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Terror/Police States

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Mon 31 Aug , 2009 11:19 pm
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Ping Iavas...

What do you think of this?

Why Did Switzerland Surrender?

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 01 Oct , 2009 1:03 pm
His Rosyness
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Better late than never.. :)

What do I think?

I think I like reading theories like that. But I've left making firm conclusions about anything in the past!

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Lidless
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 01 Oct , 2009 1:24 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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I always thought the following summed up the Swiss view of life and their place in the world:

A Swiss goes out for a walk and comes to a river. He spies another Swiss on the opposite bank. "How do I get to the other side?" he shouted. The second Swiss looks up and down the river and shouts back, "You *are* on the other side."

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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 01 Oct , 2009 2:06 pm
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What a small line there is for some people to go from, 'what if something happened?' to 'It did happen'.

The main drawback to this simple theory is once a government is revealed to be forging foreign currency its own currency plummets. I mean the solution to any national debt is easy. Just print some foreign currency. Strange how no government actually does this isn't it.
There may well have been effective pressure on the Swiss government but I very much doubt if it involved labyrinthine forgery scams.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sun 04 Oct , 2009 3:22 am
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Then why do you think the Swiss surrendered?

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 22 Oct , 2009 11:27 pm
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There have been a lot of articles about this lately, but this one covers it pretty well.

I've often called government a leech. Now it really does have blood-suckers on the payroll.

Penetrating the Peasantry
Quote:
It's not like we actually need another reason to look around us and make sure we haven't spontaneously landed in Cold War Russia or late-1930s Germany. The state already can control the very existence of any business it wants, through a tangle of regulation and licensing that may or may not have anything to do with what the business actually does. Master has built itself a house of laws that enables it to exert whatever control it wishes on any "legitimate" business.

(Should anyone fancy himself capable of proving otherwise: there are corporate legal departments all over the nation that would be absolutely ecstatic to know that they are not, in fact, restrained by state controls both relevant to their business and not. You could probably make a mint selling this information to them.)

And what do you call a system in which title to the means of production is nominally in private hands, but control is exerted by the state? That's right, class, that's the definition of fascism. And things have been like that here for generations now.

No, we don't need any more reasons to look around at the mess we're in. But we're getting one anyway.

This one, very much indicative of the trend the state is taking toward more direct interference in our personal lives (perhaps the poor dears have just tapped themselves out on corporate strangulation?), is a new "option" that awaits you if you don't like the idea of taking a Breathalyzer test.

Apologies for any coffee you may have snorted at that. Of couse, the very notion of "options" given by the state is laughable, because the one "option" most people want is to be left alone to be peaceable, and that is simply not available to you. "What do you think you are, a free man?"

No, we now have the idea that if you don't consent to a Breathalyzer test--or, if the officer just feels like using it as his primary tactic--you'll get a blood draw. From the cop. Right then and there. Forcibly, if you don't cower properly to your fate.</p> <p>Not kidding. Happening right now, right here in the Yew-Ess-Ay. From an AP article at Yahoo news:
Quote:
The federal program's aim is to determine if blood draws by cops can be an effective tool against drunk drivers and aid in their prosecution.

If the results seem promising after a year or two, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police nationwide to undergo similar training.
Wanna take bets on the likelihood that the results will seem even more "promising" than photo-radar was? And how about this zinger:
Quote:
Starr hopes the new system will cut down on the number of drunken driving trials. Officers can't hold down a suspect and force them to breath into a tube, she noted, but they can forcefully take blood &mdash; a practice that's been upheld by Idaho's Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wow, any questions? Apparently drunk-driving trials are getting so inconvenient that we need to find a way to simply bypass them altogether. And since the state has been told by the state that they can't force an uppity peasant one way but can force him another way, then by golly force is back on the menu again! (And the state really should thank the state for clearing that up for us all.)

Because the alternative--the idea that enforcement has become its own raison d'etre, and is so corrupt it should probably be abandoned altogether--is simply incomprehensible. Somehow, we need the same people who are shooting our pets, sanctimoniously informing us of our position in the food chain, sodomizing with Tasers, and generally holding themselves above the law, to add to their "toolkit" forcible field phlebotomy.

To quote Homer Simpson, "Extended warranty? How can I lose?"

This is going to be a big deal, with unintended consequences (just for a start, the cop impersonators oughta love this) and "something stupid" episodes forthcoming at a certainty of well over a hundred percent.

Others have begun to weigh in as well:

William Norman Grigg covered it.
David Codrea at War on Guns covered it.
So did Kent McManigal at Albuquerque Libertarian Examiner.
So did Wendy McElroy.

Not likely will this be the last of it.

Which brings us right back to the opening observation--about this need to make sure we haven't suddenly been transported into a fully-fledged police state, just because things are starting to look creepily advanced down that road.

