You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

Jonman wrote:

Malor - climb back up the rabbithole you've clawed your way down, and address the question posed - how does a military training operation imply anything about a police state? Or about skin colour or religion, for that matter. Mudbunny is right to question that assertion, albeit that his tone didn't contribute.

93_confirmed wrote:

Can we move on from spliiting hairs over helicopter comments? Id like hear from the non-police staters on TSA agents operating in other segments of the transportation industry. Any concern about this?

Concern? Not really. I'd seriously question whether it's a worthwhile use of money and resources (and even whether it's effective in any way), but I have that same concern against all security theater, up to and including airport security. I see it far more as bumbling bureaucratic mis-step that occurs from lack of oversight than evidence of a power grab or a step towards a policier-state.

Policier - totally a word.

This is where I stand. I think lots of the policy theater is dumb and wasteful. But I don't find it threatening in any way. Unfortunately, the loudest voices decrying the stupidity have decided to call it a police state action, thus losing rational supporters they could have had.

I think there is still an inherent racism in society, and thus our police forces. So we do have to continue monitoring what the police does. Unfortunately, the loadest voices decrying racism by the police have decided to call it a police star, thus losing rational supporters they could have had.

Over and over, people that don't buy into this police state rhetoric are portrayed as being favor of abuses of authority. Instead, I realize that abuse of authority is always going tgo be an issue in any governing or pricing body that is run by humans. So we punish the crimes and try to improve oversight.

But police states have given up. There is no solution except revolution. Just as militia movement was trying to do in the 90's, I'm afraid that this police state rhetoric is going to result in choas and more violence.

WipEout wrote:

A military training operation in its own right is fine-- but to practice over civilian airspace (hell-- civilian living space-- they were flying SUPER low) not only speaks to the idea of a police state in which the government makes regular public displays of its military might and presence, but also to the blatant disregard for the value and safety of its own citizens-- there's a reason most actual routine training operations happen away from populated areas-- training implies a potentially large margin of error to which the military was not willing to subject the general population. That's what scares me, and that obvious disregard for US citizens is what further (if only slightly) gives me the impression that we are living in a military/police state.

If I believed for a moment that this particular training operation didn't have to jump through a million hoops, plenty of safety reviews and risk assessments and risk mitigation plans, get FAA buyoff for the use of the airspace, and generally have safety of the operation be scrutinized in painstaking and minuscule detail *before* the operation took place, I might agree with you.

Ultimately, any training operation is risky, right? It is absolutely more risky doing this over a populated area than out in the Arizona desert, but it potentially pays greater benefit to the trained troops by doing it in an urban environment. I imagine that the military had to justify the risk of doing the training against the operational benefit of doing the training, or it would likely not have taken place.

re: TSA and bus thing.

Not a police state. If you had asked me whether the US was turning into a surveillance state, yes, I would have to agree with you. But, in the modern world with the sheer volume of connections to the internet that things have, I think that it is not whether any given country is a surveillance state or not, rather it is the degree to which the country has its citizens under surveillance.

re: Military training in urban areas

I have been in the military, I have run courses when in the military. I can guarantee you that training flights over urban areas are planned down to the metre. As in: Go this direction 1500 metres. Then, we will simulate an attack by a missile coming from this direction. You will then simulate evasion by moving in this direction. Here is the route you will take. Here is the maximum altitude you can take, here is the lowest altitude you can take. Here is the highest speed you can use. Here is the radio frequency for the air traffic control tower for the area. Let them know when you are entering the airspace, let them know when you are exiting the airspace.

As Jonman said, the best way to train for flying over urban areas or a city is to fly over urban areas or a city.

When I was in the military, I was in the Artillery, and we frequently took our regiment's 105 mm Howitzers through the city of Ottawa to our training area. We had a very specific route to take in and out, so as to not disturb people.

I think you make a fair point. I supported Perot when he ran in 1992. But long before he dropped out, I suddenly got really scared of him becoming a fascist dictator. But that was a scary time that eventually led to the OKC bombing.

Paul has nowhere near the popularity, so I'm not worried about him at all. But the only way a true libertarian could govern would be with a heavy handed police state, because he would bring about the chaos that folks like Malor believes in necessary. Paul may preach liberty, but he would have to use one hell of a lot force to stay in power.

