02-28-2021, 05:50 AM
(02-28-2021, 05:28 AM)newvoter Wrote: You know that you live in the Twilight Zone when the US is a bankrupt warmongering police state and Americans look you in the eye and say that the USA is a peaceful and free country with a balanced budget.
We have replaced a wannabe despot with a far-more conventional President. America has a huge comparative advantage in military adventures, and all that stops America from seeking Lebensraum is the ethical values of about half the population. Donald Trump may have wanted a war for profit and for his glorification, but a large enough part of the public -- and quite possibly the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- could stop such.
We have had dangerous trends toward a police state with Dubya and more recently Trump. OK, it is easy for me to pooh-pooh the whining of outright criminals with the crude "Don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time". If drug traffickers and other criminals feel the heat -- then such is good. It is best that people with the proclivity to do insidious plots to murder family members in insurance and inheritance fraud either find other ways to achieve their ends or question the desirability of what they dream.
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.