. Apparently you've forgotten about Kent State and the national guard troops actually SHOOTING people. Yet despite your hysteria we're still here.

If you're so concerned about the course of our nation, perhaps you should get off this forum, drop your anonymity and actually do something about it while you still have a chance. Otherwise you're MORE guilty than I am because you saw it coming. I'm sure there are groups of people just like you that would love to talk about how the world is ending and we're weeks away from rounding up people and sending them off to prison camps in Iowa.

There's more freedom in the world now than there has ever been in history. Yet you act as if we're weeks away from some kind of bad sci fi movie where authoritarian overlords rule the world.

If you want to live in some kind of delusion that the US is years away from becoming Hitler's Germany then that's your business. I'll chose not to play on the Glen Beck memorial playground.

jdzappa wrote:

Actually, we were more of a police state in WW I than WW II. It was made an act of treason to protest the war and hundreds of liberal anti-war protesters were thrown in prison to rot. The government also actively encouraged citizens to snitch out communists, anarchists, and other "traitors."

But history lessons aside, I don't think we live in a police state - yet. The Patriot Act makes it very easy for the government to institute martial law if things get bad enough. We've also crossed into really dark gray areas such as spying on the e-mails and phone calls of millions of Americans, or ordering the death of an American citizen.

I really wish we'd stop acting like we pulled some guy out of his house in Omaha and shot him on the street. Yes, he was an American citizen by birth, but through his actions he renounced his citizenship years ago.

75 years ago he would have been called a traitor and shot

gregrampage wrote:

Sure, it definitely does but my question was, essentially: after seeing this bill do you still think we're not on one? If this law passes, are we not much closer to a full blown police state before? In other words, I was asking "Does this change your opinion?" I understood the sentiment of the post and I think my question is still valid, regardless of tense.

Back to the actual topic itself, rather than discussion of discussion...I can understand not thinking we're in a police state but to say that we're not in a slippery slope seems just factually incorrect at this point.

Maybe I should ask what you mean by that phrase "slippery slope." There's more to something being a slippery slope than just things getting worse. When I think of a slippery slope, I think of a law that makes it harder to prevent the next, more oppressive law from being passed. Just because we're closer to a full blown police state doesn't mean we were on a slippery slope. It can mean we just kept passing more and more oppressive laws.

Are you guys talking more about like, the boiling frog metaphor? Where you use a succession of small changes to get people not to notice that there's been a big change?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Are you guys talking more about like, the boiling frog metaphor? Where you use a succession of small changes to get people not to notice that there's been a big change?

I would agree that this is more along my way of thinking.

Unfortunately, the precipitous event was 9/11 where we went mad and started down the road of paranoia and fear believing that both will make us safer.

I have noted before that if you had said, say, 15 years ago that by the end of 2011 you would have to have your genitals rubbed by a government actor as a condition of passage on an airline, people would have laughed in your face or through you had lost your mind.