DSGamer wrote:

Obviously the US situation is more complex than that, but the point is that there are very few examples in history since the Enlightenment of revolutions not eventually leading to the same abuses of power as those they overthrew. This doesn't comfort me in any fashion, but it provided some interesting historical context. I'm a purist about our rights to privacy, slippery slopes, etc. but it is important to place the US in historical context vis a vis the hyperbole some of us exhibit at times. I know that sounds like depression resignation of the world as it is and it kind of is.

This is a serious question, and i am not trying to be snarky or anything like that.

In other places where there have been revolutions, which were then followed down the line by another revolution, how many of those countries/states had court systems that regularly overturn convictions, strike down laws written by the government, and other regular such occurrences which serve only to limit the powers of the government.

Much like a gas will expand to fill the space offered, governments will always eventually expand to fill the power vacuum that they see existing, whether it is necessary or not. The difference between the US (or Canada, UK, Germany, and other first world countries) is that there are systems in place which allow for the government to have their wrist slapped and the potential for abuse removed.

Is it perfect, and does it always work, no. But simply the fact that it is there makes it much harder for me to believe that the US is anywhere near a police state.

mudbunny wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Obviously the US situation is more complex than that, but the point is that there are very few examples in history since the Enlightenment of revolutions not eventually leading to the same abuses of power as those they overthrew. This doesn't comfort me in any fashion, but it provided some interesting historical context. I'm a purist about our rights to privacy, slippery slopes, etc. but it is important to place the US in historical context vis a vis the hyperbole some of us exhibit at times. I know that sounds like depression resignation of the world as it is and it kind of is.

This is a serious question, and i am not trying to be snarky or anything like that.

In other places where there have been revolutions, which were then followed down the line by another revolution, how many of those countries/states had court systems that regularly overturn convictions, strike down laws written by the government, and other regular such occurrences which serve only to limit the powers of the government.

Much like a gas will expand to fill the space offered, governments will always eventually expand to fill the power vacuum that they see existing, whether it is necessary or not. The difference between the US (or Canada, UK, Germany, and other first world countries) is that there are systems in place which allow for the government to have their wrist slapped and the potential for abuse removed.

Is it perfect, and does it always work, no. But simply the fact that it is there makes it much harder for me to believe that the US is anywhere near a police state.

I think you actually hit on why people are worried about the US becoming a police state. We DO have these checks and balances and restrictions. And they're being broken. Sometimes when they're broken it's in fairly minor ways. Those minor ways are still big deals to people who worry that once the seal is broken what's to stop the gas from filling a much large container.

Jayhawker wrote:

Over and over, people that don't buy into this police state rhetoric are portrayed as being favor of abuses of authority. Instead, I realize that abuse of authority is always going tgo be an issue in any governing or pricing body that is run by humans. So we punish the crimes and try to improve oversight.

I'm not saying anyone here is "in favor" of abuses of authority. I don't think malor has ever said that. Rather that people tolerate what doesn't affect them directly.

As an olive branch, though, let me relay something I came across recently. I'm reading a book about the French Revolution. This isn't a celebration of it, just a historical run down of what happened, the consequences, etc. There was something profound in it that grabbed me and reminded me of this issue. The author talked about how in years II and III of the French Revolution (I didn't realize they renumbered history like the Khmer Rouge did, but apparently they did) dissidents arose who felt like the executors of the revolution were stepping into territory that they had previously denounced as totalitarian. These dissidents were eventually rounded up and executed at the guillotine, many of them who had been part of the original revolution.

The reason I found this so interesting and profound was because the author tied the French Revolution together with the Enlightenment as a product of higher literacy and people realizing they didn't need absolute authority and could govern themselves. He rightly pointed out that ever since the French Revolution people have consistently grabbed power from those who ruled over them and have consistently abused their authority. The reasons for these abuses often being in an attempt to protect their revolution and what it created.

Obviously the US situation is more complex than that, but the point is that there are very few examples in history since the Enlightenment of revolutions not eventually leading to the same abuses of power as those they overthrew. This doesn't comfort me in any fashion, but it provided some interesting historical context. I'm a purist about our rights to privacy, slippery slopes, etc. but it is important to place the US in historical context vis a vis the hyperbole some of us exhibit at times. I know that sounds like depressed resignation of the world as it is and it kind of is.

EDIT: Fixed typo

Jayhawker wrote:

But the only way a true libertarian could govern would be with a heavy handed police state, because he would bring about the chaos that folks like Malor believes in necessary. Paul may preach liberty, but he would have to use one hell of a lot force to stay in power.

