^^^ what amyvega said
in addition
Quote:
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Originally Posted by khchris(original)
Best thing to do: stay out of trouble and don't let yourself be vulnerable to getting in trouble.
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see, that's the politics of fear, that's what means to be "terrorized".
you don't need to be shitting your pants in fear of having a door knock in the middle of the night, carted away to a torture camp, or dropped out of a helicopter in the middle of a freezing ocean, your pregnant wife giving birth blindfolded in a prison, your baby sold. that's the politics the u.s. has exported to other countries (supporting pinochet & the argentinian military dictators, rafael trujillo in the dominican republic, somoza in nicaragua, papa doc in haiti, suharto in indonesia, the rise of saddam hussein, manuel noriega, etc etc... for over 100 years now)-- but it's not a domestic practice-- at least not yet.
all that's needed is to have people "cautious", "not vulnerable to getting in trouble", afraid say to go to a demonstration, to make themselves heard, to dissent with the majority, and blam, you have a nice little erosion of democracy which, with time, might very well end in a full-blown police state. the people's sheepish acceptance of domestic spying without court supervision certainly points in that direction.
having a democratic government doesn't guarantee freedom will last forever. rome started as a republic & ended up as an empire. the french revolution was taken over by napolen & later reverted into a monarchy. who's to say american democracy is going to last forever? especially if its own citizens are only trying to be cautious and cover their ass?