06-12-2019, 11:23 AM
(06-12-2019, 09:31 AM)pretty Wrote: The USA feels like the Twilight Zone today.
Considering that Rod Serling was an American and relied upon his experiences, and that much of the Twilight Zone is subtle parody of uncomfortable aspects of American life... maybe France has its equivalent as television drama.
Quote:Our overlords make a decree and we just have to obey it like slaves.
To this the solution (and the overlords are really the bosses of Corporate America) is to be an entrepreneur so that one can get the best of American life, which means not being under the thumb of some narcissist in a three-piece suit.
Quote:Americans who were taught to love freedom must be puzzled now be told to be Nazis and Commies.
Those are now among the arch-villains of American history. Try again.
Quote:The only options now seems to either be a obedient slave and pay taxes, dropout, or go Postal.
If you don't have the money with which to invest in a small business and the willingness to live far below your means while working harder than anyone else, then you will have to be an employee and defer to owners and managers. That is how life has always been, no matter what the political order. Drop out? Your success will depend upon the level of prosperity of the overall society, and quite possibly the assets that you already have.
A violent outrage will cause you to be blown away or put away.
Quote:Americans are finding out that breaking the law is easy when everything is illegal, illegal aliens don't obey the law, and the government doesn't obey the law. When you are suddenly forced to buy insurance or register your guns, you might think every law has become a joke.
Do you feel safer now?
I am sure that there are people who would have preferred that people rely entirely upon FoX Newspeak Channel for information and its Two Minute Hate (remember the Orwell reference?) against the persons or institutions that its management loathes. You have a contradiction there in saying that as citizens we can get away with nothing and that illegal aliens can get away with anything.
Were I a sport hunter I would willingly register my gun in case someone steals it.
Quote:Do Americans not feel responsible for wars, debt, checkpoints, NDAA indefinite detention, kill lists, NSA wiretapping, curfews, gun bans, forfeiture, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, torture, kill lists, no fly lists, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, IMBRA, FBAR, FATCA, TSA groping, secret FISA courts, and Jade Helm?
Yawn!
25-to-life for armed robbery looks like a suitable mandatory minimum because armed robbery is at least as dangerous as attempted murder. Any armed robbery can result in a murder.
Three strikes? California started using three strikes against such offenders as burglars, and rape went down. Burglars are often rapists.
DNA databases? Do the crime, and I expect the government to make it less easy to get away with doing more crime.
Violent crime is not an exercise in freedom. Law and order is the first civil right, without which all the enumerated rights of humanity become cant. Lawlessness, whether by street thugs, organized crime, or a government degrades my freedom.
Quote:How do you feel when someone looks you in the eye and tells you that everything is just fine?
I pity the fool who says that, whether out of folly or out of instructions by his boss.
Quote:What do you think when someone tells you that all the problems in the US would be fixed by a trade war, bailouts, mandatory microchip implants, a higher minimum wage, free college, launching more wars, increasing the debt, banning free speech, closing churches, outlawing protests, banning guns, outlawing straws, and increasing forfeiture?
Trump's trade war is a disaster in the making.
Bailouts are at times necessary for rescuing key players in the economy who did nothing wrong. Thus the auto industry is not at fault for the subprime mortgage fraud of the Double-Zero decade.
...Do you really want what Big Business salivates at -- workers being paid starvation wages?
You could use some more formal education, especially in a philosophy class that allows you to better discern between fallacy and valid syllogism. You need to learn some tests of truth. It is not enough to question authority if one lacks the means of determining which authority merits question.
Quote:Do you think the elites have learned their lesson and will end the police state, end the wars, and decrease the debt on their own?
Electoral defeat can show people the folly of their ways.
Quote:Do you think tyranny won't get worse?
Only if we let it. Only if we expect the government to make things easy for us.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.