Why so? Can you elaborate on that?

SixteenBlue wrote:
mudbunny wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Obviously the US situation is more complex than that, but the point is that there are very few examples in history since the Enlightenment of revolutions not eventually leading to the same abuses of power as those they overthrew. This doesn't comfort me in any fashion, but it provided some interesting historical context. I'm a purist about our rights to privacy, slippery slopes, etc. but it is important to place the US in historical context vis a vis the hyperbole some of us exhibit at times. I know that sounds like depression resignation of the world as it is and it kind of is.

This is a serious question, and i am not trying to be snarky or anything like that.

In other places where there have been revolutions, which were then followed down the line by another revolution, how many of those countries/states had court systems that regularly overturn convictions, strike down laws written by the government, and other regular such occurrences which serve only to limit the powers of the government.

Much like a gas will expand to fill the space offered, governments will always eventually expand to fill the power vacuum that they see existing, whether it is necessary or not. The difference between the US (or Canada, UK, Germany, and other first world countries) is that there are systems in place which allow for the government to have their wrist slapped and the potential for abuse removed.

Is it perfect, and does it always work, no. But simply the fact that it is there makes it much harder for me to believe that the US is anywhere near a police state.

I think you actually hit on why people are worried about the US becoming a police state. We DO have these checks and balances and restrictions. And they're being broken. Sometimes when they're broken it's in fairly minor ways. Those minor ways are still big deals to people who worry that once the seal is broken what's to stop the gas from filling a much large container.

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog. And yes, this is precisely why I get worked up over the state of the US. Because the Bush years (and now the Obama years) have seen many of those checks and balances completely erased. I wouldn't be as concerned as I am if we hadn't crossed so many lines that weren't previously crossed before.

DSGamer wrote:

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog. And yes, this is precisely why I get worked up over the state of the US. Because the Bush years (and now the Obama years) have seen many of those checks and balances completely erased. I wouldn't be as concerned as I am if we hadn't crossed so many lines that weren't previously crossed before.

I think Jayhawker might be right with the idea that the police state rhetoric is actually hurting the cause.

Unfortunately I can't think of a much better way of saying it. Should it be "Is the USA heading towards a police state?" I don't know.

SixteenBlue wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog. And yes, this is precisely why I get worked up over the state of the US. Because the Bush years (and now the Obama years) have seen many of those checks and balances completely erased. I wouldn't be as concerned as I am if we hadn't crossed so many lines that weren't previously crossed before.

I think Jayhawker might be right with the idea that the police state rhetoric is actually hurting the cause.

Unfortunately I can't think of a much better way of saying it. Should it be "Is the USA heading towards a police state?" I don't know.

To me (from Canada, with a Head of State who has a heck of a lot more power than yours does), the Police State rhetoric sounds an awful lot like the boy who cried wolf. Not so much that it isn't approaching, because I think the US is closer to one that it has been previously, but that the repeated cries of "Look!! Proof of a police state!" does little to convince the unconvinced, but rather teaches people that these cries can be safely ignored. Much like the way most people regularly ignore car alarms these days. It happens so often that it becomes part of the background noise.

(Edit to add more detail and clarification.)

I think part of the problem also stems from the fact that many people look at the term "police state" as an absolute-- there's no middle ground, no amount of degrees to the term for those that don't feel we're inching toward a police state. (much like reactions toward the discussion of racism-- the moment the word is mentioned, there are those that shut themselves off to further discourse). I know this aspect has been discussed early on in this thread (or maybe another Police State discussion), but I honestly feel like there are varying degrees-- there is a spectrum-- and there is a line in that spectrum that, once crossed, does fall into the Orwellian territory that those against the notion see as the absolute.

My concern with our country is that, while we (still/will) have a great many freedoms and rights, and checks & balances, etc etc, our government is stacking a lot of those aspects right up to that line, that eventually it won't take much to tip our nation into that end of the spectrum.

WipEout wrote:

My concern with our country is that, while we (still/will) have a great many freedoms and rights, and checks & balances, etc etc, our government is stacking a lot of those aspects right up to that line, that eventually it won't take much to tip our nation into that end of the spectrum.