This may be a natural human reaction, but it's misplaced. We don't need to be concerned about any of this happening suddenly. It's much worse if it happens gradually--both because it's harder to see it coming, and it's harder to persuade others who can't see it coming, who write you off as a kook just like that wacky tart Cassandra.

The scariest possibility is that what feels like things happening suddenly, may in fact be things that have already happened.
Quote:
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
In preparation for the response that I know is coming, I'm not defending driving under the influence.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sat 07 Nov , 2009 7:54 pm
 
 
Two articles of officers doing the wrong thing and being held accountable. Both will likely end up fired, as they should be, and prosecuted. Sadly I am embarrassed by both of their actions.

I debated whether I should post this here or in the positive police action because this is a case where officers are investigating and rooting out corruption within our ranks. I will be able to share more on the second case in the future but not right now.

http://www.whiotv.com/news/21479995/detail.html

http://www.whiotv.com/news/21523481/detail.html

freddy


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 10 Nov , 2009 4:18 am
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I did post in the "positive police actions" thread a couple of positive police actions.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 10 Nov , 2009 1:08 pm
 
 
CG, I did see those and thank you. While I did have you in mind when I posted those links, I struggled with where they should be but think it was best here. The only reason they had to act was because two cops screwed up.

freddy


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Mon 15 Nov , 2010 6:53 pm
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The TSA. They've finally gone too far.

Actually they went too far a long time ago, but finally the rest of the public thinks they've gone too far.

For almost their entire existence they've wanted to implement electronic strip searches of the traveling public. The traveling public pushed back, saying that they didn't want them. The shoe-bomber and the water-bomber didn't convince. Actually, the water bomber didn't have a bomb and didn't have a plane ticket either.

Then the panty-bomber tried to blow himself up on a flight to Detroit. An understandable overreaction upon discovering you're going to Detroit, but it his failed attempt to give him a home-vasectomy on an airplane gave the TSA the reason they needed to scan everyone nude.

And people started opting out of the scanners. The TSA originally called them WBI (Whole Body Imagers) but changed to AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) because "Whole Body Imagers" means they can see your Whole Body. Critics call them "Nude-O-Scopes" at best, and "child porn machines" when most critical of the TSA.

Because people were actually opting out of being strip searched, the TSA has just implemented very invasive pat-downs for those who opt out. That includes touching genitalia through clothing, using the palm instead of the back of the hand to touch breasts, running fingers through hair, and inserting fingers into the waist-line of clothing. Those who have been the victim of sexual violence find themselves truly traumatized by the TSA's activities.

People are fighting back. A reporter was handcuffed to a chair for refusing to be strip-searched or molested. Another guy didn't refuse but informed the TSA that if they "touched his junk" he would call the police - he was escorted out of the screening area and then threatened with a $10,000 fine for leaving the screening area.

Reporter harassed, yelled at, handcuffed to chair
If you touch my junk I will call the police

This has been an area that unites the ACLU and the Tea Party. Now Rush Limbaugh has joined the anti-TSA movement.

Rush Limbaugh tees off on TSA

It was due to the weekend incident at San Diego. The passenger actually checked the TSA website list of airports with Nude-O-Scopes, saw his airport didn't have them, said "ok I feel safe to fly from SAN". He got there, was selected for the Nude-O-Scope, and opted out.

When the TSO explained the pat-down, including touching of genitals, he said "if you touch my junk I'm calling the police."

He was escorted out of the screening are for refusing a pat-down, and then told he faces a $10,000 fine for leaving the screening area without permission. Seriously, he was threatened with a fine for obeying law enforcement instructions.

I eagerly await comments from those who most consistently defend the government's side of any abuse of the public.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Jude
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 18 Nov , 2010 10:12 pm
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Here's a Japanese satire on the TSA situation:



You don't even need to speak Japanese to get all the jokes!

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 19 Nov , 2010 1:01 am
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
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:D

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vison
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 19 Nov , 2010 1:31 am
Best friends forever
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oooo

edited to add:

by the way, my "oooo" above is NOT a comment. I was trying to find out why I couldn't post here yesterday, and that was of the nature of a trial. :D

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Iavas_Saar
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 07 Dec , 2010 8:00 am
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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Wed 08 Dec , 2010 12:26 am
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Pissy and his boss Nappy. What a pair they are.

Oh, and welcome back. I've got another conspiracy theory I'd like your opinion on when you have time.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Wed 08 Dec , 2010 2:37 pm
You are hearing me talk
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What's the gist of the announcement for those of us who can't watch video?


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Wed 08 Dec , 2010 8:55 pm
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Nappy is telling us that when we are in the Walmart we should look around for suspicious activity and report it to the authorities.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Wed 08 Dec , 2010 10:16 pm
You are hearing me talk
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I see someone making their employees work when they're injured!


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Holbytla
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Thu 09 Dec , 2010 11:21 pm
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I see people trying to organize a union for fair wages.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 10 Dec , 2010 1:50 am
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Define suspicious.

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