10-10-2020, 01:07 PM
(10-10-2020, 03:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-10-2020, 12:24 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Playing by the rules accepts that the rules are valid. So it is with sporting events, and so it is with criminal law. Of course when government makes or bends the rules on the side of repression we have a problem.
Playing by the rules accepts there are/will be consequences for breaking them and knowing whether the rules seem valid or not doesn't/isn't going to matter. Are you repressed? Are they really repressed? Was Kamala repressed? Was Obama repressed? Are the thousands that we've seen peaceful protesting or rioting or looting and burning down buildings repressed? Are the ones we see spouting their mouths from their plush looking rooms in their homes on Fox repressed? Give me a break. I'm telling you dude, there's a reason why Fox News Channel is quickly becoming America's news channel. I've heard that their ratings have hit an all time high and surpassed the national news outlets.
You should well know what I dread in a second term of Donald Trump. What was objectionable to anyone not on the Hard Right becomes more intense. That horrible man sees anyone who disagrees with him as an enemy to be at best rendered ineffective. I have seen that in history books among a large number of political leaders, but never in a President of the United States until Donald Trump.
The Constitution greatly limits the powers of the Presidency, and without the consent of Congress the President is very weak. Major, popular reforms? Congress might just go along. A Crisis war? So it was with Lincoln and FDR. Getting to imitate Nero, Caligula, or Commodus? One hopes... absolutely not.
The tendency over forty years has been toward the intensification of economic inequality due to monopolization, vertical integration in business, the decline of small business (related to vertical integration), weakening of unions, increasing promotion of debt as opposed to government aid for education, and the imposition of low, rigid ceilings of advancement in Big Business and even non-profit entities.
I expect people who loot and riot during what is intended to be a peaceful protest to receive the appropriate repression that the police, the courts, and the penal system offer to the garden variety of criminals. I also expect much the same with the people involved in an absurd plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan.
I have my test on how prosperous a country is: how well do people with comparable occupations (let us say barbers, schoolteachers, bus drivers, and nurses) live? If they are destitute, then per capita income is irrelevant.
...as for FoX Newspeak Channel... it is highly manipulative. It has its signals to get people angry. You might note that many people now block it.
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.