And if I'm not being hyperbolic or defensive I generally agree with that, honestly. The difference is that I have very little faith in the American people and their ability to stop the government from crossing that line from which we can never return. I don't look at that as "crying wolf" so much as having a different take on where this is all headed. And for my money I think we are at a point of no return. Not because non-whites are literally being shot down by attack helicopters (to use the recent hyperbolic example). But because I don't know that there's much the American people could/would do if the government did this and found a way to justify it.

SixteenBlue wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog. And yes, this is precisely why I get worked up over the state of the US. Because the Bush years (and now the Obama years) have seen many of those checks and balances completely erased. I wouldn't be as concerned as I am if we hadn't crossed so many lines that weren't previously crossed before.

I think Jayhawker might be right with the idea that the police state rhetoric is actually hurting the cause.

Unfortunately I can't think of a much better way of saying it. Should it be "Is the USA heading towards a police state?" I don't know.

A compromise term I've heard is "turnkey police state" or "turnkey totalitarianism." The idea is that we may not be in a police state at the moment, but our government is steadily accumulating the powers and capabilities that would allow a police state to exist, and undermining the institutions that guard against it. When the right owner (party, President, etc.), all they have to do is "turn the key" to usher in a bona fide police state.

DSGamer wrote:

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog.

Before anything else crazy gets said here and I change my mind (:)), I want to say that over the last few weeks I have really noticed that you are doing exactly this and I think it is laudable. I think there is an interesting conversation to be had when we converse.

Less so when we talk over one another.

SixteenBlue wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Basically this. Yes. I'm trying to set hyperbole aside, turn over a new leaf here and participate in some constructive dialog. And yes, this is precisely why I get worked up over the state of the US. Because the Bush years (and now the Obama years) have seen many of those checks and balances completely erased. I wouldn't be as concerned as I am if we hadn't crossed so many lines that weren't previously crossed before.

I think Jayhawker might be right with the idea that the police state rhetoric is actually hurting the cause.

Unfortunately I can't think of a much better way of saying it. Should it be "Is the USA heading towards a police state?" I don't know.

I think that'd be better. Many of us opposed to calling the USA a bona fide police state have already said that there are disconcerting decisions being made that are heading us in that direction. My biggest problem is that anytime we present an opinion or evidence that the latest example isn't proof we're a police state we're either completely ignored or accused of being at best, ignorant and sheltered, or at worst, actively supporting a police state.

This has been going on for so long in so many other threads that I don't think either side is really willing to hear what the other side is saying. One side views the other as screaming about how the sky is falling, and miss out on the few examples that are actually troubling. The other side sees those that disagree with them as active participants or ignorant children and dismiss anything that doesn't support their own views.

I'm automatically suspicious of arguments that depend on hyperbole, and inform you that the writer has the solution, and you're either with or against him. The real world is not so simple. The rhetoric we have seen here is that of the political fringes, and so yeah, it gets a bit heated. It also leads people to draw the wrong conclusions, and impute beliefs and stances to them that they don't hold.

In my view, anyone who thinks that we could never be a police state is blind to history. But anyone who thinks we are already there is just as uninformed. And willfully so. In my lifetime, we've seen dozens of police states; heck, the Cold War was in one sense a story of police states against the West.

Police states take away freedoms, yes, but for everyone except the ruling class, and without exceptions for the ordinary citizen - brutally so. In police states with Federal systems, the Federal police have all the power - local police are usually just thugs for hire, with the federal police running the public show, and the secret police over *them*. The military usually controls border regions, and runs their own parallel structure will full police powers; sometimes the military *is* the federal police force.

Political power is the power of life and death, and the political leadership controls the markets, the companies, the schools, the infrastructure, trade, everything. There's no free market - black market, yeah, but the political class runs that too.

There's no free speech. There's *really* no free speech. Police states don't see a few people out of 350 million put in jail for his beliefs; they see tens of thousands out of a few million slaughtered in less than a decade, tortured to death, pushed from helicopters, gassed by military aircraft, families raped and shot, entire towns purged when a politician falls out of power. (In the US, for comparison, that would be 350,000 "disappeared" since 2005, using Argentina as an example - but of course many other countries have practiced this use of political power to a greater or lesser degree.)

Bribery and extortion are the order of the day. Local political leaders use the police and military to drain money from the citizens, and resistance is met by physical force in a way that would stun most Americans. Everyone pays off the police, the bureaucrats, the inspectors, the guy who hooks up your tv antenna.

News is entirely controlled by the state, even if there are competing sources. Communications with the outside world are limited, filtered at best. Technology is limited, imports are expensive or non-existant, sometimes foreign currency is banned. In many cases, all aspects of the economy are planned; or, conversely, economic planning is ignored for cronies to abuse the system as desired. Neither is healthy.

You think we're in a police state? I know people who lived with numbers tatooed on their forearms who would laugh in your face for saying it. They *lived* in a police state; they suffered under it; and pretending that we're in that situation is a ghastly joke for these people, a way to see how little Americans understand exactly how bad things can get.

Do we have to watch out for it and protect our rights where they are threatened? Sure. That's obvious. Any country can fail, given time and enough body blows. But are we anywhere near a police state? No. Not by a long shot. We don't have the scale of abuses, the crushingly ordinary lack of rights and opportunity every day, the casual exercise of power across a divide that separates the elites from everyone else in ways small and large. We don't have political thugs walking the streets every day, killing and beating and extorting to keep people oppressed. We don't have a non-participatory, non-representational government which keeps electing itself back into power (or worst, doesn't even bother with elections.) We don't have a mandated inability to meet in groups, to talk freely, to keep and bear arms. We don't have a network of secret informers - often a significant percentage of the population - willing and required to turn in people for what they say behind closed doors, in return for a degree of influence in their neighborhood, or perhaps just because they can't prevent it. We don't have police forces who routinely torture prisoners for their political stances - or for profit, or for pleasure, for that matter. We don't have prisons for political dissenters, arrest without charges (yeah, we looked into the NDAA and it's not there, don't even try to bring that up again), labor camps, mass ideological prosecutions, political leaders killed by security forces or locked up in their family compound for decades, or exiled under threat of death.

Are we so spoiled that we imagine that we're in the same situation as Algeria in the 50's, or Germany in the 30's, or the Soviet Union, or China, or North Korea, or Syria, or Palestine under the British Mandate, or Kenya during the emergency, or East Germany or Czechoslovakia or Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia or Romania or Bulgaria or Poland or South Africa under Apartheid or Argentina under Pinochet or Vietnam in the late 70's, Libya under Gaddafhi, Nicaragua and Panama and El Salvador in the 80's, Columbia in the 80's and 90's, Venezuela in the 2000's or even Singapore, Saudi Arabia or Sri Lanka during the insurgency? Clearly we're not. Those and many others are or have been police states, and those who look around and think we're there do them a great injustice for the suffering of their citizens. It also makes a mockery of the freedoms we do have, and worse, it implies that we should not treat the flaws we do have as fixable, but rather that we should tear the whole edifice down to fix it instead. Because when the situation is presented as so dire that it threatens our entire existence, suddenly the usual techniques for creating change, the give and take of politics and the usual changes over time become viewed as ineffective; that, or worse, collaborationist. It fosters and encourages a pessimistic us versus them mentality, and warps any attempt to actually understand what's going on through a lens of human behavior, rather than conspiracy. And when it's rejected, it reinforces the sense of importance of the believer, and leads them to conclude even more strongly that they are right, and anyone disagrees is a dupe and morally suspect - even if that person rejects the very beliefs imputed to them.

After all, if that disagreeing person is *not* morally corrupt, then the believer must be wrong in some way - and with the nation and indeed the world and all our lives and our civilization at stake, how could the believers possibly be that wrong? And it's this base belief that the people who disagree must be morally wrong that's given this discussion it's edge. It's that kind of belief that we need to *avoid*, because it's an escalation of the stakes. It moves this from an interesting discussion to a charged life and death discussion. And that's just overkill. This is a gaming forum. We're all people who'd buy each other a drink if we met. Do we *really* need to make this into a judgement of everyone who posts, for or against? I don't think so. But I'm watching people do it, I've had it done to me here, and it's time we took a real step back and looked hard at whether that kind of rhetoric is what we come here for, regardless of our beliefs on any given subject.

Because I'm tired of people trying to define all our discussions as black and white, us versus them, with us or against us, moral shining knights against the dark forces of ignorance, fate of the world at stake. Let's make this a fun place to discuss things again, because lately, it's become pretty grim and personal in many ways. We can go anywhere else to be sneered at, to be accused of being monsters who are unaware of it, to be lumped in with vicious stereotypes just because we take a certain stance on something. Let's talk as friends instead. In the long run, we'll learn a lot more from our differences - but only if we don't let them divide us in the first place.

And that's exhibit A of why at least in my case I've gotten defensive and debated poorly at times. Talking about the first part. Wind this back to the original police state thread and you'll see hyperbole for sure. But you'll also see this argument that unless we're Nazi Germany there's no comparison.

I tried to walk it back a bit and I feel like I just got hammered for it. And you wonder why we're defensive of our stance.

Thank you, Robear. Some of the posts lately on this subject have been in very poor taste and difficult to ignore. You've given voice to something I've been unable to post about for fear of escalating the rhetoric instead of settling it down.

I'm less worried about a police state now than I was in 2007. That may just be me getting used to it or me being educated, white, and middle class. I support the EFF because I'm concerned about freedom in emerging media, but I'm less worried about being a police state since strong crytography was ruled to be legal in America. An America without access to strong crypto would be much closer to a police state and we came very, very (VERY) close to that.

Then I read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother again. (It's a YA novel about empowered high school hackers fighting a real police state w/ monkeywrenching mischief.) It made me think we are close to a police state or at least close to having otherwise reasonable people embrace the police state out of fear.

But now I'm kind of ashamed. I havent' read the whole thing, but I've become familiar with Michelle Alexander's arguments in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Stats such as black people and white people statistically use illegal drugs at the same rates, but black people are 10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than whites are.

I think there is a lot of unwarranted sturm und drang about a police state. I also think there are a lot of real issues of erroding freedoms related to National Security Letters and warrantless serveilance and wire taps. But there has been a long standing police state in the US that I've ignored because the police have been protecting people like me against poor minorities. (Apologies if I've skimmed.)

Well said Robear.

I tend to take this discussion personally because I have a lot of friends who are police at local, state and even at the Federal level. These guys aren't some anonymous monsters waiting to curb stomp me if I say the wrong thing. They're not inhuman beasts waiting to disappear me. They're my friends and neighbors, their kids go to school with my kids, we celebrate birthdays their birthdays together. We go out to dinner, go to parties and even throw back some beverages from time to time. They're not some secret society waiting for a code to enforce some shadow governments policies. I play golf with a local judge, he's my neighbors best friends. Again, not some anonymous government puppet.

Occasionally, they'll share with me the stories of the horrors they see on a daily basis. Sometimes I wonder how they're still sane. At times, you can see the pain on their faces and the strain it puts on them. On a daily basis they're dealing with the worst of humanity and yet managing to have normal family lives. They're good people. I'm not afraid of them, I never could be.

Bear wrote:

Well said Robear.

I tend to take this discussion personally because I have a lot of friends who are police at local, state and even at the Federal level. These guys aren't some anonymous monsters waiting to curb stomp me if I say the wrong thing. They're not inhuman beasts waiting to disappear me. They're my friends and neighbors, their kids go to school with my kids, we celebrate birthdays their birthdays together. We go out to dinner, go to parties and even throw back some beverages from time to time. They're not some secret society waiting for a code to enforce some shadow governments policies. I play golf with a local judge, he's my neighbors best friends. Again, not some anonymous government puppet.

Why are taking this personally? Our discussion of the US being a police state has nothing to do with anyone you know in law enforcement. The concerns that us pro-police state Goodjers are debating relates to direction that come from the upper tiers of the government and arent a reflection of the individuals who follow these orders. You friends arent anonymous government puppets or a secret society but at the same time their job requires that they do what their superiors tell them to do and in some cases that may include actions that target civil liberties.

+1 to Robear's comments.

The absolute worst thing people who worry about personal liberties can do is get hyperbolic. It's why Ron Paul will never get elected, why OWS failed and why gay marriage and marijuana law reform is finally getting traction. PR, whether you like it or not, dominates all discussions and any fringe elements, extremist expressions or negative stereotypes associated with a movement are more a damaging influence to the movement than its direct opponents. If you want change, you cannot use all-caps or use the word "f*ck" every three sentences. Ironically, ones passion for the preservation of freedom might be the deathblow that kills it.

Calm, reasonable role models will win the day--for one side or the other.

Edit: Unrelated, but ironically, the form of discourse in the Mass Effect 3 thread is almost enough to make me sympathize with Bioware. Reasonable voices are always drowned out by curses and CAPS.

DSGamer wrote:

But you'll also see this argument that unless we're Nazi Germany there's no comparison.

Because honestly, and as Robear so eloquently described, that's what a police state is. It's that extreme of a circumstance, one that real people have suffered under so greatly it shouldn't be invoked lightly, and claiming the US is close to one seems the height of naivety, bad taste, or entitlement (or, at times, straight up bad faith arguing). Often, it feels to me like kids saying they're being oppressed because mall security kicked them out of the parking lot for skateboarding. Is it unfair? Likely. Is it oppression? Not even close.

Though I am more than a little amused at how often what some might call "the race card" gets played to justify ol' time white paranoid fantasies. Black helicopters! Classic! Those were the days.

Grubber788 wrote:

Reasonable voices are always drowned out by curses and CAPS.

Werd. I'm a very auditory reader, and attuned to Voice in the writerly sense. So when I see something like this, it feels like I'm being shouted at and makes me want to punch!

mudbunny mocked the idea that a military training operation involving helicopters was in any way indicative of a police state, and you somehow related that back to persecution of minorities.

They are, in many cases, one and the same thing. The biggest reason the police are going for such terrible, draconian powers is, for now, to fight the drug war. So the people that are really suffering from this bullsh*t are mostly minorities. But the one thing that is certain about government is that it always, always expands. And people with draconian police power are going to invent new ways to use it, so that they can justify expanding their departments and getting big raises.

By the way, I didn't post about the military training op, nor have I registered an opinion on it. I'm not sure what I think about it, honestly.

What I actually came to the thread to post: remember how we were arguing that cops rarely are punished for misdeeds?

Well, sometimes they are.

Because honestly, and as Robear so eloquently described, that's what a police state is. It's that extreme of a circumstance, one that real people have suffered under so greatly it shouldn't be invoked lightly, and claiming the US is close to one seems the height of naivety, bad taste, or entitlement (or, at times, straight up bad faith arguing). Often, it feels to me like kids saying they're being oppressed because mall security kicked them out of the parking lot for skateboarding. Is it unfair? Likely. Is it oppression? Not even close.

Note that there was an attempt earlier to reach a middle ground with the term "surveillance state", but that was not strong enough a description for some here. There *are* rational gradations of the loss of liberties, but insisting that we use the same term that applied to the Soviet Union is an insistence that we're not actually on a grade - we're *there*, and we just don't know it, and we're authoritarian dupes if we disagree, etc.

We *tried* to put the discussion on a scale, and my frustration is that people just look at the scale and push the weight all the way to the right. Might as well not have a scale, at that point.

DSGamer wrote:

When I created this thread I had hoped that this thread could be about what measures to take if you were worried about the direction of government surveillance. Even within that context there are varying opinions as to what's reasonable and what's excessive in terms of worry or caution. I would actually be shocked if the government *didn't* aggregate social networking data. So for me this is just a reminder that I need to consider alternatives to GMail, is it bad to have a Flickr account, things like that.

Once again, I'm very much on the side of "this is the way the world is and until I find a better place to live I'm going to try and live within the system." So I'm not building a Megaupload-style panic room or canceling my Internet connection. I'm just thinking more about what services I should get off entirely, what services I should switch, etc.

If you look at this, from page 3, you'll see that you and I are not that apart, DS. I actually agree with what you say here. So why do you feel hammered? Why do I feel hammered at the same time? We're both caught up by the hyperbole, is my belief, and reacting to it, rather than to the other person's actual position.

That's worth noting, isn't it?

Malor wrote:

By the way, I didn't post about the military training op, nor have I registered an opinion on it. I'm not sure what I think about it, honestly.

However you did state that Blacks and Muslims are routinely attacked by helicopters, with, due to the context of the conversation it was a part of, the very strong implication that it was routinely happening in the US, and that the helicopters were military attack helicopters.

What we need is a new term that better articulates the current state of the US/where the US is headed. Id say most of us agree that at the very least, the US is a survelliance state. The term police state is arguably too harsh (and I agree although I still use the term). We need a term that serves as a middle ground.

Someone posted the idea the there are varying degrees of a police state and its just a matter of identifying those degrees and figuring where the US falls in that spectrum.

I think the "varying degrees" argument is just an excuse to use the hyperbolic police state term.

I suggest we discuss transgressions of the government and law enforcement without deeming it evidence of police state or not. Its this need to re-emphasize the a fear of government in every discussion that dilutes the real conversation.

Feel free to hunker down in fear, but I'd like to stop being asked to validate this line of thought.